GUWAHATI: The Indian government has contained violence in its restive northeast by engaging rebel groups in peace talks, but analysts say it lacks a long-term strategy to resolve complex disputes in the remote region.
The largely hilly region, linked to the rest of India by a tiny strip of land just 32 km wide, is home to seven of India’s 29 states and is surrounded by China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan.
It is home to over 200 ethnic and tribal communities and two dozen rebel groups. Nine rebel outfits have entered peace talks with New Delhi and are observing ceasefires.
The last major success story came in 1985 when rebels in the largely Christian state of Mizoram signed a peace deal and joined the government to end a two-decade-old insurgency that claimed thousands of lives.
Since then there has been little to talk about apart from a peace deal with a minor rebel outfit in Assam in 2003.
Analysts say the government in New Delhi has failed to take advantage of a relative lull in violence and the willingness of militant leaders to talk.
“Some of them have voluntarily restrained their guns to find a solution but, with no clear policy about how to go about it, the government seems to be drifting,” said Harekrishna Deka, a security analyst in Guwahati, the region’s main city.
More than 50,000 people have been killed in nearly 60 years of conflict with militant groups, some of which are fighting for independence from India for their ethnic communities, more local autonomy or tribal rights.
Several lives are still lost each week to militant violence, while extortion and the kidnapping of businessmen have risen in recent months despite the ceasefires.
Officials warn that the interlocking territorial disputes are complex, and that giving in to one group would only fuel the demands from a host of others.
The government has ruled out independence and is trying to avoid opening a Pandora’s Box of competing claims by redrawing state boundaries.
“The problem is that their demands are too complicated to agree to,” said Khagen Sharma, a senior intelligence officer involved in the peace process with several groups.
Officials cite the example of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isaac-Muivah) (NSCN-IM), fighting for six decades for independence for the Nagas, a fierce warrior tribe.
The powerful insurgent group signed a ceasefire nine years ago but still insists on an independent homeland that includes the mainly Christian state of Nagaland as well as parts of the neighbouring states of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
Opposition to the idea of losing territory to a “Greater Nagaland” provoked riots in Manipur in 2002, while land disputes led to clashes between Nagas and the Kuki tribe in the 1990s.
Any concession to the Nagas would almost certainly push Kuki rebel groups back to war, officials said.
“The only way out to reach some solution is to resolve the non-complicated issues first, keeping the vexed issues aside temporarily for later,” Deka, a former top police officer, said.
With many rebel groups complaining that the Indian government is stripping the northeast of natural resources like timber, the government hopes that the carrot of economic development, coupled with compensation for rebel fighters, will be enough.
But groups like the NSCN-IM are refusing to take the bait.
Rebel leaders fear that New Delhi may be banking on their fighters becoming “complacent” after years of life in designated camps as part of ceasefire deals, analysts say.
But commentators warn that if guerrilla leaders do not win concrete concessions, their cadres will accuse them of frittering away the gains of years of struggle in the jungles and hills.
“There is a genuine feeling the government of India is not serious about finding solutions and wants talks to linger on,” said Noni Gopal Mahanta, Coordinator of the Peace and Conflict Studies centre in Gauhati University.
Analysts say another factor undermining progress is a divide between political leaders who want purposeful talks and security officials who want rebel groups to disarm first or would like to see them crushed militarily.
“Peace initiatives remain stalemated because of the dominating attitude of the military and intelligence officers who always think they can squeeze the militants,” Mahanta said.
