The Promise of Peace in Nagaland

Today, India’s problems in Jammu and Kashmir, its rivalry with Pakistan, and its competition with China dominate discussions about India’s security challenges. However, one of India’s greatest and longest-running security threats has been the past 50 years of almost constant upheaval in its northeast.

India’s northeast is made up of seven states that are only linked to India via the thin Siliguri Corridor between Nepal and Bangladesh. Historically and culturally, many of the ethnic groups in India’s northeast have been linked with Southeast Asia as much as they have with South Asia. As a result, many of the region’s ethnic groups do not have cultural characteristics that other, “mainstream,” groups in South Asia share with regard to food (the typical lack of pork and beef in most Indian cuisines does not hold throughout much of the northeast), clothing, music, and so on.

The northeast region’s multiple ethnicities and the perceived divide between the northeast and the rest of India has fueled a sense of separateness and conflict. In northeast India, multiple insurgencies have prevented India from fully integrating large parts of many northeastern states into its political and economic system, providing stability, bringing in development, and expanding trade with neighboring Southeast Asia.

There is hope, however, that a recently signed peace accord with a Naga rebel outfit will pave the way for stability to take root in the region. Most Nagas live in the state of Nagaland, which is located on India’s border with Myanmar. From his Nepal policy to finally settling India’s border dispute with Bangladesh, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken it upon himself to seek closure for many of India’s longstanding problems, and resolving pending issues in Nagaland is part of this pattern. That he has been able to make progress in these areas does him much credit and partially makes up for his government’s inability to push through important, economic reforms.

Among the many issues India has had in its northeast, Nagaland has always been one of the hardest to deal with because of the region’s extreme tribal fragmentation. There are several dozen Naga tribes, each with a distinct language. The tribes are fairly young, having only coalesced two hundred years ago from hundreds of clans that each controlled small areas. Due to the region’s hilly terrain, forests and jungles, Naga contact with the outside world was limited before British colonization. Although their neighbors included the Burmese and Assamese, Nagas seem to have absorbed little. Hinduism was dominant in neighboring Assam and Manipur, and Buddhism popular in Myanmar, but the Nagas adopted neither religion. Instead, the tribes – renowned headhunters – were gradually converted to Christianity over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. Now, most Nagas identify as Baptists.

Separate Identity

Nagaland thus developed a very separate identity from its neighbors, which has in turn fueled Naga nationalism and dreams of a greater Nagalim, a sovereign state that would encompass parts of Myanmar and portions of Nagaland’s neighboring states in India including Assam and Manipur. Since India’s independence in 1947, many Naga leaders and groups have been pressing for their own independence from India because of a desire for genuine, wide ranging autonomy. Other ethnic groups in India, like the Tamils, were somewhat skeptical of the Indian state initially but ultimately made their peace with India’s federal structure which guarantees states significant local powers and the right to pursue their own cultural policies. Instead of taking this path, many Naga leaders resorted to insurgency.

When India became independent, Nagaland was a part of Assam state, which at that time was organized as a geographic umbrella for most of the northeast. While negotiations for more Naga autonomy were taking place, some Nagas rose in rebellion under Angami Zapu Phizo, who declared the People's Sovereign Republic of Free Nagaland in 1954; this group soon faced multiple splits, leading to a complicated civil war in Nagaland among Naga groups and against the Indian government. While the Indian government alienated many Nagas through the passage of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in 1958, which gave the military great leeway in suppressing the violence, Nagaland was also granted full statehood in 1963. Phizo’s group, the Nagaland National Council (NNC) signed the Shillong Accords with India in 1975, but violence continued because of splinter groups.

One of the main splinter groups was the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), formed in 1980, which also soon splintered into the NSCN-K and NSCN-IM. Unlike other Naga rebel groups, these NSCN factions draw a lot of support from Nagas in Manipur. The demands of ethnic Nagas in the state of Manipur, the south of Nagaland, have been especially problematic because the Nagas who inhabit two districts in that state want to join Nagaland, a demand voraciously opposed by the government of Manipur. This has fueled a mini civil war of sorts between two of India’s states. Much of India’s current Naga-related violence has occurred in Manipur, to the chagrin of the government there and the Meitei ethnic group that forms the majority in Manipur. The NSCN-K was responsible for an attack that killed 18 Indian soldiers in Manipur in July, one of the largest attacks on Indian soldiers in recent times. The NSCN-K was responsible for an attack that killed 18 Indian soldiers in Manipur in July, one of the largest attacks on Indian soldiers in recent times. The attack invited swift retaliation by the Indian military, which staged a cross-border raid into Myanmar. Perhaps because of the rivalry between the two NSCN groups, it was the NSCN-IM – the group that wasn't implicated in the Manipur attack – that took the opportunity to sign a framework peace agreement with the Indian government on August 3.

While many in Manipur and among the rival tribes in Myanmar and Nagaland are skeptical of the deal, moves toward peace in India’s northeast are welcome and necessary for India’s greater stability. Constant violence has disrupted India’s ability to integrate with Southeast Asia. While some Naga factions still fight India, most are now at peace. For many, continued rebellion entails missing out of India’s economic development. Rebellion and war have hurt, rather than advanced the Naga cause. There was an overwhelmingly large turnout of voters – more than 80 percent – during Nagaland’s latest elections, a fact that was widely interpreted as the desire for Nagas to join the political process and their acceptance of being a state within India.

India would do well to capitalize on the opportunity the peace deal presents and invest in development, roads, and trade in Nagaland to better integrate the region with India as well as Southeast Asia more broadly. By securing peace in the northeast, India would be investing in long-term security with regard to its highly vulnerable border with China. Peace in Nagaland can be a win-win for everyone. Recent events are a clear message for whichever rebel groups that remain: They have no chance of victory, and seemingly little direct support in Nagaland anymore. The days of rebellion and violence in the region are nearly over.