Evolution of cease fire

Over three decades, more than two dozen Naga political groups have splintered and re splintered, with at least five principal NSCN factions and several NNC streams now under formal ceasefire or Suspension of Operations arrangements with the Government of India. The NSCN (Isak Muivah) agreement of 1997 and subsequent ceasefires with NSCN (Khole Kitovi), NSCN (Reformation), NSCN (Niki) and NSCN (K Khango), along with the Working Committee of seven NNPGs, were meant to halt armed confrontation and create space for a negotiated settlement. Ceasefire ground rules are meant to be gentlemen’s agreement but these rules have been honoured as much in the breach as in the observance. Designated camps are often located near or within civilian areas, exposing local communities to risk and normalising the presence of armed men as an everyday fact. Reports and testimonies over the years have described how some of these camps double as safe havens for offenders, informal detention centres or sites of torture, well beyond the spirit of a political truce. Senior leaders move about with armed escorts, and the line between political cadre and local strongman blurs. What was supposed to be a controlled pause in hostilities has turned into a license to enforce parallel authority. The outfits have turned to the public, levying what they call “national tax” or “donations” on virtually every economic activity. Each faction, claiming to be the authentic guardian of Naga sovereignty, appoints its own collectors and issues its own receipts. Salaried employees, government staff, contractors, transporters, shopkeepers and even small vendors find themselves paying multiple groups on the same income, consignment or consignment route at check gates, godowns and retail points alike. Civil society and business bodies have repeatedly warned that this layered regime of illegal taxation is strangling trade, inflating prices and driving some establishments to shut down. In the shadows, factions or their proxies enter markets through benami partnerships, syndicates and protection rackets with non local business interests, distorting competition and corroding the rule of law. The language of nationalism becomes a cover for private accumulation. Though successive state governments have publicly condemned “illegal taxation” yet struggled-or at times appeared unwilling-to confront powerful factions whose support they need. When armed interference in contracts, elections or public life is brushed aside as “politically related incidents” in the name of Naga unity, the message to ordinary citizens is brutal- that their hardship is collateral damage in a game played above their heads. The moral cost is profound. Sovereignty, in this situation , is not lived as a collective aspiration but experienced as a levy with a receipt.A serious course correction demands honesty on all sides. For the Naga groups, it means returning to their principal ideology for their people and cannot continue to drain those very people under the cover of ceasefire ambiguity. For the Government of India and the state, it means recognising that leaving thousands of cadres to “manage” their own sustenance is an invitation to entrenched extortion; structured rehabilitation, transparent funding during transition, and strict enforcement of ground rules are indispensable. Above all, Nagaland needs a frank, public re-examination of its political journey-one that refuses to romanticise armed factions or demonise all dissent, but insists that no cause justifies reducing citizens to ATMs. A ceasefire that merely shifts the burden of conflict from the battlefield to the marketplace is not peace; but a prolonged, quiet violence. If integrity returns to the negotiating table and accountability is finally enforced, the ceasefire can yet become what it was meant to be- a bridge to a just settlement, not a licence to make the people groan under endless “tax.”