The Naga issue is not a private matter. It is not the property of any one organization, any one leader, or any one faction. The Naga issue is the inheritance of an entire people — 89+ tribes, dialects, and regions bound by blood, history, faith, and a shared cry for dignity. To claim it exclusively is to steal what belongs to all. To negotiate it in secrecy is to betray those whose lives hang upon it.
Therefore we must speak with clarity, with moral courage, and with the weight of history upon us: The Naga issue is a Collective Naga Issue. And a collective issue demands a collective process, a collective voice, and a collective solution.
Retrospectively: The Sacrifice of a People, Not of a Group
For decades our fathers and mothers have paid the price. Villages burned. Lands militarized. Families broken. Men tortured and murdered. Women raped. Youth imprisoned. Blood spilled on hills and in homes.
That sacrifice was not made in the name of a single group. It was made in the name of Naga peoplehood. When a mother in the hills weeps, she does not weep for a faction. When a father buries his son, he does not ask which organization he belonged to.
Retrospectively, we see the truth: The struggle was carried on the backs of the common Naga. The teachers, farmers, church leaders, students, and village elders. To now treat the outcome as the exclusive domain of any one entity is both a political error and a spiritual injustice.
Politically and Democratically: No Solution Without the People
The Framework Agreement was signed “based on defined competencies.” Competencies are not mystical words locked in a vault. In a democracy, in a covenanted people, competencies are the very terms by which a nation will live or die. Land, identity, governance, history, laws, and future — these are not technicalities. These are the soul of a people.
Therefore the solution cannot be hidden from the people.
What is to be hidden when the cost has been borne in public?
What is to be concealed when the wounds are carried by every Naga home?
Politically, legitimacy comes only from consent. Democratically, authority comes only from participation. No agreement negotiated in the name of the Nagas can be honorable if the Nagas themselves are kept in the dark.
Biblically and Morally: A Body with Many Parts
Scripture teaches us: “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ” – 1 Corinthians 12:12. The head cannot decide for the body without the body. The hand cannot be cut off and told to be silent.
Morally, leadership is stewardship, not ownership. Biblically, leadership is servanthood, not secrecy. “Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain”- Psalm 127:1. And God builds through truth, not through shadows.
To hide the competencies is to deny the people the right to discern, to pray, to weigh, and to stand together. That is not leadership. That is control.
Socially and Nationally: Unity Demands Transparency
Socially, trust is the only glue that holds 89+ voices together. When trust breaks, we fracture. When information is withheld, suspicion grows. When suspicion grows, we turn on each other — and that is exactly what our enemies want.
Nationalistically, a nation is built on shared knowledge and shared destiny. Patriotism without prudence becomes fanaticism. Zeal without knowledge becomes destruction – Proverbs 19:2.
We are not asking for chaos. We are demanding wisdom. We are not asking to derail. We are asking to be included. Because only when the people know, can the people own. And only when the people own, can the solution be permanent.
The Path Forward: A Vehement, Prayerful, and Virtuous Demand
Therefore, to the Collective Leadership and to the NSCN, and to all who speak in the name of the Nagas, we appeal — not as subjects, but as stakeholders, as owners, as the very reason the struggle exists:
Take the people into confidence.
Place the defined competencies before the Naga public.
Let the churches study them. Let the tribes debate them. Let the youth question them. Let the elders pray over them.
Let there be:
1. Insightful Analysis: Not slogans, but substance. Not assumptions, but the actual terms.
2. Democratic Engagement: Town halls, consultations, and regional sittings across all Naga areas.
3. Virtuous Conduct: Reject secrecy. Reject arrogance. Reject the politics of fear. Choose the politics of truth.
4. Prayerful Wisdom: Seek God together, for this is not merely political. This is providential.
Conclusion: Beautifully United, Awesomely Accountable
A piece-meal solution will only give us piece-meal peace. A secret solution will only give us secret wounds that will bleed later.
Permanent peace, an honorable solution, and an acceptable future can only come through one door: The Unity of the Nagas, built on Truth and Transparency.
To the Naga public: This is your issue. Your land. Your children. Your future. You must demand it. You must protect it. You must shape it.
Let this generation be remembered not for the agreements we signed in closed rooms, but for the day we chose to stand together in the open — with courage, with clarity, and with God.
The Naga issue belongs to the Nagas.
And the Nagas deserve to know.
That is how a people survive. That is how a people thrive. That is how the Naga nation will rise — collectively, magnificently, and virtuously.
Michael Meiphami Shaiza is Co-incharge of BJP Manipur State Political Programmes and Meetings and 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)