The Nagas’ Urgent Fight for Legitimacy

Political scientists states that a legitimacy of a government normally comes from the people in a democracy. It is the acceptance of the right and the authority of the government by the ones being governed. In some case political legitimacy is given only by a few influential elites in power resulting in unpopular regimes. Accordingly all types of system of government whether its communism, monarchism, fascism etc all have its set of ideals from where the respective governments derive political legitimacy.
The Nagas on the other hand are yet to fully come to an understanding of how an authority derives legitimacy. The argument of legitimacy was always there but since the signing of the Framework Agreement in 2015 it has only increased and voices are getting lost in the din. The so called groups who claim to have the voice of the stakeholders have also decided not to listen to each other. The first question of legitimacy will be the Naga National Council that has its roots in the Naga Hills District Tribal Council of 1945 later renamed in 1946. The NNC also successfully conducted the Plebiscite in the Naga areas that voted to stay out of India but its authority was wrested by India that replied with its military might. The legitimacy of the Indian Government was thus forcefully enforced to a large extent in the Naga areas.
The next organisation that came up was the Naga People’s Convention that was instrumental in signing the 16 point agreement leading to the formation of Nagaland state, the 16th state of India. The NNC rejected the legitimacy of NPC and also the government installed in the state.
From then on Nagaland has seen the fragmentation into of many governments and groups in the last 50 years each questioning the legitimacy of the other. To go by the Indian democratic principles, the state government and its organs with its sixty elected representatives has the only legitimacy under the constitution of India. The constitution also states that these sixty has the power to decide on Article 371(A) since any Act of Parliament pertaining to issues listed in Article 371(A) has to be ratified by these sixty. There is no confusion thus far except that the mode of democratic election through secret ballot is considered alien and opposed to the Naga tribal hierarchy of tribal heads and councillors.
However there are still parallel bodies that unfortunately keep increasing and wanting to claim legitimacy of their authority. The offshoots of that one organisation the NNC which was not taken aboard in 1960 agreement resulted in more trouble for the state. The perceived peace was not achieved and instead killings among the groups started that wanted to state their respective legitimacies. The government of India has given legitimacy to some of these groups by signing ceasefire agreements. Whereas NSCN (IM) is in the talks for another negotiated settlement but even that is being questioned by some section of the people.
In reality it is also the people themselves who have given legitimacy to all the groups in some way or the other. The fragmentation into armed groups, and various opposing pressure groups indicates how fragmented the people really are on the lines of region, tribe, village and electoral politics. The debate will go on and the arguments will continue without any solution unless all the parties agree to come take the middle path. Then only a mechanism will have to be formulated to decide how and who has the legitimacy.