The laments of chief minister Okram Ibobi two days ago and by Congress president, Sonia Gandhi on how Congress states in the Northeast neighbouring Nagaland were being kept in the dark about the historic Naga Accord signed on August 3 and announced with fanfare by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi himself, ought to be given serious ear. This is despite the fact that it is not just the BJP government at the Centre which is doing it, for all the other governments at the Centre ever since the ceasefire with the dominant Naga underground group NSCN(IM) began in 1997 have also done it. Again while it is true all the three states neighbouring Nagaland, namely Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, are all ruled by the Congress party, it may not be true the BJP government at the Centre was consciously targeting them, for the NPF government in Nagaland had all the while had also been ignored on the matter of these peace negotiations. Surely the Centre is not saying the NSCN(IM) is more important than these state governments? This is however not to say the achievement was not historic. It was and it deserves to succeed, though as is known now, at this moment the document signed was merely a `framework agreement`, and not conclusive at all on its content.
When the negotiations first began, maybe the secrecy had a definite purpose for indeed a running commentary of every step taken in important government policy pursuit has in history proven very counterproductive, and indeed derailed important projects. The most prominent example of such a derailment in the Indian context is the Indo-China boundary negotiations on the eve of the 1962 war. As writers now point out, (including Neville Maxwell in his controversial book `India`™s China War), Nehru was under a siege by the opposition, the Indian press, as well as the hardliners within his own party that he was making secret deals with Chou En Lai and selling India`™s interest to China. These allegations began gaining grounds ever since China`™s invasion and occupation of Tibet in 1950 and Nehru`™s feeble protest against it, but escalated to a feverish pitch when it was discovered in 1956 that China had built the Sinkiang-Tibet highway through the Aksai Chin. This discovery was not long after Nehru signed the Pancheel Agreement with China in 1954. Quite tellingly, India came to know of the highway only when its ambassador to China noticed the announcement of the completion of the highway in a Peking newspaper. But ever since, the heat was on Nehru and his `Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai` policy. He ultimately ended up intimidated, prompting him to nervously make public all his policies and every single correspondence with Chou En Lai public either in the Parliament or through the increasingly hostile media. This annoyed China and also made it less and less open, contends many of these scholars. Two conclusions are clear from this. One, the allegation that it was Nehru alone who blundered in the China policy is not true. The Opposition as well as the Indian media were partners in pushing the country to the 1962 catastrophe. Second, it also demonstrates that making sensitive government policies public while still in the process of their evolution is not always wise.
But this logic would not hold if any sensitive policy evolution extends almost two decades for it would end up arousing suspicions and distrusts among all the people with a stake in the issue. Probably the Government of India never anticipated that its peace negotiations with the NSCN(IM) would take so long to fructify. Now that this is inordinate delay is turning out to be the reality, it is time for the Government of India to begin taking the Northeast states with a stake on the matter into confidence to some extent. As per the official clarifications, including by Union minister of state for home affairs, Kiren Rijiju, that there will be no question of redrawing the boundaries of the Northeastern states or hurting the interest of any one of them in making this deal. If this is so, we wonder where would have been the harm in keeping the state governments of Manipur, Nagaland, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, in the loop on the momentous development. Such a move would have done immense good in assuaging the apprehension and well as distrust of the Union government not only amongst these state governments, but their populations as well. There should have been no necessity to put any of these state governments in an embarrassing situation either, as indeed it would have been for them quite understandably. Imagine important decisions on matters of these states being taken by the Union government without their knowledge. A rhetorical question may make this clearer. Would the Centre have been able to do what it did if it involved a state like Tamil Nadu or West Bengal?
Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam