The clamour over the visit by the Nagaland chief minister, Neiphiu Rio, to Senapati district to inaugurate an office of the political party he belongs to, the Naga People`™s Front, NPF, and the whimper with which it all ended was a situation which could have best been avoided with a little diplomatic acumen on the part of the Manipur government. What ought to have been realised all along is that setting up the office of a political party is not what matters in the end, but getting MLAs and MPs elected on the tickets of the party in elections in the state. The government of Manipur, as it had done in the last minute, should have ignored the matter, or even welcomed the chief minister of the neighbouring state and invited him to touch Imphal as well for a tete-a-tete. That would have robbed the wind out of the Nagaland chief minster`™s sail, not so much as a sinister Machiavellian plan, but the goodwill contained in such a gesture would have flattened all political posturing and gimmicks. As all die hard optimists do, we too believe goodwill is excellent diplomacy on its own, intended or otherwise. The Manipur chief minister, Okram Ibobi has clarified later that he had only the consideration of the law and order situation in the state for sending out the advisory to his Nagaland counterpart to refrain from coming to the state for the function, but later relented as the Rio insisted on coming. This explanation seems like an afterthought and a desperate effort to seek an honourable way out of the slippery situation, but it must be conceded he does have a point. After all, the law and order situation Manipur is at this moment, abysmal. Years ago, everybody would remember very well how a former Speaker of the Nagaland Assembly, Thenucho, almost fell victim to bullets of the Manipur police commandos who ostensibly mistook his bodyguards for militants and opened fire killing all in his car, except him. Surely nobody would want to see such a costly catastrophe repeated at any cost.
All well that ends well. The event came and went, and if not for the clamour created by the government, probably it would have been just another ordinary routine event. This however does not mean that the event did not have any ulterior political agenda. It was indeed intended as a symbolic move to send out the message that the push for a Greater Nagaland is still very much alive. The speakers at the function, including the Nagaland chief minister was pretty honest about this. But so long as he does not incite violence, or does anything to disturb the peace, his overture, even if in bad taste, should have been considered as part of his right to free speech. In the opinion of the law of the land too, it had become quite clear after the intense debate on whether the pro-Kashmiri Azadi movement statement made in New Delhi not long ago by maverick social activist and author, Arundhati Roy, amounted to sedition or not. All will remember that the court had in this high profile case, ruled that Roy`™s statement did not, for sedition clause can only be invoked if somebody actually incites violence or calls for breach of peace.
But let those pushing the issue also not be so naive as to believe the NPF is a national party and has the mandate of the provisions of the Election Commission of India, to open office anywhere in the country. It can open offices anywhere but not as a recognized political party by the ECI. A political party can become a national party only if it manages to poll at least one percent of the total electorate in four different state in elections held in these states. Likewise, it will be a state political party if it manages to get the same percentage in a state election. The NPF has fulfilled this clause in Nagaland elections, but in not in any other states as yet. It can aspire to be a national or a regional party but for the moment it is a Nagaland state political party. Moreover, for a political party to be a regional or national party, its primary membership would have to be open to every Indian and not confined to just one ethnicity. The NPF obviously does not satisfy this criterion either and is confined to just the Nagas. If this was otherwise, and the NPF membership was open to all, we would have advised all other communities in the state to flock to it, enrol themselves and domesticate it to make it look like another Manipur party. Jokes aside, the matter could have been handled in a much more matured way, and in the process deflated many trumped up egos as well.