Nagaland: After NSCN-IM, Global Naga Forum Raises Concerns Over RIIN

Days after the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) (NSCN-IM) opposed the Register of Indigenous Inhabitants of Nagaland (RIIN), the Global Naga Forum (GNF)has also expressed concerns over the regulation stating that it will have serious unintended consequences.

In a statement issued the Global Naga Forum said that even though the RIIN has been introduced by the Government of Nagaland to protect the land and employment rights of indigenous inhabitants from illegal immigration and unregulated influx of non-Nagas into the state, its implementation will cause irreparable divisions among the Nagas.

The GNF said that in the first place, the RIIN may serve the interest of a few Nagas and other indigenous residents seeking government employment. GNF is not belittling this potential benefit to some, but the RIIN will not protect the rights of indigenous people because it leaves the problem of illegal immigration and uncontrolled influx intact.

The GNF said that in the long run, RIIN will end up favoring the limited interests of some individuals while failing to safeguard the indigenous rights of the Naga people in their own homeland.

Significantly, the GNF also said that the RIIN will eventually divide Nagas of Nagaland and Nagas from other states and regions.

The GNF said that with RIIN, the Nagaland Government will give its official approval to the politically-motivated divisions of the Nagas on the basis of states and regions, and will make permanent the physical breakup of the Naga ancestral homeland.

“The RIIN will widen the distinctions among Nagas even further by helping foment more ideological antagonisms and psychological distance. As a Naga elder from Nagaland put it, in a meaningful jest, the RIIN will have the ludicrous effect of making the Nagas of Nagaland feel like indigenous Naga Brahmins among their own people,” said the GNF in the statement.

To drive its point home, the GNF said, “It would be relevant to recall here that past sessions of the Nagaland Legislative Assembly have passed six resolutions in favor of Naga integration, presumably following Point 13, the provision for “Consolidation of Contiguous Naga Area,” of the 16-Point Agreement, to which the Nagaland state owes its existence. Point 13 states: “The other Naga Tribes inhabiting the areas contiguous to the present Nagaland be allowed to join the Nagaland if they so desire.”

Significantly, the GNF stated that the latest PAC Consultative Meeting on the Naga political issue last month was not an inclusive consultation as it left out some of the key stakeholders.

With the RIIN in tow, which risks undermining the very fabric of Naga peoplehood, the current NLA and Government have serious soul-searching to do, the GNF statement said.

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