The Accord for an Accord

Thepfulhouvi Solo The greatest achievement of Mr. Thuingaleng Muivah is the clinching of Official Meeting with the Government of India for the settlement of the Indo-Naga Political Case resulting in an official Agreement to Agree on a Solution to the Naga Political Case. Naga Leaders met Mahatma Gandhi in 1946 at Delhi and Gandhi was quite accommodative, understanding, reasonable and democratic but it was all on a personal non-official, non-Government level and whatever Gandhi had said does not officially bind the Government of India. Gandhi appreciated the feelings of the Naga political Case and had the Mahatma been alive longer, the Indo-Naga political Tango would not have taken such a difficult Course. The Mahatma’s premature death is a great loss to the Naga.After Gandhi, the Authorities in India relied more on the Security Forces for the solution of the Naga Problem than in Civilian Solution and in spite of the effort by the Nagaland Peace Council and others, Phizo never got the opportunity to discus the Naga Political Issue with India. After Mohondas Gandhi, India had no Idea or Innovation for the solution of the Naga Problem other than thumping the Table and shouting: “Whether heavens fall or India goes into pieces, blood runs red in the country; whether I am here or anybody comes in, Nagas will never get Independence”, (verbatim recording by Imnaonen of what Nehru said in a Brahmaputra FERRY they met at Silghat near Tezpur in the Winter of 1949 at about 9-10 AM) to Phizo, Tolhupu, Etsürhomo and Imnaonen as personally narrated to this Writer) Or legislating: ‘’Armed Forces Special Powers Act and daubing the Naga Movement as INSURGENCY or REBELLION”. Nothing could be wrong more than this. The Naga Case is a Movement for the Political Rights from the time of the Colonial Government under the British Crown long before India got its Independence, and is neither Insurgency nor Rebellion. India has answers for Muivah’s –’Political Power comes from the Barrel of the Gun’-. India knows: ‘my father’s Gun is bigger than your father’s Gun’. Muivah too is aware of it; he is not a fool. Muivah knows: Prabhakaran, the world’s first greatest National Terrorist was extinguished in the Jafna Peninsula and Muivah now says he accepts “India has its difficulties also”. I have not seen more camaraderie between two ancient antagonists! If the present INDO-MUIVAH TALK fails, it will take another one century for India and the Naga to come together again to a Negotiating Table. By then India would be in a more odd position morally before the World and the Naga would then be imbibed with the Spirit of the Mahatma Gandhi and of Nelson Mandela to speak to India in the words what Mahatma has told the Colonial British and in the words of Mandela to the Dutch Apartheid Boss in South Africa. The August 3 Accord must be taken advantage of, whether it succeeds or fails; India would not talk to the Naga for the settlement of the Sovereignty question a second time soon, perhaps for the next 100 years though the agreementit is only AN ACCORD FOR AN ACCORD as of today. It is good it is not final, it cannot be final. No Naga need worry, the Accord is neither the Alpha nor the Omega of Naga Political history. The Accord is only a Step in the Naga’s long journey in their political history. The Chinese has a saying: ‘The Journey of a thousand Li (Miles!) start with a single Step’. One thing is crystal clear in the Accord: A. The Sovereignty question is out, B. The Integration question is out, C. It is Within Indian Constitution. A. The Article 371A gives almost sovereign freedom to the Naga of Nagaland in terms of Economic Natural Resources of the Land. Nagaland State has passed a Law to that effect in spite of vehement protest from the Union Government at Delhi. Yet Nagaland is not Sovereign the State. The Kurds are a Nation, they are in Turkey, Syria and Iraq, they control the tremendous Oil and Gas resources of their lands, yet they are still not a Sovereign State. The Samis are a Nation; they are in Finland, Sweden and Norway but they do not have the power that the Naga in Nagaland has for the operation of the enormous resources under their land. Sovereignty implies Absolute Power and Absolute Power is INDIVISIBLE. Sovereignty of a Nation is Indivisible. B. If the Naga Area of the States of Arunachal, Assam and Manipur were to be integrated to Nagaland, that would call for States Re-Organization Committee and the sanction of the Parliament, a thing Indian Parliament cannot be supposed to accept. The Naga has only 1 MP in the Lok Sabha and India has some 522? C. India cannot make an Agreement outside of Its Constitution. The Black Americans took 300 years to reach the present position: -100 years in Slavery, 100 years in Freedom from Slavery, another 100 years to produce a Black American President- it will take another 100 years for the Blacks to be Treated as Equals in the USA! For the Naga, it may take years to make the political Rights known to the Majority in India, but it is unimaginable for the Naga to be ever accepted as equal in India. The Indian Society is a stratified one and the Dalits have remained as they were five thousands ago. There is no possibility ever for the Dalits to gain Equality with the Brahmins in the Hindu Scheme of life. The only way the Dalits can gain equality is to come outside of the circle of the Hindu Caste System. There is no other way of Salvation for them. Dr. Ambedkar, the Author of the Indian Constitution, a Britain educated Lawyer, Minister in the British India Government: his Office Peon would not touch him because Ambedkar was a Dalit Untouchable. Nobody would clean the Cup from which he took Coffee and so Dr. Ambedkar smashed it on the floor! An Untouchable’s only way to Equality is to come outside the Hindu Fold. Ambedkar took 4 lakhs Dalits and symbolically, in one single Mass Meeting adopted Buddhism to escape discrimination. The Government of India has put the Naga Tribe in the Class of Dalits but the Naga is never a Dalit. The Naga is not Indian Dalit, the Naga is not Indian, he/she is different than Indian. A Certain unlettered Medium, a pseudo witch ‘Naga Rani’, has naively and foolishly made her follower is called Haraka and Haraka is made Indian Dalit -Untouchables. They are not Animals but they are treated even lower than Animals; the Cow, the Elephant, the Rat, the Cobra and the Monkey have higher status in the Hindu Society than Dalits or Untouchables. The pseudo Naga Rani is sealing the fate of her Haraka people in the Sheol of the Untouchables in the Hindu Scheme of life. The Naga has never been in the Hindu Fold, he has never been in the fringe of the Hindu Circle like the Untouchables. The Naga has made this position amply clear in their Memorandum in 1929 to the Colonial Government in India before India was Independent. The Naga is not Indian. The British Parliament, in December 1946 resolved it would grant Dominion Status to India Union and the Parliament Resolution made it clear ‘it does not contemplate forcing those not willing to join the Union’. This enabled Pakistan to be born. The NNC did not join the Indian Constituent Assembly on behalf of the Naga. The Indian Mistake in the present Concord with Muivah is that India has signed the Accord without prior getting Renunciation of Violence. In the whole of the North East, Muivah is the Role Model for many violent political Movements; and for India to decide an Accord with the Mother of Violent Force without a condition of laying down Arm, is the height of unimaginable naivety for a Nation like India. It is not a good Example or Incentive nor Innovation or harbinger of Political Calm, in the Region. The Accord may give a cue to the many violent INSURGENT Groups in the Region that, after all, at the end of the day, India listens only when Force is involved! This is a bad incentive and bad for India. The August 3 Accord in whatever form it finally comes out, is just a step in the Naga’s long political Journey. The Accord cannot be a Final Solution to the Indo-Naga Political History because it originated from the ground-work of Violence. The Naga and India must meet from the ground-work of Peace, not from the ground-work of the barrel of the Gun.