Nagaland: GPRN/NSCN demands Centre walk the talk on Naga issue
Dimapur: The GPRN/NSCN demanded that the Indian leadership walk the talk on the Naga issue in Nagaland.
Addressing the 45th raising day of the NSCN at its designated camp at Khehoyi on Wednesday, GPRN/NSCN chairman MB Neokpao Konyak said the government of India has the moral responsibility to act since negotiations were completed on October 31, 2019.
He hoped the leadership of the government of India would not procrastinate any further, adding the Naga people are patient practitioners of ancient democratic values.
Calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi a committed leader, Konyak, however, said he is yet to prove himself to the Naga people on the unresolved Indo-Naga political issue.
He said the working committee of the Naga National Political Groups (NNPGs) of which the GPRN/NSCN is a partner signed the "agreed position" with the government of India on November 17, 2017.
“There is a clear political stance in which a passage declares ‘the government of India recognises the historical and political right of the Nagas to self determine their future in consonant with their distinct history and identity...’. This clear political statement and understanding set the tone for political negotiations between the working committee of NNPGs and the government of India’s interlocutor. No authority, be it preposterous Naga elements or the government of India, can dismiss this historical document even in a thousand years,” he said.
According to him, Indian electoral politics and the Naga history are two different matters. Konyak added that the political conflict in India's eastern flank should not be reignited.
“To say it will be detrimental to the government of India’s Look East Policy will be an understatement,” he added.
Stating that from 1980 to 2024, disastrous division among the Nagas and consequent fratricidal killings left thousands of widows and orphans, Konyak said the government of India has taken maximum advantage of the discord within and continued to exert hegemonic rule in the “Naga homeland”.
On the occasion, Konyak appealed to the Nagas to recommit themselves to the sacred Naga cause while acknowledging all Naga tribes, churches and apex civil societies for their unceasing support.