India’s long-held secular credentials, which claimed to guarantee social cohesion and cultural diversity, have come under severe scrutiny with the rise of Hindutva and Hindu radicalism. The marginalized religious and ethnic minority groups are increasingly facing systemic discrimination and persecution, intensifying their ongoing freedom movements in the length and width of India, from Kashmir to Northeastern Nagalim.
The latest wave of violence started in May 2023 between the Meitei Majority Hindu tribe with greater political power and the Indigenous Kuki Christian minority tribe, which remains marginalized, over land rights in Northeast India. In the wake of India’s Citizenship Amendment Act and National Registration of Citizens, which the International Community terms as “fundamentally discriminatory,” there is clear evidence of using these laws as tools of demographic engineering and systemic marginalization of the Indigenous people, especially religious and ethnic minorities. In the areas where there is any freedom movement, such as in Kashmir and the Northeastern Seven Sisters region, these Laws, in continuation of previous attempts, seem to discredit the independent movements of the local people. Among others, the struggle for independence of Nagalim, the oldest conflict in Asia or the second oldest in the world, has gained much traction with international support for the Independent State of Nagalim.
Historically, Nagalim, meaning “the land of Naga Language speaking people,” encompasses present-day Nagaland proper, Manipur, Assam, and Arunachal Pradesh in India, and Kachin State and Sagaing Division in Myanmar. In 1929, the Naga People, through a Memorandum, conveyed that once the British left, they should be left to live on their own as before the colonization. In 1946, the British asked the Naga National Council (NNC) and the Indian Government to work out their terms of co-existence once the British withdrew from the region. Subsequently, in June 1947, the NNC and India reached a Nine Point Agreement under which India was given the Guardian Powers for 10 Years; thereafter, the Naga people would be free to decide their future. Unlike other union territories that were forced to sign the Indian Union Charter, Nagas never signed it, and they maintained their independence with a separate army, a flag, and a constitution. However, India violated the terms of the agreement. It tried to integrate and assimilate the whole region through forced conversions from Christianity to Hinduism and ethnic cleansing to quash their freedom struggle. As a result, on 14 August 1947, Nagalim was declared an independent country. India disregarded the Declaration of Independence and sent its “armed forces to destroy, by any means, the material and spiritual basis of Naga peoples’ independence.” In 1951, NNC, once again, held a referendum, and the Plebiscite turned out to be 99.9% vote for independence.
The Nagalim resistance movement gained momentum when, in 1952, under the presence of heavy military deployment, India imposed general elections on the Naga people, which they boycotted. From 1956, the year India’s constitution failed to live up to the commitments under the agreement with the Naga people, to 1959, the Naga people fought the Indian forces and defeated them. Later on, in 1975, when India imposed a surrender act called the “Shillong Accord” upon the Naga people, they gathered under the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN) and opposed India. Thereafter, various negotiations have only resulted in a framework agreement to resolve the issue. On the peace talks under the Modi Government, the Former CM of Nagaland says that these negotiations “have remained purely symbolic and deceptive” because the paper talks differ from the actions on the ground.
In an interview, Miss Grace Collins, the honorary president of the Nagalim Independent State recognized by the US, recently argued that the region was “divided without the consent of the local people into four parts,” as mentioned above. Further, Ms. Collins contends that “there is nothing Indian about Nagas DNA wise, they do not look Indian by any means from the traditional word of Asian.” That said, Ms. Grace further adds that India has given a free hand to Hindu Zionist groups under the pretext of an ethnic clash in Manipur to counter and neutralize their freedom struggle systemically.
India has put an area restriction area; no people are allowed to come in or go out of Nagaland. It has used draconian laws as an instrument of persecution, which gives the Indian forces “the right to shoot any Nagas without any consequences,” says Ms. Grace. Since 2010, India has restricted foreign investment in the region to hinder economic development. A human rights organization recently granted India an F rating, “the third most human rights violator in Asia.” As per the said organization, the atrocities committed by Indian forces and radical groups have resulted in violation of 24 out of 30 Human Rights declarations. Groups Like the Global Hindu Heritage Foundation(GHHF), a non-profit organization in the US, collect donations in America and fund violence against religious and ethnic minorities, especially in the Northeastern states of Nagaland and Manipur.
Ms. Grace recently reiterated that the only option out of a breakup of India and a Breakup with India for the Indigenous people was a breakup from India. Her comments come in the contemporary geopolitical context of great power contestation where the struggle of an Independent State of Nagalim can become a tool for coercion and compliance and, subsequently, punishment for India. Such an eventuality, as some commenters point out, would shape the region and beyond, marking the beginning of the dismemberment of India. She further suggested that since Naga Christians and Muslims in India are equally oppressed by the Hindu radicals, this brings them a common cause, and, therefore, the Muslim countries and their leadership should support the Nagalim just like they do for their fellow Muslims. According to Ms. Grace, “It would be the most beautiful act of service by the international community to support the creation of a Christian state of Nagalim in the Northeast of India.”
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