Naga political continuity, democratic space and the responsibility of a generation
Limhachan Kikon
Duncan Bosti Dimapur
The Naga political question is not going away, nor should it. It carries a history larger than any one agreement, organisation, tribe, leader or generation. The Framework Agreement of 2015 and the Agreed Position of 2017 are part of that journey. But the future of our people cannot be kept waiting indefinitely for the negotiations to reach their end.
Dr. S.C. Jamir’s meeting with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat has brought questions of history, identity and political authority back into public discussion. Jamir met Bhagwat in New Delhi on September 10. He said he wanted to explain the Naga perspective, including the constitutional context, Article 371A and the unresolved political issue. He also urged the RSS to use its influence with the Central Government to help bring about an early settlement.
The meeting matters. It means the Naga question was placed before a consequential figure in India’s political and cultural life. The RSS’s relationship with the BJP-led establishment is part of the context in which Jamir chose to make his appeal. But a meeting is not a settlement, and access is not a mandate. Jamir is neither less Naga nor more Naga because he met Bhagwat. His belonging is not the issue. Nor does the meeting make him the voice of all Nagas.
Recognition means that our history and aspirations must be heard in their own context. It does not mean that one person can speak for everyone, or that everyone must agree with what he says.
The distinction between belonging and mandate came into sharper focus on September 16, when the Nagaland Legislative Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee, led by Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, met NSCN (I-M) leaders at Rhododendron Hall in Chümoukedima. The consultation addressed delays in the peace process and the proposed apex committee. NSCN (I-M) leader Rh Raising described it as a consultation rather than a formal negotiation and questioned Jamir’s authority to speak on the Naga issue.
That is a dispute about representation and authority. It should not be turned into a test of who is sufficiently Naga to speak. Identity cannot depend on political approval. At the same time, no one can claim to represent all Nagas simply because of identity, experience or public standing. A mandate must be established. And those who exercise authority must answer for what they say, what they commit to and what they deliver.
So the question is not only who gets to speak. It is also this: who is answerable for the present, and who gets to keep putting that responsibility off?
The argument over Jamir could easily become a distraction from those directly involved in the peace process. The Naga political question did not begin with him. Its present condition cannot be placed at his door alone. But neither can history serve as a permanent excuse for those who have held authority over the years.
There is an imbalance when an elder outside the current negotiations becomes the immediate focus of public anger, while those involved in the process are not asked equally hard questions. What positions have they taken? What commitments have they made? What opportunities were available, and how were they used? What have they told the people about the delays? What remains unresolved, and why?
These are not questions against the Naga political cause. They are questions that the cause itself deserves to have answered.
The negotiating parties must account for the positions they advance, the commitments they make and the progress they report. The State Government must account for how it governs Nagaland and protects the interests of its people. If a Pan-Naga institution is created, it must also be clear about the powers it will exercise, whom it will represent and how it will be held accountable. A historic cause cannot, by itself, place any institution beyond scrutiny.
Article 371A must also be understood for what it is: a constitutional safeguard. Protecting Naga identity does not require us to accept weak governance, limited democratic participation or institutions that are not answerable to the people. We should not be told, directly or indirectly, that preserving who we are means putting ordinary aspirations aside.
The negotiations must continue. But life cannot wait for them to finish.
People need work and a chance to build a future here. Young people should not feel that leaving Nagaland is their only way forward. Public services must function. Local institutions must do their jobs.
Families need to be able to plan their lives. These are not lesser concerns, to be taken up only after a political settlement. They are part of what any meaningful political future must serve.
A settlement may shape our political arrangements. It cannot do the living for us.
We should not absolve anyone from scrutiny. But neither should we make one person carry the whole weight of a collective disappointment.
Blaming Jamir may be easier than examining the record of those who have exercised authority. Praising him may be just as easy if it allows us to imagine that someone else will find the way out.
Neither response relieves us of our own responsibility.
There is a responsibility here that belongs to our generation. We have inherited a history marked by sacrifice, conflict, competing visions and promises still waiting to be fulfilled. We should neither deny that history nor accept every part of it without question.
The burden of inheritance is not simply that we carry the past. It is that we may carry it without examining it—repeating old arguments, preserving old divisions and postponing decisions that now belong to us.
We have to ask what we have inherited, what still serves the people, what needs to change and what we have learned to repeat without thinking. That work cannot be delegated to negotiators, political leaders or elders. It belongs to us.
Jamir’s intervention can be debated. Its limits can be questioned. His claims can be tested against the historical record and the realities of today. But he should not be made the repository of our failures, any more than he should be treated as the person who can deliver us from them.
The past may help explain how we arrived here. It cannot answer for what we choose to do next.
We must protect the Naga political question without allowing it to consume every other question. We must recognise our history without becoming prisoners of inherited narratives. And we must demand accountability without making identity the test of who deserves to be heard.
Jamir cannot be our scapegoat. He cannot be our escape hatch.
The responsibility is ours. Live. Be heard.
We owe no allegiance to silence. Courage belongs to the living, not the grave.
