New Delhi: In what may set emergency alarm bells buzzing in India's internal and external security establishments, on Friday, about 2,000 Nagas in insurgency-hotbed Ukhrul in Manipur got together during a local festival that was themed to express solidarity with China on the coronavirus scare.
Big banners saying "Stay strong China, we are with you" dotted the crowded stands even as a singer crooned out a song that expresses a caring sentiment for China.
Outwardly, the development may not mean much, but seen in the backdrop of the ongoing Indo-Naga peace talks and the very close relationship that the Naga rebels shared with the Chinese state in the past, it is replete with significance.
"This is the first time such an event is being organized by Nagas in Manipur in support of China. China has a special place in our hearts," a local who attended the event told ETV Bharat.
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Talks between the Indian government and the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) (NSCN-IM) to end the nearly seven-decades-old Naga insurgency began 22 years ago. In 2015, a framework agreement was signed amid much fanfare with PM Narendra Modi and the Union home minister Ami Shah in attendance, but there has been not much progress evident since then, leading to a sense of frustration among the Nagas.
Says Kumar Sanjay Singh, a keen watcher of developments in Northeast India who also teaches history at Delhi University: "Since November 2019 there's significant disquiet among NSCN (IM) leadership not only at what they perceive as attempts by the government to sideline them but also at the direction that the talks are taking."
"The move (Friday's event at Ukhrul) acquires significance in the backdrop of on the ongoing Indo-Naga talks. Since 2017, Phunting Shimrang (the NSCN-IM commander-in-chief) had been advocating the revival of the old Chinese connection to infuse life in the talks as well as to increase the bargaining capacity of the NSCN."
According to unconfirmed reports from various sources, Shimrang may be present in China.
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"The expression of support for China reeling under the coronavirus epidemic is the deployment of the same tactics but this time through civil society," Singh adds.
It was the Chinese government that the Naga rebel leadership turned to in the past and which in turn, supported the Nagas with weapons, logistics, ideological and military indoctrination.
The Father of the Naga nation, A Z Phizo, is reported to have called people of China as "blood relatives of Nagas" in a speech in 1951.
Present NSCN (IM) supremo, Thuingaleng Muivah, led the first batch of 133 Naga rebels to China in 1967. For the next five years, Muivah stayed in China trying to build up support for the Naga movement as he established close links with the authorities and Chinese military. He came back to Nagaland in 1971 but again led another batch of 200 rebels including 20 women cadres.
