DIMAPUR, OCTOBER 12 (MExN): Against the backdrop of the anticipated solution to the Indo-Naga political issue, the Naga International Support Centre (NISC), a human rights organization has requested the Government of India to prove that Nagaland actually belongs to India by showing the British handover papers.
At the same time, it has also asked the United Kingdom to produce papers containing “unequivocally the handover of all Naga lands to India.”
A press communiqué received from NISC stated that a few years ago it had written letters to India and Great Britain concerning the status of the Naga peoples in India and Myanmar. The NISC claimed that it had questioned both because after research done in the British Library and elsewhere it could not find any evidence in writing that Great Britain actually handed over the lands of the Nagas to India.
It also maintained that neither the Indian nor the British government provided answers to its queries “even though both governments know very well that Great Britain only controlled administratively just 25% of the Naga lands while the remaining 75% were called un-administered areas of the free Nagas.”
It pointed out that the British came in 1832 and left in 1947. However, before, during and after their colonial conquest, Nagas were not part of India in any pragmatic sense, the NISC stated.
The NISC also expressed apprehension that the ongoing talks are culminating in a “possible wrong Accord” where Nagas would be compelled to live under the Constitution of India.
