The Modi government on 3rd August 2015 with NSCN-IM signed a Framework Agreement that marked the end of India’s oldest insurgency. There is no final settlement after 11 years. NSCN-IM, which has blamed deliberate delay and contradictory interpretations of the deal, says that the officials are citing the demand for a separate flag and constitution. If one is right, a government which proclaims peace before creating it leaves the other to pay the price.
It is being paid by Manipur. The state has been burning on the Meitei-Kuki border since May 2023 and this year a fresh Naga-Kuki-Zo border has emerged. In decades of old territorial disputes, 34 people have been killed since February, according to Human Rights Watch. Nine more were killed in three hill districts in October. Four others were killed in separate incidents four days later and protesters took bodies to the chief minister’s house.
The claims are no secret. Naga groups wish for integration of Naga areas and Kuki-Zo groups wanted to have separate administration from the same hill belt. The maps do not overlap and can only be coordinated through a political settlement. But the BJP, which has ruled in Delhi, Imphal, has thrown a year of President’s rule, a change of chief minister and one security deployment after another. Don’t call it crisis management, just call it conflict resolution.
The situation is by no means confined to Manipur. As the state government in Assam tasked with the question of identity and belonging, it has used excavators to be bulldozed over a thousand houses in Sonitpur, primarily of Bengali-origin Muslims. It is assumed throughout the region that difference is a law-and-order matter and not a political one.
Three things would make that different. First, let the contents of the Framework Agreement be made public to which Nagas, Kukis and Meiteis can see what has been promised. Second, convene discussions with all communities with overlapping land claims, not just one at a time. Third, ensure the autonomy of accountability of armed groups and security forces.
The Northeast doesn’t need any more of an announcement. It requires a government to complete what it began, and a governing party that will not make in the hill peace.
