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10/12/2004: "September 10 2003, reaction to article of the Institute of Peace & Conflict Studies"

A Naga International Support Center, Nisc,
A human rights organization

Press Release

Amsterdam, September 10 2003,

Recently, in the month of July 2003, Bibhu Prasad Routray, Research Officer at the Institute Of Conflict Management wrote the article 'Challenges to Naga Integration' in which he mentions the Naga International Support Center as the protagonist of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland. Routray did not trouble himself to properly check this statement but resorted to parroting some members of the Indian Press, who also without checking their resources conclude and relay. Although that in itself renders enough reason to doubt the credibility and stature if the said Institute, he went on and wrote: 'the Naga International Support Centre (NISC) - unveiled an idea of settling the Naga population in the neighbouring States and Myanmar together, in Nagaland'.

The Naga International Support Center, Nisc, categorically declares that
Routray's statement is false.

Nisc never wrote or implied that, to solve the long standing conflict, the Nagas of all states and Burma could be resettled in the so-called Nagaland State of India which was inaugurated in 1963. The Naga National Council, NNC, was vehemently against the formation of a puppet state. That and the fact that just an unrepresented number of Nagas dealt with India in bringing about that formation, makes the claim that Nisc could have suggested that null and void.

Anyone who desires to write about Nagaland should know one basic point and that is - all Naga areas are called Nagaland. This is not a claim; it is a fact. The term Nagalim is indigenous; it means the land of the Nagas. Lim means land. Nagas have no greater Nagaland nor do they have the smaller one. They have just the land that belongs to them. It is their land,
>nothing less, nothing more. The present, puppet, state of Nagaland is carved out by India and in the western side divides the land of the Nagas into four parts. It is just a small part of Nagaland or Nagalim. Nagas stand for their homeland; they do not stand for just a fraction. No one should create confusion about it.

Through the decades the Nagas have been standing up for the right to self-determination, the right to determine their own future, the right to be free from domination, be it British or Indian. Consequently these question arise: what is the Institute of Conflict Management through the writings of Bibhu Prasad Routray trying to do?

Is Routray, being a researcher, credibly a member of the said Institute or is the Institute itself responsible for the writings of a non researching but proclaiming researcher and thus looses its credibility?- Is the Institute of Conflict Management concerned about the Peace Process between the Government of India and the Nagas and wants to participate in it?
- Or is the Institute of Conflict Management through Mr. Routray being used as a pawn in the Indo-Naga conflict?

- Nisc would like answers to these questions from the Institute of Conflict
>Management as it now can only conclude that the Institute meddles into the
matter only to manage the conflict according to its own vision and political views.
And, doing this through spreading false and suggestive information, based on nothing more than hearsay and possibly gossip, would make the Institute look like almost criminal in nature.

See a copy of Bibhu Prasad Routray's article below

For more information please contact Nisc through: email nisc@nagalim.nl and visit our website www.nagalim.nl

Challenges to Naga Integration By Bibhu Prasad Routray
The ceasefire with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM) is poised for another extension beyond July 31, amidst lingering hopes and aspirations that the solution to the five-decade long conflict would bring in peace to the State. The involvement of the civil society in the process of peace making has remained at a significantly high level symbolizing an intense yearning for peace among the common populace. However, there are apparent signs that it is neither the voice of the common people nor that of the high-profile civil society organizations.
The recent NSCN-IM press statement expressing anguish over the inclusion of two Naga intellectuals in the Reconciliation Commission, set up under the auspices of the Naga Hoho (the apex tribal council) to strive towards greater understanding among the thirty-odd Naga tribes, created great deal of consternation among civil society organizations. However, after a brief interlude of criticisms and expressions of despair, opinions have started falling in line with that of the NSCN-IM.
The Naga struggle for a sovereign land is as much a struggle between the insurgent outfits as a conflict between different tribes under the generic expression, "the Nagas." Tribal differences continue to persist and act as bottlenecks on the way of arriving at a consensus. This reflects not only on the composition and functioning of the civil society organizations but also on the political set up in the State.
The Naga Hoho, the Church, the Naga Students' Federation (NSF) and the Naga Mothers' Association (NMA) have constantly been talking of reconciliation among the Naga tribes before a common struggle for Naga independence. Where as the tribes have been encouraged by the Hoho to give up their differences for the sake of the Naga dream, outfits like the NSCN-IM have put conditionalities on the very process of reconciliation making support mandatory to its engagement with the government of India. The fact that the achievement of the one and half year old reconciliation process has remained a minimum is a pointer at the deep schism among the tribes and the outfits. Interestingly, the so called "divide and rule" policy of the Indian government, a common excuse taken recourse to many Naga organizations, including the insurgent outfits, is certainly not a factor in aggravating the divide.
The weakness of the civil society organizations is intrinsically linked to the dramatic growth of NSCN-IM's impudence. Over dependency on the latter, primarily because of its preponderant martial capability, has made the outfit hog limelight at the cost of other groups and factions, even to the extent of sidelining such organizations politically. Thus, intermittent appeals for broad basing the negotiation process has failed to break much ice. Additionally, the Isak-Muivah faction remains completely dismissive of the standing of other outfits. The Naga National Council has been described as "a politically dead outfit" and intellectuals like Niketu Iralu and Charles Chasie criticized as persons "who persistently try to justify the traitors and collaborators in the name of unity and reconciliation." The uncontested support to the outfit has been the reason behind the undoing of the civil society in the State today.
The NSCN-IM's objection to the Reconciliation Commission's composition is as much an assertion of its perceived standing in the State today as a well-intended move to suppress voices of difference. Niketu Iralu, in some of his writings, had highlighted the concerns of the neighboring States to the Naga dream. In a recent article, he wrote, "Naga reconciliation and ability to speak with one voice will strengthen the Naga case, but it will not automatically guarantee a workable and honorable settlement to the Naga issue." Indeed, the greatest challenge to the realization of a dream of independent Nagaland would not be from the Union government, as NSCN-IM would like the common people to believe, but from states like Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, who would continue to be Nagaland's neighbor in case of an implausible realization of Nagalim. If the incidents of June 2001 in Manipur are any indication, hopes of integrating the Naga-inhabited areas under a single administrative unit is nothing short of a fantasy.A battle hardened outfit like the NSCN-IM and its dexterous leaders are expected to know this.

The writer is a Research Officer at the Institute Of Conflict Management.
The article has been published with due permission from the Institute of Peace & Conflict Studies (IPCS).You may visit IPCS's website at http://www.ipcs.org for further readings