DIMAPUR, DECEMBER 6 (MExN): The Global Naga Forum on Saturday issued a strong statement marking the remembrance of the Oting incident, describing it not as an emotional tragedy but as a national wound and a reflection of India’s military occupation in Naga homelands.
While condemning the killing of 13 Naga men by the 21 Para Special Forces in a premeditated operation on December 4, 2021, the GNF accused India of using violence as a tool to enforce its territorial claims, treating grief and justice with indifference while relying solely on “the calculus of control.”
The Forum said the incident was not an isolated tragedy but part of a broader pattern of military dominance aimed at weakening the Naga people’s unity and eroding their political legitimacy. It lamented that India’s Supreme Court has yet to deliver accountability for the killings, effectively shielding perpetrators and reinforcing a system where “uniformed violence is protected rather than punished.”
The statement asserted that India’s rule in Naga areas is that of an occupying force lacking rightful authority, and that the deaths in Oting were an assault on the “Naga idea” itself. It rejected any political or legal measures as insufficient to alter this reality, calling Nagas a sovereign people living under imposed Indian control.
The Forum warned that continued impunity would destabilize the Indo-Myanmar frontier and undermine New Delhi’s long-term Northeast strategy, creating geopolitical challenges beyond India’s control.
It further emphasized the fundamental political and civilizational differences between the Naga worldview, rooted in clan, land, consent, and ancestral autonomy, and the centralised, majoritarian concept of Indian nationhood, saying these are incompatible.
The Forum said, “Oting is a line we will not cross, not forget, and not forgive. Remembrance is our resistance. Sovereignty is our inheritance. And our future remains unbroken.”
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