Niketu Iralu: From the Naga hills to the world's conflict zones.
There is strong evidence that Niketu Iralu’s international peace work was extensive, but I would make one important distinction: the available sources do not establish that he served as a principal negotiator or formal mediator in the Sarajevo or Israeli-Palestinian peace processes. Rather, his contribution was part of the wider tradition of trust-building, reconciliation, moral dialogue, and conflict transformation through Moral Re-Armament (MRA), later Initiatives of Change (IofC). He worked on every continent and in countries including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and others.
Niketu Iralu: From the Naga hills to the world's conflict zones
Niketu Iralu's international journey began remarkably early. After encountering Moral Re-Armament while studying at Madras Christian College, he joined the movement in 1957 and spent decades working internationally. His account describes this as a journey across five continents and many countries, during which he learned to practice reconciliation across political, ethnic, religious, and ideological divides.
His international assignments included Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America. He later served as Director of Asia Plateau, Trustee of Friends of Moral Re-Armament India, and member of the International Council of Initiatives of Change.
This international experience was crucial because he did not simply import a foreign peace model into Nagaland. Instead, he learned from the world's conflicts and brought those lessons home.
1. Sarajevo and Bosnia-Herzegovina: Reconciliation after communal catastrophe
The conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina was among the most terrible European conflicts of the late twentieth century. The breakup of Yugoslavia produced deep divisions among Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats, and was accompanied by ethnic cleansing, displacement, and atrocities.
Niketu Iralu's documented international work included Bosnia and Herzegovina.
However, it is important not to overstate the evidence by portraying him as one of the architects of the Dayton peace negotiations. His role was of a different character: the human and relational work required for reconciliation after political violence.
That distinction actually makes his contribution more interesting. A political settlement can end a war. It cannot, by itself, make former enemies trust one another. The deeper challenge is to rebuild relationships after people have suffered, killed, and been taught to fear each other.
The IofC/MRA philosophy that guided Iralu's work emphasised this transformation: individuals examining their own prejudices, acknowledging wrongs, listening to the other side, and rebuilding trust. Iralu carried that philosophy into his later Naga work, where he confronted the same problem of internal divisions and revenge.
The lesson he brought from Bosnia
The Sarajevo experience can be understood as reinforcing one of Iralu's core convictions:
Peace is not merely an agreement among political leaders; it is a transformation of relationships among ordinary people.
That became particularly relevant when he returned to Nagaland and confronted factional killings and divisions within Naga communities.
2. The Palestinian question and the Middle East
The Middle East was another major region in the international arena where Iralu worked. His documented assignments included Lebanon and Syria, both deeply affected by the Arab-Israeli conflict and broader political tensions in the region.
Here again, caution is warranted. I have not found reliable primary evidence that Iralu personally negotiated an Israel-Palestine agreement or served as an official mediator between the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships.
His contribution should instead be understood within IofC's people-to-people and trust-building approach.
This approach raises a question that conventional diplomacy sometimes struggles to address:
Can enemies begin to improve their relationship before their governments resolve the political dispute?
That question is highly relevant to Palestine. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not only about territory, borders, sovereignty, and security. It is also about historical memory, humiliation, fear, dispossession, identity, and competing narratives of justice. A durable settlement requires political negotiation and a transformation in how the opposing communities perceive one another.
Iralu's lifelong emphasis on overcoming hatred, prejudice, and revenge aligns precisely with a deeper dimension of conflict resolution. IofC later summarised his philosophy with the striking formulation: “Change hate and you change history.”
That was not a substitute for political diplomacy. It was a necessary complement to it.
3. Lebanon and Syria: peace amid religious and political divisions
Iralu also worked in Lebanon and Syria, both societies where political conflicts have intersected with religious, sectarian, and geopolitical divisions.
His approach was particularly significant in such environments because MRA/IofC did not require people to renounce their religious or political identities before engaging in dialogue.
Instead, it tried to create a space where people could ask:
• What have we done to deepen the conflict?
• What fears are driving our community?
• What assumptions do we hold about the other?
• What can we acknowledge without surrendering our identity?
• What can we do personally to rebuild trust?
This is a different conception of peace-making than conventional diplomacy.
Diplomacy negotiates interests; reconciliation transforms relationships.
Iralu's strength lay primarily in the second sphere.
4. Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos: learning from wars of enormous human cost
His international work also extended to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, countries devastated by war and political upheaval.
The significance of this experience for Iralu is considerable. The wars of Indochina demonstrated the limits of military victory as a solution to political problems. Even after armies withdraw and governments change, societies may carry trauma and hatred for generations.
Iralu's MRA work during the Cold War focused precisely on the moral dimension of international conflict. An archival account from 1975 records his participation in discussions about the Vietnam crisis and his argument that political reconstruction could not succeed without addressing human nature — fear, ambition, selfishness, and resentment.
This idea became a cornerstone of his philosophy: You cannot build a peaceful society solely through external institutions if the individuals who operate them remain prisoners of hatred and fear.
5. Sri Lanka and other Asian conflicts
Iralu's international work also took him to Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Thailand, and Malaysia, among other countries.
These experiences exposed him to a range of ethnic conflicts, colonial legacies, political instability, religious divisions, and struggles for identity.
This broad exposure was important to his later understanding of the Northeast.
He came to see that the Naga situation was neither isolated nor unique. Around the world, communities were asking similar questions.
Who are we?
Who has the right to govern us?
How much autonomy do we need?
How do we protect our identity?
How do we coexist with our neighbors?
How do we prevent legitimate grievances from turning into lasting hatred?
That international comparative perspective strengthened his capacity to examine the Naga conflict without reducing it to a simple confrontation between the Nagas and the Indian state.
6. The extraordinary connection: Bringing international experience home to Nagaland
Perhaps the most important point is that Niketu Iralu eventually became an international peace worker who applied his accumulated experience to his people's conflict.
This is where his international and Naga lives came together.
After returning to Nagaland, he became involved in reconciliation efforts among Naga factions and communities. He worked with the Naga Hoho to establish communication channels with political groups.
In Khonoma, his own village — historically associated with Naga resistance and with his uncle A. Z. Phizo — he confronted divisions within his community and began reconciliation efforts.
This was perhaps his greatest test. It is relatively easy to preach reconciliation in another country. It is much harder to ask one's own people to forgive one another. Iralu chose the harder path.
7. From Sarajevo to Khonoma: The ‘House of Listening’
One of the most beautiful symbols of Iralu's philosophy was his home, “Kerünyü Ki,” meaning “the Listening House.”
IofC described it as a place where people from different backgrounds came to reflect, seek advice, find encouragement, and, above all, be heard.
The symbolism is powerful. In conventional politics, power belongs to those who can speak loudly. In conflict resolution, power sometimes begins with the ability to listen quietly. Iralu understood that people who have suffered often need recognition before they are ready to compromise. Listening does not mean agreeing with someone. It means acknowledging that the other person's pain, fear, and dignity are real. That principle connects his international experience with his Naga work.
8. What makes Iralu's international contribution distinctive?
His international contribution should therefore not be measured by the number of peace agreements he signed.
His contribution was more subtle.
He was a bridge-builder rather than a power-broker.
He did not possess armies, governments, or diplomatic mandates. His currency was trust.
He was a moral mediator rather than a conventional negotiator.
His starting point was the transformation of human attitudes.
He carried local experience into global conversations.
The Naga experience gave him a profound understanding of what identity, historical memory, and political dignity mean to a small people.
He brought global lessons back to a local conflict.
His years abroad taught him that hatred, fear, and revenge are not unique to the Naga but universal human problems.
This reciprocal movement — Naga to the world, the world to Naga — is what makes his life so remarkable.
Comment: A Naga peace-builder with a global horizon
After the death of a respected figure, there is a temptation to exaggerate his achievements beyond what the historical evidence supports. In Niketu Iralu's case, that temptation should be avoided.
We should not claim that he personally resolved conflicts in Sarajevo, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, or elsewhere. He did not resolve any of them.
But neither should we underestimate what he did. He participated in an international peace movement for decades, working across continents and in conflict-affected societies. His international experience spanned Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
More importantly, he integrated those experiences into a coherent philosophy of peace and then applied that philosophy to the extraordinarily difficult Naga situation.
His message was essentially this:
If we want to change history, we must first change ourselves.
If we want peace with others, we must confront hatred within ourselves.
If we want reconciliation among communities, we must learn to listen.
And if we love our own people, we must also preserve the humanity of those we disagree with.
That philosophy explains why, in 2025, IofC honoured him with its Lifetime Achiever Award, recognizing him as a moral and spiritual authority trusted across boundaries in a conflict-affected region.
In the final analysis, Niketu Iralu's international significance was not that he was a renowned diplomat who negotiated grand treaties. Rather, his significance lay in showing how a person rooted in a small, conflict-ridden society could become a citizen of the world without losing his identity.
He carried the wounds of Nagaland into the world, learned from the wounds of other peoples, and returned with a conviction that became the essence of his life's work.
Peace begins where the willingness to listen begins. And perhaps that is why his life can be remembered in one sentence: Niketu Iralu was a Naga nationalist who, through the world's conflicts, came to believe that the deepest form of nationalism is not the defeat of others but the preservation of one's own people's dignity and the ability to live in peace with all humanity.
Besesayo Kezo,
IPS Retd DGP.