Replacing Ravi as interlocutor will derail talks: Naga group

Appointing a new interlocutor will take the Naga peace talks back to zero, said the working committee of the Naga National Political Groups (NNPG), maintaining that Governor RN Ravi has exhibited a serious commitment to resolving the decades-old issue. All negotiating groups agreed in principle that dialogues had completed on October 31, 2019.

Appointing a new interlocutor will take the Naga peace talks back to zero, said the working committee of the Naga National Political Groups (NNPG), maintaining that Governor RN Ravi has exhibited a serious commitment to resolving the decades-old issue. The working committee of the NNPG, a conglomerate of seven organisations, said they are hopeful that with Ravi at the helm, an acceptable and honourable political solution could be found to resolving the issue, rejecting the recent suggestion of Naga Hoho, an apex body of Naga tribal organisations, to replace him.

Having understood the genesis of the issue, Ravi as the interlocutor redefined the dynamics, met Naga civil society members, listened to the tribes and put pen to paper, it said in a statement issued on Thursday. To suggest a new interlocutor at this time is to rewind the political issue back to zero, it said.

"A return to same old situation employing the same old trick: burn Nagaland, ransack it, strangulate and heap more misery and suffering on the Naga public in the name of political issue," it said. The WC-NNPG alleged that the past interlocutors and negotiators indulged in "innuendos and political gymnastics" with routine hyperboles and hypothetical assumptions to "sedate" the Naga people.

Asserting that it believed in inclusivity and transparency, the NNPG said that brainstorming on critical issues, taking Naga people's view into consideration has been a powerful ingredient in the ongoing political dialogue. We have negotiated at length and agreed in principle the proposed political arrangements, entrenching distinct Naga identity in all Naga inhabited areas. After all, it is a Naga narrative and not of one leader, it said.

The WC-NNPG said it believed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Ravi, by now, realise that the Naga people have great hope in their future through enduring peaceful co-existence, as reflected in the agreed position of November 17, 2017. All negotiating groups agreed in principle that dialogues had completed on October 31, 2019. There is little reason for any entity to veer off the track, it said.

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