By Michael Meiphami Shaiza
Three Decades Grounded: The Tragedy of a Stalled Negotiation
About a period of three-decade-long political negotiations has now been grounded.
For nearly thirty years, the Naga people waited with patience, with prayer, with hope, and with sacrifice. For nearly thirty years, ceasefires were observed, talks were held, frameworks were signed, and assurances were given. For nearly thirty years, mothers buried sons, villages bore the scars of conflict, and generations grew up believing that a just and honourable political settlement was near.
And now, that long journey stands grounded, stalled, and suspended — not because the Naga people abandoned their cause, but because of one continuous assertion: the demand for a separate Naga Constitution and Flag while pursuing a political settlement within the Indian Union.
This is the central contradiction that must be confronted with intellectual honesty, moral courage, and historical clarity.
The NSCN-IM has itself already denounced the idea of total separation from the Union of India. It has accepted, in principle, a settlement within the Indian Union. Yet it continues to assert separate symbols of sovereignty — a separate Constitution and a separate Flag — as non-negotiable conditions.
If the settlement is to be within the Union, then the logic of the Indian Constitution must be respected. If the settlement is to be between two separate political entities, then it cannot simultaneously be a settlement within the Union. You cannot claim to be inside and outside at the same time. This logical contradiction has grounded three decades of talks, and it is the Naga people who are paying the price for this impasse.
The Doctrine of ‘Shared Sovereignty’: A Noble Phrase Turned Into a Political Device
The phrase ‘Shared Sovereignty’ sounds elegant. It sounds wise. It sounds like a masterly compromise between two histories, two peoples, two political entities.
But what does it mean in practice?
In the Indian Parliamentary Democracy, the Constitution already provides for a profound sharing of power. The Union List, the State List, and the Concurrent List distribute legislative authority. A State has the power to make its own laws within the given space of the State List. A State has its own Assembly, its own Council of Ministers, its own budget, its own identity.
That is real, constitutional, lawful sharing of power — not theoretical, but practical, tested, and enforceable.
The tragedy is that the noble concept of Shared Sovereignty has been reduced, in practice, to a guise for actively indulging in Indian states’ electoral processes. Instead of resolving the political question between the Union of India and the Naga People, the movement has been drawn into the everyday electoral politics of Manipur and Nagaland, using a particular regional political party which is already registered under India’s Election Commission.
A national struggle has been brought down to a state election strategy. A people’s history has been reduced to a party ticket.
This is not sovereignty. This is not nationhood. This is electoral management.
The Branding of Dissent: When ‘Anti-Naga’ Becomes a Weapon
Most seriously and most painfully, while enthusiastically interfering in all Indian Electoral Processes, the NSCN-IM brands ‘anti-Naga’ on candidates who field their candidatures against the dictate of the NSCN-IM.
This is morally unacceptable. This is democratically unacceptable. This is Biblically unacceptable.
For the Scripture declares: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear” — 1 John 4:18. And again: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” — 2 Timothy 1:7.
How can a movement that claims to represent the freedom of a people use fear to silence that very people? How can a movement that claims to fight for self-determination deny self-determination to a Naga candidate who wishes to contest an election according to his own conscience?
When a Naga brother or sister is socially excommunicated for daring to contest against a dictated candidate, using the United Naga Council as its agent, it is not democracy. It is coercion. It is not liberation. It is control.
A people cannot be liberated by intimidating them. A nation cannot be built by excommunicating its own children. The right to contest, to vote, to dissent, to disagree — these are sacred rights. No organisation, no matter how historic, has the moral authority to take them away.
To brand a fellow Naga as ‘anti-Naga’ simply because he does not obey an electoral dictate is to betray the very soul of the Naga struggle. It turns a movement for dignity into a machine for obedience.
From Military Resistance to Electoral Selection: The Painful Reduction
On one hand, the Naga People’s prolonged struggle against India’s military invasion and forced occupation over Naga’s Ancestral Territory has incurred unthinkable human miseries.
Let us remember this with reverence. Let us not forget.
Villages burnt. Families displaced. Elders tortured. Youth disappeared. Women violated. Children orphaned. Churches turned into shelters. Jungles turned into hiding places. The Naga people paid a price that no political party, no leader, no negotiator can ever fully repay.
The sanctity of Naga People’s decades of Resistance against India’s Military Campaigns should never be brought down to a mere selection of favoured candidates to represent Naga People’s Political Interest in an Indian state, Manipur.
Yet this is precisely what has happened.
The NSCN-IM has now reduced the India-Naga Political Case to an Indian state issue, using a particular regional political party registered under the Election Commission of India.
This is a profound historical demotion.
Leaders of India’s Union had already acknowledged the Political Case as being between the Union of India and the Naga People. It was acknowledged as a political issue, not a law-and-order issue. It was acknowledged as a dispute between two peoples, not a dispute between a state government and a pressure group.
To bring that acknowledged, national, international, and historical case down to the level of choosing which candidate should win in a Manipur Assembly constituency is to diminish the blood, the tears, and the sacrifices of generations.
It is as if the cross of a people’s suffering is being traded for a chair in an Assembly.
Retrospective Reflection: What Have We Gained, What Have We Lost?
Retrospectively, we must ask with prudence and introspection:
After three decades, what have we gained? A ceasefire, yes. A Framework Agreement, yes. A reduction in large-scale armed confrontation, yes. These are not small achievements. They must be acknowledged with gratitude.
But what have we lost? We have lost unity. We have lost moral clarity. We have lost the fearless spirit of a people who once stood together, irrespective of tribe, village, or denomination.
Today, a Naga who disagrees is called anti-Naga. Today, a Naga who contests is excommunicated. Today, a Naga who questions is silenced. Is this the freedom for which our forefathers died?
The Bible warns us: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” — Mark 8:36.
What shall it profit the Naga people if we gain a few Assembly seats and lose our soul, our unity, our moral authority, and our historic political case?
A Call for Restoration: Return to Principle, Return to the People
Therefore, this essay makes an imploring, assertive, and powerful appeal:
- Restore the sanctity of the political case. The Naga issue is not a Manipur state election issue. It is not a Nagaland state election issue. It is a political issue between the Union of India and the Naga People. It must be treated as such, with dignity, with seriousness, and with finality.
- End electoral coercion. No Naga candidate should be branded anti-Naga for contesting an election. No Naga village should be threatened for voting according to conscience. The UNC and all civil bodies must return to being voices of the people, not instruments of any armed group or political party.
- Resolve the contradiction of Shared Sovereignty. If the settlement is within the Indian Union, let it be honourable, lawful, and clearly defined within the Constitution. If the demand for separate Flag and Constitution is to continue, let it be debated openly, honestly, and with the full consent of the Naga people — not as a slogan to prolong negotiations indefinitely.
- Honour the sacrifices. The blood of the martyrs must not be used as a currency for electoral power. Their sacrifice demands a settlement that brings genuine peace, genuine development, genuine dignity, and genuine reconciliation — not endless negotiation and endless election management.
Conclusion: The People Are Greater Than Any Organisation
The Naga people are greater than any faction. Greater than any party. Greater than any council. Greater than any agreement.
The Naga people are a people of faith, of courage, of culture, of honour. They survived decades of military campaigns because they believed in truth. They will survive this period of confusion only if they return to truth.
Let us be aggressively truthful. Let us be assertively democratic. Let us be vehemently opposed to fear. Let us be empathetically united.
Let the negotiations be completed, not endlessly prolonged. Let the people be free to choose, not forced to obey. Let the political case be resolved at the highest level, not reduced to the lowest level of state politics.
For the sanctity of our resistance, for the memory of our martyrs, for the future of our children — we must reclaim our struggle from electoral reduction and restore it to its rightful, historic, and honourable place.
The Naga people did not suffer for a ticket. They suffered for truth, for dignity, and for a just peace.
And truth, dignity, and just peace must prevail.
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Michael Meiphami Shaiza is the President of Ukhrul-based NGO Ecological Rehabilitators’ Association (ERA).
(Views expressed are writers’ own and do not, in whatsoever manner, reflect that of Ukhrul Now)
