NSCN-IM team in Delhi for talks, may request for ‘new interlocutor’

Sources in the organisation said while their main intent is to reach an agreement with the Centre at the earliest, they will request that this round of discussions be conducted by a new interlocutor.

Since last year, relations between NSCN-IM and Ravi has steadily deteriorated, with the former accusing Ravi of having “mistreated’’ them and “gone back on his word’’.

A senior NSCN-IM leader said that besides the organisation, there is a lot of public resentment against Ravi of his handling – “or, rather, mishandling” – of the peace talks. “At the end of the day, it is for Delhi to work out and decide whether Ravi will continue as interlocutor. We will accept whatever decision they make, but it has also been pointed out to them that as of now there is a huge trust deficit between Ravi and NSCN-IM, and Ravi and the Naga people,” this leader said.

While a chasm between the two sides developed soon after the peace talks concluded, a letter from Ravi to Nagaland CM Neiphiu Rio on June 16, stating that law and order situation in the state was worsening due to these “armed groups’’, only widened the trust gap further.

NSCN-IM leaders allege that Ravi “backtracked on his commitment’’ to them – that he had initially “agreed to the sovereign nature of Naga identity’’ and then refused to the demand for a separate flag and constitution. “We will still be an integral part of India. We just want to maintain our identity,’’ a leader said.

The duration of the team’s Delhi visit as well as the discussions are indefinite and will depend on progress of the talks and their outcome, according to the organisation.

According to one NSCN-IM leader, Ravi’s conduct has been “sad” for both the Centre and Naga groups and Naga people. “He should have kept his word. That is the only way forward. Otherwise we are back to square one, and all progress we had made amounts to nothing. Both sides want to solve the issue as quickly as possible, but Ravi has made it difficult for the government,” this leader said.

In his scathing four-page letter in June, Ravi had stated that Nagaland was being run by over half-a-dozen “armed gangs’’ running “so-called governments’’ and challenging he legitimacy of the constitutionally established state government, and who question the integrity and sovereignty of the nation.

In response, the NSCN(IM) stated that if Governor Ravi identifies the issue in Nagaland as a law and order problem, and not a political one, then “he is not the right person to solve the long-standing Indo-Naga problem’’.

The letter upset most groups in the state, including the NNPG, an umbrella platform of Naga insurgent groups that had so far cooperated with the Centre. “We were not so much upset by the letter as amused by it. Ravi had struck a deal with some of the Naga political groups here and he used that as a bargaining chip with us,” a source in NSCN-IM said. “When he realised that this was of no use and that we stuck to our stand, he got frustrated. The letter was a sign of his frustration and his failure.”