When rubbish is left unattended, it does not disappear. It accumulates, spreads, stinks and eventually turns a once-healthy neighbourhood into an unbearable place to live. The same danger confronts Naga society today.
Consider a household that refuses to dispose of its rubbish. On the first day, the pile may be small enough to ignore. By the second, it has grown. Soon, the stench becomes difficult to bear, flies and vermin multiply, and the surrounding environment begins to deteriorate. Yet, instead of cleaning up the mess, the occupants gradually adjust to the foul smell. What once demanded immediate attention becomes part of their daily existence.
The consequences soon extend beyond the household. Neighbours who neither produced the rubbish nor consented to its accumulation are forced to endure its stench. Their health, comfort and environment are compromised by a problem they did not create.
This is the danger of allowing a political problem to remain unresolved for generations. What begins as a failure of leadership can become a crisis for society. A temporary impasse becomes a permanent condition. What should provoke public concern is normalised, and what should never be accepted gradually becomes the order of the day.
The Naga political issue demands an uncomfortable but necessary question: have we become so accustomed to the “trash” surrounding our political struggle that we no longer recognise how deeply it is poisoning our collective future?
For decades, our people have endured political declarations, repeated dialogues, competing interpretations of agreements, factional rivalries, public statements and renewed assurances of an imminent solution. Yet the long-awaited political settlement remains elusive. The vocabulary changes, interlocutors come and go, committees meet, resolutions are adopted and hope is rekindled. But the fundamental question remains unanswered: when will dialogue produce a settlement that the Naga people can understand, assess and accept?
We have become accustomed to living amid the debris of an unfinished political journey. Worse, we risk allowing our children to inherit it as though it were their natural environment.
The Naga political struggle did not emerge from a vacuum. It grew out of a deeply held aspiration concerning identity, history, political rights and the future of the Naga people. Generations have made sacrifices, endured hardship and carried the burden of a cause they believed was greater than themselves.
That history deserves respect. The sacrifices of those who genuinely dedicated their lives to the Naga cause must never be trivialised. Nor should the legitimate aspirations of the Naga people be dismissed simply because the political process has become complicated. But respect for history must not become an excuse for refusing to confront present-day failures.
A movement that began with a collective aspiration cannot indefinitely justify a fragmented political reality. A cause that demands sacrifice cannot become a convenient source of personal privilege. And a struggle undertaken in the name of the people cannot be treated as the private property of those who claim to represent them.
One of the most damaging features of the Naga political landscape today is the proliferation of factions, organisations and competing authorities, often claiming legitimacy from the same historical struggle. Each division weakens the collective voice. Every rivalry complicates negotiations. Competing claims make it harder to establish who can speak authoritatively for the people and who can deliver on a commitment.
The result is a political landscape cluttered with rival claims, conflicting positions and overlapping structures of authority. Instead of presenting a coherent and credible political position, we risk projecting disunity that diminishes our bargaining strength. And while we argue among ourselves, the years continue to pass.
Two milestones illustrate both the promise of the peace process and the frustration surrounding it: the Framework Agreement signed between the Government of India and the NSCN (IM) on 3 August 2015, and the Agreed Position signed between the Government of India and the Working Committee of the Naga National Political Groups (WC-NNPGs) on 17 November 2017.
These developments raised expectations that decades of political confrontation might finally give way to an honourable settlement. Yet the agreements have not translated into a final, broadly accepted political conclusion. Differences over their interpretation, the terms of a settlement and the way forward continue to cloud the process.
In September 2019, the then interlocutor, R. N. Ravi, announced that negotiations had concluded, with the expectation that a solution would follow. But a conclusive settlement did not materialise. Subsequent developments exposed how far the negotiating parties remained from resolving their differences.
The issue is not simply whether agreements were signed. It is whether their contents, implications and implementation can be clearly explained, responsibly negotiated and translated into a durable political arrangement. The Government of India cannot escape scrutiny for the prolonged uncertainty. Neither can the Naga negotiating groups escape scrutiny for failing to bridge differences and build sufficient consensus around a workable conclusion.
It is particularly troubling when agreements are celebrated as historic achievements while the people are left asking what precisely has been agreed, what remains disputed, what can realistically be implemented and within what timeframe. An agreement suspended indefinitely between promise and implementation risks becoming a monument to political indecision rather than an instrument of peace.
A political process cannot survive indefinitely on declarations of sincerity. It must produce measurable progress, transparent communication and a credible roadmap towards a conclusion.
The appointment of Ajit Lal, a retired Indian Police Service officer and former Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, as the new interlocutor in September 2026, together with the reported move to include a Union minister or a group of Union ministers in the negotiation framework, has created another opening for renewed engagement. The NSCN (IM) has welcomed the development while reiterating its demand for a third-party guarantor and its position on a Naga flag and constitution. These issues illustrate the continuing gap between the parties’ positions.
The new arrangement must be used to confront outstanding differences honestly, clarify the status of previous commitments and establish a credible path towards a settlement acceptable to the people. The question is no longer whether enough dialogue has taken place. It is whether the political will exists to bring it to a meaningful conclusion.
~ A. Anato Swu
(Writing from County Antrim, Northern Ireland)
(The views expressed are those of the writer and not of the newspaper)
