During his first year in office, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been attentive to the Indo-Naga political issue in order to strengthen ties with the Nagas in the region in preparation for the smooth policy implementation of his signature recast India’s Look East Policy (LEP) as Act East Policy (AEP) in 2014 to counter China’s strategic balance in the region alongside leading world democracies partners, particularly by leveraging the United States Obama administration’s Asia Rebalancing Strategy (2011) and the US-India Joint Strategic Vision (2015). The signing of the “historic” Indo-Naga Framework Agreement (2015) between the Government of India (GoI) and the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN) was perhaps Modi’s most significant decision in NER to create a conducive socio-political environment of peace and good governance for the successful implementation of India’s overland AEP.
Modi almost added a feather to his cap for attempting to resolve the more than seven-decade-long Indo-Naga political conflict when he declared it “historic” while signing the Indo-Naga Framework Agreement in 2015. However, in terms of priority and emphasis, the Trump administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy was inchoate and ambiguous, resulting in a “worrying” policy situation in Modi’s strategy against China. It also resulted in the failure to implement the 2015 Indo-Naga Framework Agreement, despite its signing six and a half years ago.
There was optimism at the beginning of Modi’s first term in the office or at least when the Indo-Naga Framework was signed in 2015 it was considered a bold step adopted by Modi, with many regional policymakers and analysts noting that Modi’s policies would accelerate India’s overland AEP and bring a peaceful resolution to the protracted Indo-Naga issue. As a result, it is not incorrect to say that the 2015 Indo-Naga Framework Agreement can be viewed as the final ambitious attempt to resolve the Indo-Naga political issue; however, instead of bringing closer, mistrust and confusion have grown between India and the Nagas. On the other side of the strategic equation, it became a microcosm of India’s inattention to the issue and inability to forge stronger strategic relationships with South-East Asian partners, resulting in a standby partner for US strategy in the region with limited progress as it seeks ways to contain China.
Without a doubt, Modi was able to establish a strategic footprint in India’s maritime AEP against China’s geopolitical regional influence, and efforts in Delhi have also focused on improving overland AEP land trade connectivity with ASEAN countries through India’s North-Eastern region, where the Indo-Naga issue has the potential to stymie policy implementation. Regionwide, India’s AEP had failed to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative(BRI) in ASEAN countries, for instance, trade between India and ASEAN has increased from 2.3 billion US dollars in 1991 – 1992 to more than 78 billion US dollars in the fiscal year 2021. In the same period, however, the contrast with China is stark: China-ASEAN trade was only $8.36 billion in 1991. It had risen to $878.2 billion in 2021 last year. At the same time, Modi has shown no interest to resolve the Indo-Naga issue in his second term in office for better overland AEP connectivity, nor to join China’s BRI at least on a diplomatic level, however, it had played a proxy or rather it is practically involved by adopting a proxy strategy. There is no doubt that a better relationship between the Nagas and India will create a conducive environment for overland trade which could have resulted in increased overland trade volume for India with ASEAN and vice-versa.
In light of its lingering AEP geopolitical strategic uncertainty, the settlement or implementation approach for the resolution of the Indo-Naga conflict was conspicuously absent or largely ignored in Modi’s second term strategic map, at the expense of ignoring regional stability in India’s North-Eastern region. As a result, the overland AEP remains a handicapped strategy.
Inconsistency has also defined the Indo-Naga peace talks. Since the early 1950s, there has been a lot of misunderstanding, misinformation, disagreement and misinterpretation between India and the Nagas. For example, a disagreement on the interpretation of the Nine-Point Agreement (1947), Sixteen Point Agreement (1960), and, most recently, the Indo-Naga Framework Agreement (2015) had already created a huge Indo-Naga conundrum.
While India’s efforts to end the Indo-Naga conflict are commendable, Modi cannot expect peace resolution promotion by ignoring or alienating regional partners such as the Naga people, which limits Modi’s ability to help resolve Indo-Naga conflicts, an issue that has the potential to stymie policy implementation and bring peace to India’s north-eastern region. Modi should have moved the Indo-Naga Framework Agreement of 2015 which he declared “historic” into areas where movement can take place instead of deploying a parallel play strategy of test and trial against the Nagas where the relationship between Modi’s government and the NSCN deteriorated as a result of growing distrust between Government of India (GoI) representatives and the NSCN in the aftermath of the GoI signing another agreement with the Naga National Political Groups (NNPGs), a newly formed conglomerate of several Naga armed groups, in 2017. It had also perplexed the Nagas in general.
Thus, if Modi is truly interested in a genuine political settlement to the Indo-Naga issue, rather than simply reaffirming the strength of the Indo-Naga Peace Talks, the outcome after each meeting was reviewed and discussed the importance of working together on the issue in order to advance shared prosperity and values toward a peaceful settlement of the Indo-Naga political issue, a renewed engagement of trust and commitment from all negotiating parties is required. For a genuine movement to occur, Modi should have initiated by even convening third-party observers, or even convening a team of ministers to lead the negotiation for a political issue requiring a political decision, rather than giving its interlocutor a free hand, exacerbating the GoI-NSCN distrust.
If Modi’s agenda is to advance India’s interests in ASEAN countries through overland connectivity while also playing a more dominant role, he must find common ground on issues such as those confronting India’s security, such as the Indo-Naga conflict, which has the potential to escalate into a larger geopolitical conflict in the region. That will not happen with wedges like a haphazard approach to resolving the Indo-Naga conflict or a business-as-usual approach to strategic military cooperation and operations between India and Myanmar against the Nagas.
Author’s Disclosure Statement: Augustine R. is an independent researcher on the India-Naga-Myanmar political issue, as well as on broader global security and strategic issues, and does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article/opinion.
Featured Image: Signing the Indo-Naga Framework Agreement on August 3, 2015/The Indian Express
ICNA reserves all rights to the content submitted. The authors’ views are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of nagaaffairs.org