Promises on ga Accord

R V. Ravi, the Centre’s interlocutor for the ga talks .made the promise on Monday that the Government of India would give adequate weightage to the views and concerns of all the stakeholders while going for a comprehensive solution of the ga political problem. He also said that Assam would not be affected in any way by the Centre’s initiatives to solve the ga political problem. Ravi, who is also the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) said that the government was keen on finding a comprehensive solution to the problems, and that is why the views of all the stakeholders would be give due consideration while implementing the framework agreement signed with the NSCN (I-M). He admitted that there were apprehensions in Manipur about the signing of the framework agreement with the NSCN (I-M) and that the communication gap was the main reason for such apprehensions.
It is time the Centre realized that much of the apprehensions concerning its framework agreement with the NSCN (I-M) stem from the fact that the stakeholders are now being asked to ratify a fait accompli even though they know practically nothing about the terms of the accord. Here is an accord signed with just one ga organization about which even the rest of the gas know practically nothing. And even after weeks of the accord having been signed, the stakeholders of a democratic country know nothing about its precise terms. There are legitimate reasons for the neighbouring States of galand to fear that the demand of the NSCN (I-M) to have ga-domited territory of neighbouring States like Assam, Manipur and Aruchal Pradesh made part of the proposed Greater galim may have been acceded to. After all, why should the NSCN (I-M) suddenly agree to a new framework agreement drafted by the Centre after decades of intransigence? Ravi must also keep in mind the fact that galand has already occupied more than 66,000 hectares of Assam’s territory by force and erected government buildings on the territory so annexed. Armed ga miscreants have killed people living in Assam along the Assam-galand border, taken over their households and cattle and made others flee to save their lives. None of this is likely to have influenced the thinking of either the Union government or the NSCN (I-M) when framework accord was signed. Ravi is very right in concluding that a communication gap was the main reason for the apprehensions in the minds of the stakeholders. But this avoidable communication gap was the handiwork of the Union government motivated a by a strong desire to keep the framework accord a close secret in order to skirt around objections from the stakeholders that were bound to have cropped up given the idea of “shared sovereignty” and fears of willingness to alter the boundaries of neighbouring States in order to create a “greater galim”. Ravi has already had to make two trips to Manipur and hold extended talks with the Chief Minister and various civil society groups to dispel many of the apprehensions and answer a host of questions on the accord. None of this would have been necessary if the Union government had made the terms of the framework accord with the NSCN (I-M) public before signing it, instead of trying to foist a fait accompli on the people of galand as well as the stakeholders of the accord—the people of the neighbouring States of Assam, Manipur and Aruchal Pradesh. This is not how a government is expected to function in a democracy. This act of having a secret accord between the Union government and just one organization of galand is not very different from the dirty divide-and-rule policy adopted by our former British rulers.