Nagaland has no political opposition to peace. After a decade of accords, talks, and broken deadlines, the only remaining obstacle to resolving the Naga issue wears a suit and sits in New Delhi.
Oken Jeet Sandham
Let us be honest about what has happened. For more than two decades, the Government of India has engaged the Naga political issue with a mixture of genuine effort, strategic ambiguity, and a tolerance for delay that, by now, has become indistinguishable from neglect. A Framework Agreement has been signed. An Agreed Position has been reached. Talks have been formally concluded. And yet, on the ground, nothing has been resolved.
This is not a failure of the Nagas. Let that be stated clearly, because it is the central fact that every discussion of this issue tends to obscure. Nagaland’s Legislative Assembly functions today without a single opposition member — every party in the House is aligned behind the goal of a political settlement. Civil society organisations, tribal councils, and church bodies have passed resolution after resolution. The Naga people have not been silent. They have been, on the contrary, almost impossibly patient.
The question, then, is simple: if no one in Nagaland is opposing a resolution, who is? The answer, uncomfortable as it may be to state, is New Delhi.
Consider the record. When the Framework Agreement was signed with the NSCN (IM) on 3rd August 2015, the Government of India declined to make its contents public. Think for a moment about what that means. The Chief Ministers of the Northeastern states — whose people, lands, and futures were directly implicated — were not even informed that the agreement had been signed. National party leaders on the mainland were briefed. The Northeast was not. This was not an oversight. It was a choice, and it was the wrong one.
The same pattern repeated itself across the years that followed. The NSCN (K), with whom a ceasefire had been maintained since 2001, was never brought into substantive dialogue. For fourteen years, the Government of India held a ceasefire with a major Naga armed group and never once sat down to seriously discuss what that ceasefire was building toward. Predictably, the group walked away in March 2015. A window reopened briefly when civil society delegations travelled to Myanmar in early 2016 to persuade the NSCN (K) to return to the table. It might have worked. Then S.S. Khaplang died, and the window closed. That opportunity was not seized. That failure belongs to Delhi.
In 2018, the Naga civil society mounted what may have been its most extraordinary act of collective will. Under the banner of the Core Committee of Nagaland Tribal Hohos and Civil Society Organisations (CCNTHCO), eleven political parties — including the BJP — signed a Joint Declaration pledging not to file nominations for the upcoming state elections, seeking to compel the Government of India to conclude a settlement first. It was an audacious step, taken in full knowledge of its constitutional risks. And within hours, the BJP withdrew. The dam broke. Nominations were filed. The moment passed.
What makes that episode so telling is what preceded it. On 23rd January 2018, BJP National General Secretary Ram Madhav stood at a party rally in Dimapur and publicly declared that elections in Nagaland were essential for resolving the Naga issue — directly contradicting the civil society’s position.
The appointment of interlocutor R.N. Ravi as Governor of Nagaland in 2019 was greeted with cautious optimism. Here was a man who had spent years earning the trust of Naga political groups — a figure regarded, across factional lines, as indispensable. He came with a message: talks would be concluded within three months, at the personal desire of the Prime Minister. And the talks were formally concluded by 31st October 2019.
But what, exactly, was concluded? The NSCN (IM) made clear that the core symbolic issues — a separate Naga flag and constitution — remained entirely unresolved. The group’s message to New Delhi was unambiguous: ‘The Indo-Naga political solution without the Naga flag and constitution is not inclusive and will create room for future headaches.’ They speak to the fundamental question of Naga identity and dignity that has animated this entire struggle.
Ravi was transferred to Tamil Nadu in September 2021, barely two years into his tenure, without delivering what would have been his third address to the Nagaland Legislative Assembly, having addressed it twice already on the progress of the talks. He resigned as interlocutor upon his departure. No successor of comparable standing or mandate has been named since. The peace process, which had been described as being at an “advanced stage” for the better part of a decade, has been left in a state of institutional limbo that grows more difficult to justify with each passing year.
Prime Minister Modi pledged resolution within 18 months in 2014. Dr. Manmohan Singh, before him, promised it in 24. These are not isolated failures of timing. They are evidence of a systemic pattern: the Naga issue is invoked when it is politically convenient and set aside when it is not. The deadlines come and go. The assurances accumulate. The resolution does not arrive.
What is needed now is not another deadline. It is not another round of talks described as being at an advanced stage. What is needed is honesty. New Delhi must publicly name the outstanding issues that stand between the current state of affairs and a final, durable settlement. It must appoint an interlocutor with the genuine authority and seniority to conclude what has been so many times nearly concluded. And it must bring all parties — including, where possible, those currently outside the formal process — into a framework transparent enough to be held accountable.
The Nagaland Legislative Assembly has no opposition. In the history of Indian democracy, that is a remarkable fact. It means that an entire state legislature, across party lines, has achieved a unity of purpose that most political bodies never approach. That unity has been directed, patiently and persistently, toward a single goal: a just and honourable resolution of the Naga political issue.
New Delhi has been asked this question long enough. The Naga people do not need another promise, another framework, another deadline that quietly expires. They need an answer. It is past time to give one.
