Kohima, September 1 (MExN): The Naga Students’ Federation (NSF), on September 1, censured the Governor of Nagaland and Government of India appointed Interlocutor for Indo-Naga political negotiation RN Ravi, for his “shallow attempt” to “distort the historical truth” of the Nagas.
The Federation, in particular, objected to a portion in the Governor’s 75th Independence Day message on August 15 which stated: “In the autumn of their rule, when the British conspired to partition India and give away northeast India to Pakistan, the leaders of Naga Hills stood in solidarity with the rest of the country and thwarted the diabolical colonial conspiracy.” “Naga leaders played significant roles in the constitutional evolution of India,” the message added.
The Governor’s continued glorification of the Naga People’s Convention (NPC) and the 16th Point charter of demands which had long been “disowned by the Naga people through his various acts of patronizing its founders and leaders is another matter of great concern to the Naga youth and students,” the NSF said.
In a press release from its Media Cell, the NSF also alleged that he intends to “divide the Naga people” via his rhetoric and the Governor’s “claims and successive misadventures only reveals his shallow understanding of the Naga history.” It also reveals the “the narrow walls within which he has been trying to solve the vexed Indo-Naga Political issue,” it said.
According to the NSF, such actions only “undermines and belittles the very people he has been assigned to have a political dialogue in-order to pave the way for lasting peace and tranquillity all over the Naga homeland.”
“Such a divisive mind at the helm of affairs from the Indian side in the political negotiation, the current peace process becomes doubtful to be enduring,” it reiterated. “The Federation wants to set the record straight that the Naga people declared their Independence on 14th August 1947 and the same was ratified through a Naga National plebiscite in 1951,” the NSF stated.
Historically, it is clear that the Naga homeland came to be a “part of the existing Indian union neither by consent nor by conquest,” it said, adding that the “Naga people’s assertion for self-determination is in line with the inherent ethos, values and customary systems of the Naga society and not otherwise.”
In this connection, the NSF appealed the Interlocutor to rise to the occasion in the interest peaceful co-existence between the Naga people and their neighbours. The Governor should refrain from furthering the old ‘carrot and stick’ policy and adopt a more pragmatic approach in order to ensure that the interests of the two entities are upheld through the political solution, it added.
