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12/21/2010: "UNC explains 'alternative arrangements' Source: The Sangai Express"

UNC explains 'alternative arrangements' Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, December 12 2010: Explaining its stand and what it meant by "alternative administrative arrangement of the Nagas", the United Naga Council today has asserted that their is nothing anti-State or anti-Nation in their demand.

Stating that this is their core demand and as such was put forward during the first tripartite meeting held at Senapati on December 3, UNC said that this issue figured in the talk.

However the State Government had refuted the report that the alternative arrangement which the UNC was talking about did not figure on the agenda of the meeting.

In a statement issued today evening, the publicity wing of the UNC said that it is known to all that the Nagas had decided to sever all ties with the Government of Manipur on July 1 .

The decision was taken by the highest decision making body, the Naga People's Convention.

Despite this fact, 'However to dilute the Naga movement and the term alternative arrangement, many are deliberately distorting its political face by terming it as sovereignty to greater Nagalim to State and Union Territory and so on for reasons best known to them,' the UNC said.

Nevertheless the term 'alternative arrangement' is political in nature and it requires the Centre to see it as a political issue after consulting the aggrieved parties.

On the December 3 tripartite talk, the UNC said that it was necessitated by a memorandum submitted by it to the Centre on September 14 this year.

Sharing its thought, the UNC said that it would be improper for political parties, civil society organisations or individuals to presume things before the Centre says anything as it could sabotage the rightful demand of the marginalised hill people in Manipur.

UNC said that instead of taking a confrontationist stand over the issue, it would be best for all communities to bring their issues to the table of the authority concerned.
Northeast Echoes PATRICIA MUKHIM The telegraph


Arabinda Rajkhowa: Prospective politician?
Talks recipe for militants
The Tarun Gogoi government has decided to facilitate a seamless transition for Arabinda Rajkhowa, the erstwhile militant leader and chairman of Ulfa, into Arabinda Rajkhowa, a prospective politician.
With Assembly elections round the corner, it makes sense for the Congress in Assam to adopt a posture of openness to peace talks with the otherwise belligerent Ulfa and for a role reversal for its top leadership.
This will not be the first time that militant leaders have jumped onto the political bandwagon. Former Mizoram chief minister Laldenga was an insurgent leader of the Mizo National Front (MNF). He came overground in 1986, gave up arms and signed a peace accord with Rajiv Gandhi. The then Congress chief minister, Lalthanhawla, had to vacate his seat to accommodate Laldenga. Zoramthanga, who was the chief minister of Mizoram from 1998 to 2008, was also an MNF insurgent.
In Tripura, Bijoy Hrangkhawl, the leader of the militant Tripura National Volunteers (TNV), who shared jungle space with Laldenga and Zoramthanga in Bangladesh, also transitioned into a politician. He represents Kulai constituency as a legislator of the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT).
These insurgent leaders did not come over ground for nothing. They were sensible enough to realise that life in the jungles had a limited appeal and depended a lot on resources which would ultimately have to come from taxing their own people and for which they would face the public wrath. Mizoram and Tripura did not have the kind of industries and businesses that Assam has. Ulfa survived by extorting the well-endowed tea garden owners and industrialists.
In Nagaland, the only reason why people continue to pay money to the NSCN is because they consider the movement a “national” one and the workers in it as national volunteers who need to be supported as they are in pursuit of a shared destiny. But the big business honchos in Nagaland are complaining because they see that need has transcended into greed.
Coming to Manipur, people cringe each time they get an extortion note. Many complain that it has become a burden to pay so many insurgent outfits. Things get worse when percentages have to be carved out of development funds and road-building projects and the heads of particular departments are expected to hand over the funds to a designated collector. In every other institution, percentages to be paid to militants are deducted at source. How this whole collection system has been institutionalised and the money is deducted at source by someone within the organisation and handed over to someone in the militant outfit is something no one wants to talk about for it could mean a bullet through the head or the heart. Not even the dreaded police chief of Manipur, Joykumar Singh, has been able to control extortion in the state. His entire fraternity is paying a percentage to sundry outfits.
Unwilling base
People need a little window to resist extortion. That window unfortunately has not been provided by those who are entrusted with securing peoples’ lives. Militants also scrupulously guard their space and would demolish that window of opportunity the moment it threatens to open up. Without the ability to extort, militants will die of asphyxiation. It is a simple law of supply and demand of a different kind.
Prof. Gulshan Sachdeva, an economist from Jawaharlal Nehru University who has studied the underground economy, said in 2002-03, the amount was a staggering Rs 3,500 crore. But Sachdeva admits that the figure is on the conservative side. The underground economy could be much bigger. According to the Planning Commission, about Rs 80,000 crore is poured into the region annually through various central schemes and principally for power sector investments, and if a good percentage of that money is siphoned off to militants, then we can well imagine the amount that goes to their kitty.
It is, therefore, of no foreseeable advantage for society to continue to nurture their ethnic militant groups which have now morphed into leeches, sucking the blood of those who feed them. Our need to counter the Indian state and its regressive policies and our angst to protest undesirable policy approaches must transform into a more cogent action plan. Guns and bombs have been around for decades but we have not seen any perceptible change in the attitude of the Centre. On the contrary, there is a huge build-up of security forces and security-related paraphernalia in Manipur, Assam and Nagaland. The country is investing heavily in containing militancy. Spending on security is always bad economics since the very forces who are brought to secure our lives develop a vested interest in keeping alive the phobia of insecurity. What have we achieved in the last three decades with this huge gun-wielding manpower? Look at Manipur. Militant outfits are proliferating instead of decreasing. Manipur is in a perpetual state of emergency and this benefits the security forces as more funds are invested for their upkeep.
Ballot for bullet
After these three very violent decades, it is time for the region to take stock of the current situation. The more potent outfits are in ceasefire and in talking terms with the Centre through various interlocutors. The Ulfa chairman will soon be out on bail and his deputies may follow suit. They need an honourable exit, which the state is willing to provide. Now we hear talk of Ulfa bigwigs joining politics, which is perhaps the most sensible thing to do. After all, they have realised that the gun pays limited dividends and that they cannot direct the course of history with a remote control. They have to be part of that history and push through their popular agenda through the ballot box. People, too, will be more open to supporting these folk heroes if they shun the path of violence.
Union home minister P. Chidambaram has predicted that in 10 years peace will return to the Northeast.
One is unsure as to how he has arrived at this remarkable conclusion or whether he has read some counter-insurgency literature which theorises that militancy has a saturation point after all, which is what this writer had argued in one of several articles on the topic.
In this region, we are blighted by the fact that while social scientists have only analysed the problem ad nauseum, they have failed to come up with any kind of futuristic prediction about which trajectory insurgency is likely to take in the coming decade.
Perhaps the problem also is that scholars have not been able to sufficiently distance themselves from the situation.
In fact, some even concur with the ideology of insurgent outfits in their respective states. This makes them subjective participants instead of detached observers.
Missing link
I am reminded of Harry Eckstein’s observations in Internal War. He says, “When today’s social science has become intellectual history one question will certainly be asked about it (internal war): why did social science which has produced so many studies of so many subjects produce so few on violent political disorder — internal war? By any common sense reckoning the contemporary literature should be brimming over with such studies.”
Indeed we ask why? This is the tragedy of our times that historians will record the past and social scientists refuse to calculate the future of human behaviour based upon a sound analysis of the present.
Notwithstanding this predicament, we hope that PC’s predictions will turn out right and we can move forward on a new path of peace. Hope, after all, springs eternal in the human breast. (The writer can be contacted at patricia17@rediffmail.com)
Eastern Nagas call for ‘Cultural Awakening’ morungexpress
ENSF 4th Cultural festival celebrated at Mon
Dimapur, December 20 (MExN): In line with the theme “Cultural Awakening,” the Eastern Naga Students’ Federation (ENSF) celebrated its 4th Cultural Festival at Mon town from December 7 to 9, 2010. In this carnival of the East, the six federating units of ENSF comprising of Konyak, Chang, Sangtam, Khiamniungan, Phom, and Yimchumger tribes, showcased the spectacular cultural endowment of the region through the folk songs, dances, fashion and music, blending with the rhythmic beat of the Log Drums. A press note issued by C. N. Moe Konyak, Joint Secretary ENSF informed that the 4th cultural Festival included the Cultural session, featuring cultural Display by Phom Laivangh Pangthai, Khiumniungan and Konyak Students Union; modern folk tune by the Confederation by Chang Students’ Union, and Violila enchanted the crowd with her beautiful voice.
The second evening featured various bands from six tribes, where the winners of the beat Contest were Evolution band From Kiphire, Myriad band from Kiphire and Inyushong band From Longleng, respectively. One of the highlights of the programme was ‘Miss Eastern Nagaland’ beauty pageant, in which fifteen beautiful damsels vied for the prestigious title. Considering the personality, poise, beauty and intellect, Pheangna Konyak was crowned ‘Miss Eastern Nagaland’ as well as ‘Miss. Congeniality’ while Lirichumla Sangtam was adjudged 1st runners up and ‘Miss Beautiful Skin’ and Asenla Chang was crowned 2nd runners up and ‘Miss Beautiful Hair’. In addition to the above, Shongmao Khiumniungan won the sub-title ‘Miss. Perfect 10’, and Auchingsonla Chang was awarded the title ‘Miss. Photogenic’. The Miss Eastern Nagaland beauty pageant was organised by Eastern Nagaland Women Organisation.
Another important aspect of the Cultural Festival, the note stated was the Exhibition –cum- Sales displayed by various Self Help Groups and organisations for two days in order to encourage agricultural products and craftsmanship among the people. The valedictory session was further refined by the solidarity message by the Ao Kaketsir Mongdang (AKM) president, Bendang Aier. The ENSF also conveys to all, “A very Merry Christmas and a promising New Year.”
Finding Nagaland: India's final frontier The Guardian
In the north-east of India is a remote state, largely unknown even to Indians. Almost cut off from the world, Nagaland's rich culture thrives in landscapes of startling natural beauty
Naga tribesmen in traditional dress. Photograph: Str/EPA
Remote and largely inaccessible to foreigners, the Indian state of Nagaland is tucked into the far north-eastern corner of the country. It borders the states of Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, as well as Burma. Created in 1963, the state is home to some 16 Tibeto-Burmese tribes, or nearly 2 million people, many of whom, cut off from the rest of the world, have been fighting a remote and rarely reported war for independence from India, on and off, since the early 1950s.
Naga independence movements and guerilla armies, split today into warring factions, have been fighting for both freedom and a greater Nagaland that would unite all the Naga tribes – 4 million people – living across these eastern borders in a land of their own. To date, more than 200,000 Nagas have been killed, along with many Indian soldiers.
India, though, is unlikely to let Nagaland go, much less to encourage the creation of Nagalim, or Greater Nagaland. For, unexpectedly, this far off corner of the world has been a pinch point of grand political ambitions. In the 1940s, the Japanese came this way hoping to seize India; in the 1960s, the Chinese considered attacking India the same way. Nagaland and the Naga tribes remain pawns on a global chessboard. And there is oil here, the worldwide enemy of independence and peace.
For all the cordite and crackle of guns over the decades, though, it is a compelling place – Shangri-la seen through a glass darkly – largely unknown even within India. My family has generations of strong military ties to India, and I had wanted to visit this high and haunting land since I was a child. For many years, though, Nagaland – surrounded by red tape and the guns of the Assam Rifles – remained a dream destination, much as Kafiristan had been for Brothers Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan, freemasons and soldiers of fortune, in Kipling's The Man Who Would Be King, a short story that I had read over and again as a boy.
The Naga Hills at dusk. Photograph: Alamy
Eventually, I got to Nagaland, and have returned several times over the past 25 years. I have trekked its flower-bedecked hills and precipitous ravines. I have crossed the high and slippery mountain border into Burma, where the eastern Nagas live in a hidden world of animism: head-hunting, feathered, beaded, horned; wearing sea-shelled costumes and living in magnificent hilltop villages that have barely changed since my imperial grandfather's day or for many hundreds of years.
It was so very hard to get here and yet I was bemused to learn that Gordon Ramsay has been here for a food programme. Hunting deer, I think, rather than heads. In the past, Nagas were known, if at all, as the world's most enthusiastic head-hunters. Though officially banned decades ago, few doubt that the practice continues in remote and warring areas.
When I began to write my book on Nagaland, I went to see Michael Palin, who had been there to film part of his television series on the Himalayas.
"I had made a comedy series years before called Ripping Yarns, with Terry Jones," Palin told me. "These were send-ups of Boy's Own-style tales of Victorian derring-do during the days of the British Empire, with one silly chump battling up the Andes with a party of frogs, and another being struck down by some ancient curse made by the god of the tribesmen in the Naga Hills. We knew nothing really about the Naga Hills, but the name sounded wonderful, full of the mysteries of the colonial East. When I finally got there, I was quite aware that we were only being tolerated by the authorities and that the true Nagaland lay somewhere up muddy tracks in those misty hills. Even the mighty BBC couldn't take us to where very few Indians have ever stepped foot."
Angami tribal dancers. Photograph: Jim Zuckerman/Corbis
My first visit in the 1980s involved an arduous walk through Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh, and across the north-eastern border. That walk was an adventure made for its own sake through magnificent wild landscapes. It was a very inefficient means of getting to the Naga Hills. If only the Indian government had been able to tell the difference between those intent on innocent travel and those bent on trade, trafficking and trouble, and had issued visas to bona fide visitors. It didn't, so you had to find your own way in.
Fresh from visiting the brand new and thrilling tiger reserve at Namdapha, I walked down to the Brahmaputra. Ferried by fishermen across the demanding river in one of its gentler moods, I was dropped off, now in Assam, at Dikhomukh. Here, innumerable tributaries flow into the Brahmaputra. One of these is the River Dikho, and while I was climbing up its banks I was approached by a slight, wiry and long-haired young man, my own age I guessed, dressed in sawn-off jeans, his bare chest and shoulders draped in necklaces made of beads, animal teeth, tiny fur-lined paws, small gold and silver coins and, intriguingly, a second world war Burma Star. This was Ngangshi – a nickname taken from the fine cloths his family wove – the first Naga I had met in his own country.
Ngangshi led me to a faded blue putt-putt boat tied to a tree and, with my bag and his knapsack on board, we set off into the shadowy riverine landscape. So low were we that it was only the following morning that, having scrambled up a steep bank, I caught sight of the Naga Hills for the first time. How they glistened. The pastures and paddies leading up to them were dressed and adorned in what appeared to be alpine flowers. How the birds sang, while monkeys looned and jeered. Up in that beckoning green citadel was a part of my own history – of colonial officers, soldiers and anthropologists – as well as that of people who had, to date, barely written theirs.
In the morning, we walked up by an old railway track to the rickety wooden settlement of Naginimara. And from here, with new friends and by paths that might defeat a less than able goat, I got about the country. And met its people, and, slowly, wrote their story, of which this article is a fragment.
An Angami house in Kohima. Photograph: Nazima Kowall/Corbis
It's still hard to get a visa to travel freely here. The present situation is that foreign and Indian tourists can apply to visit "Protected Areas" within officially defined "tour circuits" with "definite entry and exit permits". The Government of Nagaland promises to "monitor the movement of foreign tourists". So you can visit specific places – many very beautiful, including nature reserves and villages abounding in colourful festivals – but you won't be able to continue up into the heights and depths of the Naga Hills where the borders disperse, often without barriers – but with fearful insects and other creeping, biting things – into surrounding states and countries, where you will encounter traditional village ways of life as well as Naga warriors dressed in battle fatigues and armed with mobile phones, Chinese guns and American bibles.
Missionaries, many from the United States, have been hugely successful in turning Nagas into Baptists; the biggest buildings in the ramshackle towns are their churches. The most ardent freedom fighters, even when committed Maoists, are often devout Christians.
It is notoriously hard to get above the hail-filled clouds that wreath the Naga Hills in the long months of the monsoon, but when the clouds lift, views from these slippery crests, peaks and ridges, whether at 2,000 or 12,000ft, are utterly sublime. For mile after mile, a densely green landscape rises from leech-infested, mosquito-haunted tropical jungle before plunging down the next ravine to deeply shadowed rivers – icy in winter – snaking through hill after hill. Ravines follow one another in what appears to be an ever-closer succession until the greenery blurs hypnotically under peerless blue skies.
Zoologists and botanists describe Nagaland as a "biodiversity hotspot". Good enough reason to go. The wealth of plants, flowers, birds and animals here is stunning. Pangolins, porcupines, barking deer, buffalo and elephants share forests, clearings and riverbeds with monkeys, wild dogs, at least 40 different snakes, several of them poisonous. Bird life is prolific. There are bears in the higher hills, leopards and tigers, too.
A Chang woman outside her house in Nagaland. Photograph: Nazima Kowall/Corbis
All too many animals, however, end up in the pot. On my last visit to the market at Kohima, the state capital, I looked with a resigned sadness at skinned dogs, dog skins, rats and rare birds, writhing red worms and a capuchin monkey, which I hope was not the one offered to me as a pet the previous day in Kohima cemetery.
Earlier European visitors to Nagaland were equally in danger of extinction. The haunting military cemetery at Kohima records the deaths of those who fought at the Battle of Kohima in 1944, a hand-to-hand combat that saw the Japanese driven back from the borders of India.
One marker honours the uncertain remains of Private Thomas Collins, 21, from Barkingside, Essex. The fighting at Kohima was so intense that bodies were mixed into a mash of bloody tropical ooze. It seems not only sad that a life like that of Private Thomas Collins should have been blasted from him at such a tender age, but also somehow almost ineffably strange that this young lad from England's far east should have died in the Naga Hills. This was very probably his first trip abroad. One moment, his big adventure would have been to take a train up to town from Barkingside; the next moment, drilled, dressed in khaki, Lee-Enfield .303 over his shoulder, Collins was packed off to die in this improbably remote corner of the British Empire.
A second world war cemetery in Kohima, Nagaland. Photograph: Alamy
Would I recommend going to Nagaland knowing the restrictions imposed on visitors? I think so. It has taken me years to get to know this forgotten frontier, its peoples, history, wars, culture, myths and hopes. If you long to find an exotic "Switzerland of the East", here it is, although don't expect gleaming hotels, rosti and reliable transport; more importantly, you may just get to know a forgotten people who will make you see Britain, India and global ambitions through very different eyes, while the landscape, as so many who have come this way know to their cost, is truly to die for.
Head for the hills Nagaland's must sees
The best way of seeing Nagaland is on foot, between November and May. This is trekking country, although you will be stopped soon enough if you go beyond official boundaries. The glories of these hills are the landscapes, people, flora and fauna.

Hornbill Festival
Usually held in the first week of December in the Naga Heritage Village of Kisama, near Kohima, this is an increasingly commercialised festival yet it attracts tribes from across Nagaland. So you get to meet a wide variety of people in one place, dressed up in their astonishing and beautiful finery. Along with traditional dance, song, food, wrestling, craft and archery, there is also the Naga chilli-eating championship, Miss Nagaland contest, a rock concert and a motor rally. Times are changing here, too.

Dzukou Valley
Less than 20 miles from Kohima and flanked by the Naga Hills, this is a stunning landscape to trek through freely. In the spring, the valley is carpeted in orchids and lilies. In the winter, snow lies on the ground. This is why some visitors have called Nagaland the Switzerland of the East.

Japfu Peak
The nearest peak to Kohima and, at 10,000ft, the second highest in Nagaland. Quite hard going up through forests until you clear the tree line very high up; then you can see pretty much half of Nagaland. Mesmerising. Best months: November to March.

Food market, Dimapur
Not for those with delicate stomachs or for RSPCA members; food in all its infinite variety from worms to birds, rats and dogs. Unforgettable.
Kohima Cemetery
This is where most of those who died in the intense battle to save India from being overrun by the Japanese in 1944 are buried. Nagas fought on both sides. Here is a hauntingly beautiful spot to look over the capital city while sitting with a new generation of Naga office and shop workers who sit between the gravestones eating their lunch. JG

Jonathan Glancey is the Guardian's architecture and design correspondent. His book, Nagaland: a Journey to India's Forgotten Frontier, is due to be published by Faber in April 2011, priced at £16.99
Way to go
Getting there
Travel The Unknown's (0845 053 0352, traveltheunknown.com) Nagaland & Hornbill Festival trip runs for 13 days from 26 November 2011, from £2,095. On The Go Tours (020-7471 6413, onthegotours.com) offers a 14-day Nagaland, State of the Headhunters trip for £1,989. TransIndus (020-8566 2729, transindus.com) offers a 16-day private journey to the North East Frontier from £3,095, including game safaris in Jeeps or on elephant-back in Kaziranga national park. All trips include international flights from London, accommodation, guides, entrance fees and RAP (see below).
Further information
As well as an Indian tourist visa, visitors require a Restricted Area Permit (RAP) for Nagaland. RAPs are only issued to visitors travelling in a group of four or more, or married couples. In effect, solo travellers cannot go to Nagaland.