"Nagaland today is a land where tenants, with Govt of India's help, dream to be landlords through heckling, harassing and brutalizing the owners with symbolic tools like Integration, flag, constitution, Pan Naga Hoho etc," -- came the warning in 2022 from the NNPG Working Committee.
In 2026 -- now we have a newspaper article that says -- Nagas need to negotiate with each other.
"Because unity, if it is to mean anything, cannot be declared—it must be built".
The article penned by Jim Jajo says: "The push for pan-Naga structures, often framed as instruments of unity, is viewed by critics as mechanisms that risk flattening diversity and sidelining dissent.
This is where his warning becomes more serious: a solution imposed in the name of unity could, paradoxically, fracture the Naga society. The fault lines are already visible."
The writer does not fail to mention : "Nowhere is this more sensitive than in Manipur".
It's true in Manipur, the situation is complex, where Naga aspirations intersect with Kuki claims, Meitei anxieties, and the fragile balance of a deeply contested state.
Some of these complexities were flagged earlier both by the Govt of India negotiators and also from voices in Nagaland.
Various Naga organisations, student bodies and individual Naga leaders including the likes of S C Jamir, the veteran Naga politician and only surviving signatory to the 1960 Statehood Agreement, had been mounting pressure on all stakeholders for an early Solution.
Importantly; the NNPG also said in 2022 itself - "Immediately after 1988 crisis (split in NSCN), having warmly welcomed by hospitable Nagas into Nagaland, southern Naga (NSCN-IM) leaders did not own a hut then.
Today, in the name of political dialogue" and extortion these people have able to purchase farmlands in Dimapur, Chumukedima and Peren districts."
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Some ex military officers have stated that these statements were like warnings but for some obvious reasons, these warnings were ignored. One of them underlined - "Things are still not late ... 2026-27 offers a suitable time to strike it well when the iron is hot for an immediate Solution. Otherwise things are doomed to go the tragic way of Yugoslavia, multiplied a hundred times".
The peace talks had begun in 1997 during the stint of I K Gujral as the Prime Minister. The first backroom channel of communication with Naga militants was opened by the then Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao. This was around 1994-95 when S C Jamir was the chief minister the Late Rajesh Pilot was MoS Home, Internal Security.
Later H D Deve Gowda formally met NSCN (IM) leaders Thuingaleng Muivah and Isak Chishi Swu (now deceased) at Zurich in February 1997.
The first ceasefire was announced for six months in August 1997 and by then Gujral was the Prime Minister and CPI leader Indrajit Gupta was the Union Home Minister.
Considerable progress was made by the Vajpayee government while nothing much moved between 2004 an 2014 when Manmohan Singh was at the helm of affairs.
The Modi government had put the entire parleys into a faster track with R N Ravi as the negotiator and it inked a Framework Agreement with NSCN (IM) in 2015 - within 15 months of it coming to power.
The timing was good as the pact was inked months before aging Isak Chishi Swu expired. The operational leadership of NSCN (IM) generally remained with Muivah over the years. He is a Tangkhul Naga and the community has substantial
presence in hilly region of Manipur.
Muivah was allowed (or facilitated) his visit to native hamlet Somdal in October 2025. The Govt of India's gesture was not given its due.
The recent phenomenon and happenings are known to all. The newspaper article (in Ukhrul Times) as referred above says :
"The uncomfortable truth is this: the Naga political question is no longer just about recognition by the Indian state.
It is equally about recognition within Naga society itself. If one group claims to speak for all, the question now being asked is—who authorised that claim? And if that question is not addressed, the risk is clear.
A solution that lacks consensus may be signed on paper, but it will struggle to hold on the ground."
The Govt of India understood this the moment the issues of Flag and a separate Constitution were raised. The mandarins knew it well no government authority in Delhi could go against the very spirit of the Indian constitution.
More so under Narendra Modi -- because the NDA-2 abrogated the Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.
However, the Home Minister Amit Shah made it clear in Parliament itself that the true spirit of Art 371 (A) and other similar clauses would be diluted or deleted ever.
Two years prior to abroation of Article 370 came the Agreed Position with the NNPG.
In the context of the Agreed Position signed on 17th November 2017, the NNPG had said in 2022 that they did not require any "camera flashlights, no hype or hoopla".
This was a veiled taunt about August 3, 2015 when the NSCN (IM) signed the Framework Agreement with interlocutor Ravi in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"That afternoon (Nov 17, 2017), the Naga delegation experienced a solemn moment with thankful hearts, sat at a round table when a historic document was signed. the Govt of India recognised the political and historical rights of the Nagas to self determine their future in consonance with their distinct identity," NNPG leader G Naga, Kilonser (GPRN-NSCN - Kitovi faction).
Notably, Naga veteran leader S C Jamir has also said a number of times that the Nagas of Manipur need not bother much about 'Nagas of Nagaland'.
In fact, a retired IAS officer Khekiye K Sema in a newspaper article also had suggested that the "Nagas of Nagaland have no choice but to take a look back at our history ....".
He wrote the NSCN (IM) is "spearheading the negotiation with the Government and trying to decide the fate of the Nagas of Nagaland without letting us know exactly what our future is going to look like".
In 2026 - Jajo writes :::
"Nowhere is ideological clarity stronger than among the Tangkhul Nagas of Ukhrul.
As the home ground of Thuingaleng Muivah, the tribe has long formed the intellectual and organizational backbone of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah).
"Here, the idea of Nagalim is not abstract—it is lived, debated, and defended.
Yet even in this stronghold, a subtle shift is underway. Younger voices and civil society actors are beginning to ask uncomfortable questions: How long can a peace process remain perpetually unfinished? And at what cost does ideological purity come?"
Nagaland's famous Metaphysical intellectuals under the patronage of the Status Quo club have to look within.
These questions may not provoke quick answers. But they do provide a broad hint why New Delhi is not in hurry about anything.
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