Naga Club writes to President of India and UN Secretary General on scraping of FMR

Hon’ble President and Hon’ble Secretary  General,

The recent decision of the Indian Govt.to scrap the FMR is a crime against humanity in general and the Nagas in particular. The Naga Club which is an institution that upholds the rights of the indigenous Naga people is compelled to seek the intervention of your high office in preventing the perpetuation of another systematic orchestrated organized repression by India against the Nagas. To understand the complexities of the Indo Naga relation and India’s oppressive policies and attitude executed through Govt. policies and military aggression on the Nagas, it is imperative to shed some backgrounds for your learned audience and therefore beg your patient hearing.

For ages, Nagas lived freely without bondage. Each village was a republic by itself, self- contained and completely independent of any other foreign nationalities around them. The Naga people then had absolutely no connection with India whatsoever; they were not Indians and their territory was not a part of the Indian Union. The British Govt. that colonized British India came and took control and administered a very small part of the Naga ancestral area called “Naga Hills’ District” in the later part of nineteenth century. Their exploration into the Naga heartland encountered some of the fiercest battles for 48 years wef 1832. The British expedition sought peace from the Nagas, to end wars with the British as well as amongst the various Naga villages. Their amiable nature warmed up to the people to find acceptance as a friendly nation. To ensure a peaceful atmosphere, a rule of law was established to govern the people and the land. The rule of the British Govt. brought the villages to live under one administrative unit. Such a rule was never established by way of military conquest or by treaty of surrender.

When the Simon Commission, a British Statutory Body, visited Kohima to find out whether Nagas would like to join the NEW REFORMED SCHEME OF INDIA, Naga Club submitted a Memorandum to the Simon Commission in 1929 wherein the Nagas made its stand very clear that Nagas were never subjugated by any foreign power and therefore, when the British leaves India, Nagas should be ‘left alone to determine for themselves as in ancient times’ without any external dominion. When the British Govt. had set the time to withdraw from India, this desire of the Nagas was again reiterated and in consultation with Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Indian Nation who agreed that if the Nagas did not want to be a part of India, it cannot be forced to be with India, and thus the Nagas declared the Naga Independence day on 14th August in 1947, a day ahead of India’s Independence, and communicated it to the Secretary General of United Nations (UN).When the British Govt. left the Indian sub-continent without any clear decision and plan, the fate of the Nagas and their administration were purportedly thrusted into the hands of another foreign power which became the genesis of all the Indo-Naga war for the last seven decades. When the Indian Govt. sent their administrators to rule over the Naga areas without justification, it was greatly resented and opposed by the Naga people. There was much unrest in the area. And when the Indian Govt. continued to force its occupation, the Nagas held a voluntary ‘Naga Plebiscite’ on 16th May, 1951 at Nagaland in which 99.9% of the Naga people endorsed and voted against the imposition of Indian rule over the Nagas. This was made known to the world and the records testify to this fact.

Thus, these three events amongst many others, sets the unique case of the Nagas apart from others.

Ever since India came into being as an independent nation, its relation with the people of ethnic minorities and particularly with the Nagas has been marred with unfathomable and unspeakable crimes against humanity. Firsthand accounts of such insane and barbaric crimes committed on the Nagas have been recorded by various authors and in particular by an eminent social activist in his book “The Naga Saga”. The conduct and attitude of India towards the Nagas has been grounded on oppression, military aggressions, human right violations, exploitations and the demeanor of a bully that has no respect for the rights of lesser entities.

This is evident from how India in connivance with the then Burma divided the Nagas and their land with an arbitrary line without the consent of the Naga local dwellers. That the line was an inhumane arbitrary line of administrative convenience is apparent from the fact that the alleged and so-called international boundary line passes through and inside of the house of the Chief of Longwa village in Mon district of Nagaland. What is noteworthy is that the people were there first before any arbitrary line was drawn.

a) Oting Massacre: On the night of the 4th of December 2021 the Indian paramilitary forces staged and ambush at Oting, Mon District Nagaland wherein 13young innocent unarmed daily wage Naga labourers were savagely ambushed and killed in cold blood. Evidences revealed that after killing the innocent labourers, the Indian paramilitary forces were caught in the process of trying to dress the victims in military fatigues to blame them as armed insurgents and to justify their killings for ulterior motives. It is not unknown that Indian military and paramilitary personnel often stage such false encounters for recognition, promotion, monetary perks and so called bravery awards and citations. In spite of telltale signs and un-missable evidences of cold blooded murder of the innocents in this botched fake encounter, India, so called the largest democracy has hushed up the investigation to protect the guilty and has denied justice to the victims till date.

b)  The Free Movement Regime (FMR):Initiated in the 1970, the FMR allows movement of people living near the arbitrary so called international border to travel upto 16 km without a visa. There are four districts of Nagaland where this arbitrary line passes through and about four hundred villages scattered on either side where they cross the supposed border on a daily basis for farming for survival. The Naga ethnic tribals were already in homogeneous existence long before the independent India came into being and long before any arbitrary line was drawn by India’s Nehru and Burma’s Unu. On 20th Jan 2024, India announced the abrogation of the FMR and the decision to permanently fence the so called Indo-Myanmar border. Such an inhuman fence will deprive those villagers their basic needs of food and rights to their own lands. Such a fence is not only an encroachment into the ancestral Nagas’ lands but also a crime against humanity and human survival. It is therefore incumbent upon civilized societies to oppose such an oppressive act. This predicament is not inherent to Nagaland alone but also to the tribals of Manipur and Mizoram.

The present dispensation of the Government of India continues to uphold Nehru’s legacy of arrogant aggression against the Nagas by its decision to end the Free Movement Regime (FMR). What makes it even more cruel, inhumane and criminally inclined is that it has decided to end the FMR purportedly at the behest of the sitting Chief Minister of India’s Manipur, who is already infamous for the alleged ethnic cleansing orchestrated on a section of its tribal Christian population, thus making the present ruling dispensation in Delhi a partner in crime that the dispensation in Manipur is accused of. What makes it more malicious in the policies of India towards the tribal populace is that it purportedly decided to end the FMR on the strength of the justification by the Chief Minister who accuses the existence of FMR to justify and condone the occurrence of unimaginable violence and crimes committed on a section of the tribals under his watch. To cover up the crimes on ethnic minorities in Manipur, another crime is being manufactured against the ethnic tribals in the whole region around the arbitrary international border in the form of abrogating the FMR and the proposal to erect permanent fencing to divide the indigenous ethnic tribals.

c) Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act 2023: The Government of India recently passed the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act 2023. In section 1A, subsection 2 clause (c), which deals with the forest excluded from the purview of protection and thus states, “The following categories of land shall not be covered under the provisions of this Act, namely:—…. such forest land,—(i) as is situated within a distance of one hundred kilometers along international borders or Line of Control or Line of Actual Control, as the case may be, proposed to be used for construction of strategic linear project of national importance and concerning national security;”. While on one hand the Government of India is promoting the conservation of forests, on the other hand it is engaged in amending environmental laws that renders the judiciary powerless to protect the same forest and areas that were once protected under the same law prior to amendment, the reference of 100 km from the present so called international border smacks of malice and will engulf almost all of the present Nagaland and threatens the green forest cover of Nagaland. Such a policy of India is hypocrisy at best and exploitation at worst.

What makes such an act even more suspicious is the thrust by the National Mission on Edible Oils-Oil Palm (NMEO-OP) which is a centrally Sponsored Scheme with a mission to acquire additional 6.5 lakh hectares of land for palm oil by 2025-26 so as to raise the area under palm oil cultivation to 10 lakh hectares by 2025-26 and 16.7 lakh hectares by 2029-30. Although the NMEO-OP may not be a linear project per se, it is apparently a project of national importance and given the poor record of India’s tyrannical attitude towards the Nagas, the speculation and apprehension on the potential for acquisition of tribal lands on the pretext of national security interest, for economic exploitation while also devastating the land for palm oil cultivation, is not without cause, and not forgetting the close proximity of the edible oil barons to the ruling dispensation. Even though it is an established fact that oil palm is a plant notorious for its excessive requirement of chemicals, fertilizers, pesticides and huge water consumption disturbing the water table that adversely affects the ecosystem beyond redemption, there is an increased push for the cultivation of oil palm in Nagaland.

d) Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA): India continues to misuse military power for oppression and aggression over the Nagas through AFSPA which is in force in Nagaland till today. The Indian Government in its intent to continue to exercise the abuse of military power over the Nagas, promulgated the infamous “Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1958” which empowers the Indian Army to arrest without any warrant, or shoot and kill anyone on mere suspicion, without question and without any accountability or liability for their actions. In practice, AFSPA is a license to kill with impunity, and in a civilized world, there is no room for such barbaric laws to exist.

The Nagas shall oppose any restriction of movement of its people in its indigenous ancestral lands as well as oppose the erection of any physical barrier that is built on arbitrary and imaginary lines devised to divide and separate the ethnic Nagas in their own dwelling places.

The Indo Naga conflict is one of the longest conflicts that continue till today. It continues to persist so because India refuses to acknowledge the ground realities of its occupational aggression and/or its policies of oppression that it continues to perpetrate in the likes of the scrapping of FMR. Such acts shall only serve to push the wedge of mistrust deeper into the Indo-Naga political conflict that refuses to cease.

It is for this inhuman act of scrapping the FMR, the Naga Club appeals to your learned authority to prevent such misadventure on the Nagas again.

Thanking you.

Yours Sincerely

1. Kuolochalie Seyie

President, Naga Club

2. KN Mhonthung Lotha

General Secretary, Naga Club

3. Dr. Vinito L Chishi

Advisor, Naga Club

4. Savilie Krunielie

Working Committee member