"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less" -- Humpty Dumpty in 'Through the Looking-Glass' penned by Lewis Carroll.
A common problem the Congress and the BJP faced in Jammu and Kashmir was that the two so-called 'mainstream regional parties' National Conference and PDP more often
.... spoke/speak one language in Srinagar and another in New Delhi.
In the context of Jammu and Kashmir and also on the problems in northeastern states - from time to time New Delhi irrespective of party affiliations banked on three-pronged strategy.
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| Blogger at Science College, Jotsoma (Kohima/Nagaland) |
With separatism and terrorism picking up, Central Governments headed by various political parties made three new/old kinds of efforts.
- They tried a dialogue with the separatists. It worked in Mizoram. In Nagaland -- it worked in the sixties more as adhocism.
Later attempts including the Shillong Accord did not work. Worse, the NNC split and NSCN was born. The China hand made things worse and insurgency became an industry in other states like Tripura and Manipur too.
UKFA boys ran to Dhaka and ran hotels.
On Kashmir -- the governments spoke to Pakistan.
The last mega summit was hosted by Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Agra and it practically boomeranged. In the context of Nagaand - the so-called talks without any pre-condition was expected as a norm first by the P V Narasimha Rao government.
Later it passed on to the H D Deve Gowda and I K Gujral governments. Gowda met Isak Chishi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah personally in Zurich in Feb 1997 and spoke on various facets. I K Gujral did not meet them but in August 1997 - he went for ceasefire.
Things went by ...
On Oct 22, 2025 - Thuingaleng Muivah chose his solemn visit to his native village Somdal and threatened to revive violence and also demanded apology from the government.
Bertrand Russel is out of fashion these days. Yet I may refer to his words and logic:
"A is envious of B and malicious about him, but quite unconscious of being so."
Such people are called self-deceivers, and do go through the process of concealing from themselves what would otherwise have been obvious.
Is New Delhi falling into that category?
Nowhere anything substantial have been achieved .... yet some goals are sold as 'mirage'.
People buy the idea and then violence takes over. There is another obvious matter of fact that talks about human nature ... and that's not called betrayal either.
** The day the blind man can see .... the first thing he throws away is the STICK that helped him all his life.
If the ceasefire kicked off in 1997 is a 'stick'; the question in 2025 is what to do next part. The peace process has gone through multiple Prime Ministers - I K Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Manmohan Singh and now Narendra Modi.
PM Modi mentioned about the ‘framework agreement’ signed between NSCN-IM and the Government of India on the concluding day of his two-day trip to the UAE with a massive audience cheering his name at a cricket stadium in Dubai. This was in 2015.
“I want to talk about Nagaland,” Modi said addressing 50,000 cheering expatriate Indians at the Dubai Cricket Stadium here on the second day of his two-day visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
“Less than a month ago, we moved ahead successfully with different factions of Nagaland after 60-70 years of insurgency (in that northeastern state),” Modi said referring to the peace accord signed on August 3 (2015) between the government and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah).
“I am citing Nagaland because I want to tell people across the world, including the youth, that however complicated a problem might be, it can be solved through dialogue,” he said.
Modi-led BJP dispensation is undecided what to do with the talent rediscovered by Ram Madhav in 2018.
Or they have decided to continue with him ... for some more time or till eternity.
In 2025 October -- none knows whether Naga Solution is coming at all. Or we have reached Narasimha Rao's theorem of karmayog --- "No Solution is Solution for all".
Thanks to New Delhi's ways of handling things, there is a perceived sense of alienation, faulty policies, scarce resources and of course 'interference' by neighbours - both small and large ones.
Former Nagaland Chief Secretary A M Gokhale had his reasons to say (in the late nineties) -- "New Delhi still thinks like Aurangzeb's Delhi". Here Aurangzeb symbolised an image of a ruthless and an unreasonable administrator.
In December 2022 ... just few weeks before the state assembly polls of 2023, Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio had said ---
"Even if the Central government and the NNPGs (Naga National Political Groups) sign a final peace accord or settlement, there will be no real peace if the Nagas cannot act as one people".
Ting Tong !!
The most dangerous kind of Truth is the one that has a tiny pinch of Untruth or even Half truth mixed inside.
Rio will never admit that the phrase 'one people' is utopian. Nagas of Myanmar are not a party to what's going on in the name of peace talks since 1997. If he was presuming that Naga talks and peace process will be 100 percent 'inclusive' phenomenon with the NSCN-IM the champion political apparatus in that arrangements he was totally in a world of miracles.
Nagas of Myanmar could not come because so far Myanmar - come what may - was not ready to disintegrate. Nor states such as Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh will do something unusual with their land and people.
One dictum (or truism) of politics is that as elected chief minister under oath of the Constitution - he should not have encouraged himself to be guided by such ambitious thought process. An insurgent leader and even an office bearer of a political party could do that with conditions - but not a chief minister.
Moreover, there is another axiom that a few charishmatic and popular leaders are not always 'blessed' with the right political rhythm and flexibility and also the 'extra luck' to achieve certain impossible goals as part of constitutional achievements.
Russel also had said -- Desire, like knowledge, is, of course, in one sense an observable phenomenon. "An elephant will eat a bun, but not a mutton chop; a duck will go into the water, but a hen will not".
This is where he was mistaken. Probably he would not have thought about these 'impossible' targets had the duo of Shurhozelie and T R Zeliang allowed Rio the 'peace of mind' while he was out of office.
Rio grew extra cautious of politics around him and after he returned to power in 2018 -- he became extra careful that the power should remain preferably for a very long stint.
His coterie must have done the worse by constantly encouraging him towards that misguided goal post.
On the other hand; PM Narendra Modi and even Home Minister Amit Shah thought -- as a seasoned hand with a good grasp over political-economy etc etc... Rio could even pursue NSCN-IM leadership to agree for a final Solution pact.
In Delhi - PM Modi and Shah showed trust in Rio and wanted him to deliver the Solution. But Rio was now in a different league. His journey now was reduced to the level of a flirting with failures.
He developed certain other ailments in governance. He told ENPO leaders - if they thought their demand was so genuine -- they could go to Delhi. This was a case of abdicating one's own responsibility.
Reports said in 2023 even stalwart S C Jamir had pulled him up for such an approach under which FNT was agreed upon but the state government was not kept in the loop.
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| Non-serious Blogger ::: NDPP intellectuals |
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