The National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) on Monday released an eight-page letter written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 25 by its general secretary Thuingaleng Muivah on various aspects of the ongoing peace talks, including its resumption at the “highest” level to “save” the process.

The letter was released because of the “delay and the lack of response from the office of the Indian Prime Minister to our people”.

This is the second time NSCN (I-M) has made public a document related to the peace process to resolve the decades-old Naga political problem.

On August 16, it made public the Framework Agreement signed on August 3, 2015, to counter the “manipulated” copy of the document circulated by Nagaland governor and the interlocutor for peace talks, R.N. Ravi. He is also a signatory to the agreement. The NSCN (I-M) has sought the removal of Ravi, compelling the Centre to resume the talks with Intelligence Bureau officials.

The Centre, according to reports, had “fixed” September to wrap talks and announce a final deal. However, like last year’s October deadline, this one too did not materialise, because the outfit stuck to its stand of a separate flag and constitution, a demand the Centre has “expressed” its inability to accept.

Muivah’s letter states at the outset that after 22 years of political dialogue between the government of India and the outfit, a “serious deadlock” has emerged on the issue of the Naga “National Flag” and “Constitution”.

Besides urging Modi to arrive at an amicable and honourable political solution to the Naga issue and citing the reasons for the strained ties with Ravi, Muivah’s letter says that under the given circumstances and in order to “save” the political dialogue, talks should resume at the “highest” level; “without pre-condition and outside India in a third country”. “And if our stay in India is no more welcome, all necessary arrangement must be made for us to leave India and the political talks be resumed in a third country,” Muivah said.

The behaviour of Ravi, Muivah has said, towards the Nagas is totally unacceptable.

Some of the other points raised in Muivah’s letter:

⚫The NSCN agreed to start political negotiation with the Gol only after it recognised the Naga issue as political and stopped terming it as India’s “Internal Law and Order Issue”.

⚫It has come as a total shock and surprise that the Gol has started branding and accusing the members of the NSCN who are in political negotiation as “terrorist”.

⚫Ravi has again given an ultimatum to the NSCN, “The next date of meeting will be fixed after NSCN submits its draft proposal as was told to them in the meeting dated 30th January, 2020”. This calls for an official clarification from the Gol.