Peace map from 1997 to 2011 : Monopolising peace
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 07 2011 -

1997 to 2011 is definitely a long period. Ever since the NSCN (IM) inked the truce pact with the Government of India and proceeded with the political dialogue to find an 'honourable settlement' to the decades old Naga issue, the 14 years old political dialogue has churned out different understanding of peace.

While the guns have been silenced, in so far as the bush war with the Indian security forces is concerned, questions still remain whether this peace has actually extended to the daily lives of the Naga people, who the NSCN (IM) claim to represent. Shops continue to down shutters early in Naga inhabited areas.

The Armed Forces Special Powers Act continue to remain in force in all areas which the IM group of the NSCN claim to represent, taxes or extortion, depending from which direction one views it, continue to burden everyone, diktats continue to silence the voice of the people, threats continue to exact its price, internecine blood- letting (there has been a lull on this front for some time) had characterised a good part of the truce period and the understanding of peace seems to have been hijacked to become the prerogative of some party or certain groups to be quoted indiscriminately to serve their own interest.

Working towards a solution, going on the right track, an honourable settlement etc have all been the defining characteristics of the talk between the two entities but ultimately no one seems to know which direction the talk is headed towards, least of all the very set of people on whose behalf the IM group is purportedly holding the dialogue.

Peace cannot exist in a vacuum. And it definitely cannot be peace when the larger section of the people have been beaten into quiet submission to accept everything that is being pushed down their consciousness in the name of a cause.

Like everything else, peace may have a price. The question that logically follows is whether the price here may be understood in terms of the tension that is being created between different communities.

Whether this price may be seen in the very act of cutting off the lifelines of a people and sowing the seeds of hatred through rabble rousing and indulging in the politics of hate and deceit or not.

Is the price that is being sought to be exacted in the name of peace in line with the purpose for which the guns were taken up in the first place, decades ago ?

Can the Naga people raise this question without any fear or apprehension of being pulled up or socially ostracised ?

Should the price for peace be something voluntary or should it be forcefully extracted from the people ?

Economic blockade is the sum total of the politics of threat and violence, the politics of hate and deceit and it can only have a limited appeal and if the votaries of a Greater Lim are under the impression that their political aspirations can be realised by cutting off the lifelines of a people then peace is the last thing that they should aspire.

Delhi to Imphal. This is the most significant journey that the political dialogue between the NSCN (IM) and the Government has traversed in the last 14 years.

We have raised this point earlier and at the risk of repeating ourselves we refer to this point again.

It is in the nature of political hangers on to reach out to anything that may give them their moments under the Sun and ever since the Lim issue began to stir its head and etch a place in the political consciousness of the people, there have been a number of political opportunists who have been trying to milk the situation.

And this stands true not only on the side of the Lim propagandists but also amongst the people on the opposite end of this issue. At the moment, it is the opportunists who have been having their day.

As in the case of any other contentious issues, it is the rabble rousers, the radicals who occupy the limelight and the question is how long these elements should be allowed to carry on with their own agenda.

Propaganda can succeed in cutting off the lifelines of a people for sometime but this does not in any way answer the question of whether the objective on which the act of cutting off the lifelines has been achieved or taken the people anywhere near the ultimate aim.

Can anyone say with a sense of conviction that the economic blockades of 2005, 2010 and 2011 have led to the materialisation of their objectives. This is the question that the people on whose behalf the blockades were imposed should start asking now.