A PUBLIC REBUTTAL

The Global Naga Forum (GNF) issues this statement not to trade insults with individuals, nor to prolong sterile polemics, but to uphold historical truth, moral clarity, and the enduring unity of the Naga people at a moment when divisive rhetoric threatens to poison the minds of a new generation.

During the consultative meeting of the Central Nagaland Tribes Council (CNTC) on November 11, 2026, two troubling narratives were placed before the public: first, the assertion by former Chief Secretary Alemtemshi Jamir, IAS (Retd.), that Nagas had little collective identity prior to 1917 and that Naga nationalism is a recent construct; and second, the ultimatum issued by retired IAS officer K.K. Sema declaring that Nagaland’s future would not be decided by the Tangkhuls and commanding “Southern Nagas” to either conform to his demands for transparency or “GET OUT.”

When voices of authority use public platforms to shrink Naga history and tell fellow Nagas to leave their ancestral homeland, silence ceases to be restraint—it becomes complicity. Yet we refuse to answer provocation with provocation. Instead, we hold up the mirror of documented history and unassailable principle, placing the burden of proof squarely where it belongs.

I. The Burden of Proof Lies on Those Who Divide

Before anyone presumes to tell a Naga from the south, east, or north to “get out,” they owe the Naga people a clear, forthright answer to three foundational questions:

1. By what ancestral or moral authority does any citizen convert an administrative state line—drawn by an external Parliament in 1963—into a weapon to declare fellow Nagas unwanted strangers in their own ancestral homeland?
2. How can anyone claim exclusive ownership over the State of Nagaland on the basis of the 1960 16-Point proposal—an arrangement engineered by Jawaharlal Nehru and his domestic intermediaries specifically to submerge and erase the age-old sovereign nationhood of the Nagas—while simultaneously abandoning its own integration clause (Point 13) and erasing the tens of thousands of Naga patriots across all territories whose blood alone compelled New Delhi to act? In treating present state boundaries as the final culmination of the Naga issue, they are breaking up the very floor on which they claim to stand.
3. Why is “transparency” demanded selectively against one section of the Naga family, while the closed-door negotiations of the 1960 16-Point proposal—concluded without a popular plebiscite or collective mandate—are treated as beyond scrutiny?

Those who seek to partition the Naga soul bear the heavy burden of justifying why colonial cartography should triumph over bloodline, shared memory, and common sacrifice.

II. Setting the Historical Record Straight: Rooted in Village Republics, Bound as One Federal Nation

To argue that Nagas lived in isolated villages with little collective awareness prior to

1917—and that our shared identity is less than a century old—is to misunderstand the very foundation of Naga polity and confuse decentralized self-governance with the absence of nationhood.

• Rooted in Village Republics, Organized by Federal Principle: The Naga nation did not originate in an Act of the Indian Parliament; it is rooted from time immemorial in our sovereign, self-governing Village Republics. It is precisely because every Naga village stood as an autonomous republic—free from kings, emperors, or external subjugation—that the Naga people adopted a Federal system of national governance, uniting free republics into one indivisible sovereign nation without erasing local self-rule. Moreover, villages never fell from heaven in isolation: larger clan, phratry, and tribal bloodlines spread across villages, ridges, and modern borders long before colonial lines were drawn. From Makhel and Khezhakeno to our shared lineages across Manipur,

Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Myanmar, our chief’s house has been divided between two nations. Accepting a narrow state-centric narrative turns tribes divided across borders into strangers and enemies within their own bloodlines.

• Pre-1917 Inter-Tribal Solidarity: Nagas did not “discover” one another for the first time in France in 1917. As early as the 1830s and 1880s, Nagas from diverse hills worked side-by-side in Upper Assam, organically forging Nagamese as our shared inter-tribal language. Nagas stood together in the frontier expeditions of 1911–12, mobilized over 2,000 men across tribal lines for the World War I Labour Corps, established the pan-Naga Naga Club in 1918, and jointly declared their right to self-determination in the historic 1929 Memorandum to the Simon Commission.
• The 1947 Nine-Point Agreement vs. the 1960 16-Point Proposal: History must never be blurred to legitimize the division of our people. The 1947 Nine-Point Agreement negotiated between the Naga National Council (NNC) and Governor Sir Akbar Hydari—which recognized Naga rights over their lands, customs, and administrative unity—stands fundamentally apart from the 1960 16-Point proposal submitted by the Naga People’s Convention (NPC). Whereas the NNC stood on the bedrock of the May 16, 1951 Voluntary Plebiscite affirming sovereign Naga nationhood, the 16-Point arrangement was designed by New Delhi to create an Indian state that would fracture pan-Naga unity and extinguish our ancient national status. Even earlier, in 1956, liberal NNC leaders met Prime Minister Nehru regarding administrative unity, and Tangkhul Naga MP Rishang Keishing championed the integration of the Naga Hills, Tuensang, and Tirap on the floor of Parliament. To use a statehood born of pan-Naga blood to tell Tangkhuls and Southern Nagas to “get out” is an indefensible distortion of history.

III. Safeguarding Our Youth from Inherited Prejudice

Let there be no misunderstanding about the Global Naga Forum’s clear position and firm stand on the question of Naga peoplehood. We stand unwaveringly for integrity, transparency, and ethical accountability across all public institutions and leadership—demanded through universal principles and institutional reform, never through below-the-belt personal attacks or the collective scapegoating of the Tangkhul community or Southern Nagas.

Our deepest concern is for the rising generation of Naga youth. When elders normalize the language of exclusion and frame fellow Nagas across artificial state borders as adversaries, they plant seeds of manufactured hatred that could take generations to uproot. Look around the world and across the subcontinent: diverse populations that share neither ancestral origin, customary law, nor ancient kinship have forged powerful political unions to secure their future. By contrast, Nagas share common genesis stories, unbroken kinship, egalitarian village traditions, and a century of shared graves. Reducing our collective destiny to the narrow defense of provincial boundaries, administrative postings, and central fiscal packages diminishes us all.

IV. A Call to Mature, Dignified Statesmanship

Differences of opinion on political strategy, constitutional arrangements, and governance are natural in any vibrant society. The Global Naga Forum calls upon all tribal councils, senior citizens, intellectuals, and public figures to elevate our public discourse above parochialism and personal invective.

Let us debate policies with rigor. Let us demand transparency from all leaders without fear or favor. Let us confront every internal failing honestly. But let us never mistake a colonial-era administrative boundary as fait accompli, nor accept the psychological barriers and physical fences erected by today’s colonial counterparts to fragment and destroy the Naga ancestral homeland. Let us not forget the simple, powerful truth that the strength and future of the Naga people lies in our solidarity, which is why our adversaries are working overtime to destroy it. History teaches us though that: No external power can ever break a people who refuse to disown one another.

Issued by:

Global Naga Forum (GNF)

(The views expressed are those of the writer and not of the newspaper)