| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
More than 16 years have passed since the government and the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah faction, or NSCN(IM))1 initiated peace talks that have come to be known as the Indo-Naga peace process.2 More than 70 rounds of talks were said to have been held during the period 1997-2012. If the Naga insurgency dating from 1954 is the longest-lived insurgency in the world today,3 the 16-year-long peace process is also equally unprecedented. The talks were based on three procedural principles: that they be conducted without pre-conditions; that they be conducted at the highest, prime ministerial level; and that they be held outside India. These 'rites of negotiation' carry more than symbolic value. As Samir Kumar Das observed, 'It is perhaps the first time in history when the Constitution as an original document was no longer considered the beginning with a view to make a new beginning'.4
Despite the lofty rhetoric, the talks soon unravelled. By and large, the core agenda evolved from the original Naga demand of sovereign statehood to integration of Naga-dominated areas in India, and now to some form of non-territorial integration model. Despite these compromises and climb-downs on the part of the Nagas, and despite a broad political consensus in India in favour of a negotiated solution, resolution of the Naga problem seems as remote now as it was in 1997, when the present peace process started.
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