Common people can be forgiven for paying scant attention to significant developments but even the media has dumbed down so much thanks to the baneful influence of 24×7 television, that a landmark peace accord on Monday received only passing mention in various media outlets. To an extent, the media giving primacy to the political battles inside and outside Parliament is right since that caters to the popular curiosity. But unless the media tries and interests people in equally serious events outside of competitive politics, the people are likely to remain ill-informed and uninterested in matters of great national interest. For instance, the accord signed by the Prime Minister with the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) holds the promise of resolving one of the longest-running internal challenges posed by the armed rebels in the country’s volatile Northeast.
For two decades, the Centre’s designated interlocutors have been negotiating for such an outcome but it is to the credit of the Modi Government that it has clinched what others have somehow failed to do. This is a major feather in the Government’s cap. People in Nagaland and the adjoining states can hope to live in peace now that the main rebel group has signed up for peace with the Centre. Nagas have fought for independence and later full autonomy, virtually since the birth of the Republic. In later years, as the Indian security forces succeeded in enforcing a tenuous peace, they have most vociferously agitated for the creation of what they call Greater Nagaland with the accretion of land from the adjoining Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. People in these States too will heave a sigh of relief, given that very often those living in areas bordering Nagaland often faced violent attacks from the Naga rebels. This should be the first tangible gain of Monday’s accord.
Admittedly, fuller details of the agreement were yet to be made public but from the statement of the NSCN- IM chief Thuingaleng Muivah at the signing ceremony at the Prime Minister’s house, there could be cautious optimism that lasting peace would return to the Northeast. Muivah said that “we are making a new beginning … 60 years is a long time of fighting, the wounds are deep but they would soon begin to heal…” Admittedly, the breakaway Khaplang group was still to come on board but the Centre has all along refused to talk to it, according the Isak-Muivah group primacy in backchannel negotiations. The Khaplang group was behind the recent attack on the army convoy in Manipur. This later resulted in a quick reprisal by a Special Forces group of the armed forces which neutralized a number of rebels belonging to the Khaplang group inside the Myanmar territory. The Prime Minister, speaking at the accord signing ceremony on Monday, struck the right note, declaring that eventually greater economic and social development of the Northeast alone would guarantee durable peace in the entire region. Modi has quite clearly been attending to the urgent matters of the State, including those which had proved intractable for over six decades. Even if his critics and a section of the media fails to acknowledge his good work, he can be trusted to strive, undaunted by all the controversies, for the larger national good. He has notched up a major victory by clinching the Naga peace accord.
