The Naga community is not opposed to the Kuki-Zomi demand for 'separate administration' but it should not encroach "even an inch" of Naga territory, the Naga insurgent group in ceasefire National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) said on Monday. The statement was made in the July-August edition of the insurgent group's mouthpiece Nagalim Voice and it called the proposed map of a Kuki state as "unrealistic".
"Pathetic is the unrealistic physical map of the proposed Kuki state that covers most parts of the Naga territories, even claiming some of the major Naga tribes as belonging to the Kuki family. Such bewildering concoction will not help the Kuki-Zo case in any manner as history is not established on concoction and falsehood," the statement read.
Naga groups had initially maintained a neutral position with the United Naga Council (UNC), an apex body of the 20 Naga tribes, issuing a statement in July stating that Nagas should not be dragged into the ongoing conflict in Manipur. However, now both the UNC and NSCN(I-M) have issued successive statements registering their opposition to the proposed map of Kuki-administered territory.
The NSCN(I-M) expressed solidarity with the Kuki-Zo community over the violence faced by it during the ongoing conflict, particularly the three Kuki persons who were killed in Ukhrul district's Thawai Kuki village last week. The village is located close to the border of the Naga-dominated Ukhrul district and the Meitei-dominated Imphal East district. The NSCN(I-M) had earlier blamed two other Naga militant groups Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup and Manipur Naga Revolutionary Front (MNRF) for killing the three Kuki villagers.
The NSCN(I-M), however said the Kuki-Zo groups "should tread carefully and never overdo and avoid pandering in the name of "Zalengam" (a separate land for the Kukis)...Thus, a political risk assessment is critically important for the Kuki-Zo community as the Nagas wouldn't allow war-mongering, intrusion, provocation into their ancestral domain," the statement read.
NSCN(I-M) has long backed the 'integration' of the Naga-inhabited areas of Nagaland, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh. The Meiteis, including Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh, are opposed to this demand.
In a region where every ethnic group has its own militant base and has ideas of an imagined map of the territory controlled by it, drawing of maps is often a tedious, drawn-out exercise. While the Nagas were engulfed in a violent clash with the Kuki community in the 1990s, Naga claims for territory in Manipur has also led to tension between Nagas and Meiteis in the last two decades. In 2016, in a reorganisation of the state's administrative divisions, Kangpokpi district was carved out of Senapati district. Kangpokpi is dominated by Kukis while Senapati is dominated by Nagas. Naga groups had then protested against the decision by blockading the highways used to ferry goods in the state for 139 days.
The statement by NSCN(I-M) follows a strongly worded statement issued by the United Naga Council (UNC) opposing the Kuki-Zo representation to the Union government with a demand for separate administration. "With regard to land, the Nagas’ opposition to the creation of new districts in 2016 remains alive as an unfinished issue. Of the districts, ones carved out from Senapati and Chandel districts are the handiwork of the Congress government’s appeasement policy carried out in the name of administrative convenience. Hence the demand of separate administration which incorporates the so-called new two districts is necessarily opposed," the statement by James Hau, Information and Publicity Secretary of the United Naga Council read.
The statement went on to add that it opposed the incorporation of nine Naga tribes as Kuki tribes in the Kuki Constitution. "And, prior to the submission of the memorandum, nine names of Naga tribes of Chandel district were incorporated in the Kuki Constitution as Kuki tribes. The Nagas urge the Kukis to show the basis of the inclusion. The Nagas will not remain mute over the issue. Having said all these, the Nagas believe that nothing in this regard is too late to set the wrong to right," the United Naga Council statement said.