Guwahati: India’s longest-running peace process is entering a potentially decisive phase, with the NSCN (IM) and the Ang Mai-led NSCN-K faction making fresh moves towards Naga unity even as both groups pursue separate peace tracks with the govts of India and Myanmar.The development, coming more than 29 years after the NSCN (IM)-India ceasefire, has gained fresh momentum following the Centre’s appointment of former Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) chairperson Ajit Lal as the new interlocutor for the Naga peace process.At the heart of the latest push is an effort to bring together the NSCN (IM) and the NSCN-Khaplang faction led by Ang Mai. Peace committees of the two groups met at the Naga self-administered zone in Myanmar’s Sagaing on September 29. Parallel efforts are also underway towards signing peace agreements with the govts on both sides of the India-Myanmar border.Chairperson of the Peace Facilitation Committee of the NSCN-K/AM faction, U Chin Maung, was quoted by Myanmar news portal CNI Myanmar as saying that his group held talks with Myanmar’s National Solidarity and Peacemaking Negotiation Committee (NSPNC) on July 31 and is currently engaging in peace talks with India as well.“Our plan involves finding a path through dialogue with both sides. I have heard that NSCN-IM has certain channels through which they have held constructive discussions with the Myanmar government,” Maung told CNI Myanmar. He said his group’s meeting with NSCN (IM) was aimed at “achieving Naga unity.”“We already have plans to sign an agreement with the Indian govt. Last year, our vice president personally went to New Delhi for discussions, and progress is being made along that track. On the Myanmar side, we are actively pursuing peace as well,” Maung was quoted by the news portal.The cross-border push, however, has triggered opposition from within the Naga movement. A breakaway NSCN-IM faction known as the Eastern Flank, active in Manipur and now operating as a self-styled “provisional govt”, has rejected the Hebron-based NSCN-IM leadership’s visit to Myanmar under the banner of a “peace campaign”, saying it will not accept Indian political influence “disguised as reconciliation.”The group said that it is closely monitoring NSCN(IM) Hebron leadership attempting to unite the NSCN-K/AM and NSCN-k/YA.It also said no single faction holds the mandate to unilaterally redefine the Naga national position to suit an arrangement acceptable to New Delhi.For India, a settlement with NSCN-IM would consolidate the 1997 ceasefire and 2015 Framework Agreement into a final peace deal, curb insurgency, close off cross-border sanctuaries and stabilise the Northeast. An understanding with NSCN-K (Ang Mai) would add a security layer along the Arunachal-Nagaland-Sagaing frontier.For Myanmar, engaging NSCN-K (Ang Mai) offers a way to strengthen its administrative reach over the Naga Self-Administered Zone and limit the use of its territory by India-focused insurgent groups.“But neither country can solve the whole Naga question alone. The most viable outcome would be parallel settlements with cross-border security guarantees, rather than one treaty that claims to settle a transnational Naga political aspiration,” a source associated with Northeast security said.The reunification move between NSCN-IM and the Ang Mai-led faction of NSCN-K carries political weight because it would bring together two streams of the original NSCN that split violently on April 30, 1988.The parent body was formed in 1980 by Isak Chishi Swu, Thuingaleng Muivah and S.S. Khaplang after they rejected the 1975 Shillong Accord. Eight years later, it fractured into NSCN-IM and NSCN-K amid leadership, political and ethnic-regional differences.The current move is better described as partial reconciliation between two inherited strands of the original NSCN, rather than a full reunion, as NSCN-K/Yung Aung remains outside it.
