Yanpvuo Kikon
The June 11, 2026, tripartite Memorandum of Understanding between the Centre, Assam, and Nagaland—signed before Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, with both Chief Ministers present—has been framed as a "historic" unlocking of hydrocarbon potential in the Disputed Area Belt, over 1,000 sq km spanning the two states. It is neither the breakthrough its signatories claim nor the irreversible dilution of Article 371A that its critics fear—not yet. What it actually represents is a sequencing problem: a narrow window in which the protections that determine who benefits from this resource either get written into binding law, or don't, before exploration licenses convert political promises into sunk economic facts. And the only question that everybody is asking is this: Will this oil benefit just the usual politicians and their circles? Or can this opportunity realise the common man's dream of escaping poverty and joblessness, and actually get to see a developed, progressive, and prosperous new Nagaland in the near future.
What 371A Actually Protects, and What the MoU Doesn't Touch
Article 371A is still Nagaland's shield. It says: no central law on land or resources applies here unless our Assembly agrees. An executive MoU cannot touch that—this is clearly written in the Constitution, and speculative apprehension cannot overstate this fact.
But constitutional text doesn't operate in a vacuum. Naga “land” is held communally—by village councils, clans, and hohos—not by the state. The precedent that matters here isn't legal; it's operational. When ONGC's Changpang operations in Wokha were halted in the 1990s, the trigger wasn't a court ruling on 371A; it was the absence of free, prior, and informed consent at the community level, and the absence of a clear compensation mechanism. The MoU's coordination-heavy, state-to-state framing risks repeating that pattern at a much larger scale—not because it overrides 371A, but because it never engages the layer where 371A's protections are actually exercised: the village council, the indigenous people—the real stakeholders and owners of these sacred lands and resources.
The Court Case We Cannot Ignore
Original Suit No. 2 of 1988—Nagaland vs. Assam—is still in the Supreme Court. The MoU says "without prejudice." Fine. But here's the honest truth: once you build access roads and drill wells, you create a reality on the ground. Even if we win in court later, reversing that reality will be brutal. Not impossible—but this is a risk to monitor and not yet a foregone conclusion.
Were Indigenous Landowners Deliberately Excluded?
The publicized 50:50 revenue-sharing arrangement between Assam and Nagaland is a state-to-state mechanism. It says nothing, currently, about what reaches the indigenous communities who hold customary title to the land itself.
This is the gap that determines everything. The Centre gains regardless—hydrocarbons sit under the Union List, and Ministry of Petroleum-administered royalty and licensing structures (OALP-style blocks, PSC arrangements involving ONGC, OIL, and private capital) generate central revenue independent of how the state-level split plays out. Assam gains operational continuity in territory it already claims. Nagaland's state government gains a revenue stream that—based on the pattern of past resource projects in the Northeast—tends to concentrate in infrastructure budgets and contractor networks rather than reaching border districts directly. Customary landowners are not mentioned in the revenue-sharing framework at all. That does not have to be a permanent exclusion—the upcoming modalities can still include the main stakeholders, ensuring democratic inclusion for the indigenous landowners.
The Norway Lesson: From Oil to Every Citizen
We must not spend the money from oil but invest it and multiply it.
The money from oil extraction must benefit every Naga citizen and the generations to come. Here is the model we should be demanding—not as a dream, but as a template. Norway discovered oil in the North Sea in 1969. They did not let politicians waste public money on frivolous projects to enrich only their circles or divert public funds to accumulate private assets. They created a Sovereign Wealth Fund. Today, that fund is worth over $1.6 trillion. Every Norwegian citizen—not just the landowner, not just the contractor—benefits. It pays for pensions, education, and healthcare for generations. The oil profits were invested, not eaten. That is why Norway is one of the most prosperous and peaceful nation on earth today, that is not torn apart by resource wars.
Today, Nagaland is presented with this opportunity to build a better future. We must direct oil revenue into a legally protected, professionally managed Nagaland Wealth Fund—online, transparent, safeguarded from political interference, subject to strict Assembly oversight, and protected by ironclad audits to prevent a Malaysian 1MDB-style disaster. While we must address the legitimate expectations of our landowners as key stakeholders, the most sustainable path forward is not a direct cash drain, but a system where their sacrifice is rewarded with generational wealth. By investing oil profits into public assets rather than individual payouts, we protect the fund's integrity while guaranteeing development, modernisation, and prosperity starting with the extraction areas. It starts with one line in the upcoming legislation: "Revenue from hydrocarbon extraction shall be saved into a publicly transparent, fully online, auditable Nagaland Sovereign Wealth Trust. Annual dividends shall be invested in focus sectors in consultation with a committee comprising landowners, the public, and village councils—prioritising the rapid modernisation and sustainable development of the indigenous lands where the oil is extracted, followed by the entire state, to build high-quality public infrastructure, education, and progressive sustainable modernisation of the state."
Ecclesiastes 11:2: "Invest in seven ventures, yes, in eight; you do not know what disaster may come upon the land."
Proverbs 21:20: "In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has."
Why Timing Is the Real Story
Here is the part the discourse around this MoU has largely missed: the absence of landowner protections in the current framework is also the moment of maximum leverage to fix it. Once OALP (Open Acreage Licensing Policy) blocks are auctioned and production-sharing contracts are signed with companies, capital becomes sunk. At that point, renegotiating royalty structures or consent mechanisms means asking investors to accept retroactive terms—a much harder fight, and one Naga civil society has reliably lost before. Hence, we must be wise to learn from history and not repeat past mistakes again. Right now, before licenses issue, the cost of building in protections is comparatively low, and the Centre's stated interest in presenting this as a clean "historic" success gives Nagaland's institutions real bargaining weight—weight they will not have after three years.
What This Requires, Concretely
For Nagaland, the test of this MoU will not be the signing ceremony—it will be whether, in the coming months, three things happen before exploration activity begins in earnest:
First, the Nagaland Legislative Assembly reviews and formally responds to the MoU's terms in consultation with the indigenous stakeholders, rather than treating it as an executive matter outside its purview—consistent with 371A's requirement that the Assembly itself decide whether central frameworks apply to land and resources.
Second, a statutory benefit-sharing mechanism—not an MoU clause, but actual legislation—establishes direct royalty or revenue flows that must benefit the landowners of affected areas, as well as every Naga citizen and the generations to come, through the establishment of a Nagaland Wealth Fund with the modalities explained above.
Third, FPIC protocols are established as a precondition for exploration in any specific block, restoring the consent layer that was absent in the Changpang precedent. The affected village councils, landowners, clans, and customary institutions must be provided complete information about the proposed exploration activities, potential environmental and social impacts, compensation frameworks, revenue-sharing arrangements, and long-term implications before any approval is sought. Consent should not be treated as a one-time signature obtained through administrative processes, but as a meaningful and transparent engagement process as practiced in traditional Naga institutions, where communities have the opportunity to ask questions, negotiate terms, seek independent advice, and make informed decisions. Such a framework would restore the critical consent layer that was largely absent during the Changpang experience, where tensions emerged partly because local communities felt excluded from decisions affecting their land and resources. Establishing FPIC would not only strengthen the legitimacy of any future project but also reduce the likelihood of disputes, operational disruptions, and conflicts that can ultimately undermine both investors and local communities alike.
None of this requires opposing the MoU itself. It requires recognising that the MoU created a procedural opening—and that opening closes the moment the first license is issued. Whether this becomes a template not only for Naga communities but for other indigenous communities to truly benefit from their own resources, or another instance of being exploited, depends entirely on what gets written into law in the next several months.
The MoU signing sets the tone. But legislation—or its absence—will write the final story. Will this oil become a curse of corruption and exclusion? Or a blessing that builds a progressive, prosperous, and sustainably modern Nagaland for every Naga, and not only the privileged? This window will not stay open forever. And posterity is already watching.
