The NSCN IM on Tuesday responding to the Governor and the interlocutor of the GoI, RN Ravi’s speech on the anniversary of Nagaland’s 58th Statehood Day at Raj Bhavan, Kohima termed his was an “irresponsible statement.”
“Any person on Earth that runs the blood of the Nagas will certainly have been provoked by the irresponsible statement” the NSCN IM said.
Similar to that of 30th November 2020 press note, where the group accused Naga People’s Convention (NPC), the group continued to denounce the Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials role in roping in “treacherous Naga individuals, mostly Indian government employees that formed a superfluous body called the NPC” on the matter of Nagaland state formation and the 16 Point Agreement arrangement, under the Indian Constitution giving foothold to the Indian government, and becoming part of India.
Criticizing Indian government for the calculated plan and back stabbing the leadership of AZ Phizo and the Naga National Movement through NPC, led to the “untold sufferings of the Nagas, loss of lives, properties and dignity have been reduced to nothingness”, it added.
Reacting sharply to the statement of Ravi, the group said that such divisive statement “exposed that another NPC is in the making”, further adding that Ravi’s “assertion that some of the civil societies under his payroll are the main stakeholders on the Indo-Naga Issue and therefore their decision must be supreme is farce”, the NSCN IM said.
NSCN IM called out RN Ravi and reminded that this was the same “signatory to the 2015 Framework Agreement signed between the Government of India and the NSCN representing the Naga people,” followed by 7 NNPGs in 2017.
The group cautioned that “while the Government of India and the Naga people are fully committed to resolve the Issue through peaceful means which is at its concluding stage, once more the ex-IB official RN Ravi is planning to hijack the more than seven decades of war and 23 years of peace talks in the same style of the NPC”.
RN Ravi is “attempting to murder the future of the Nagas and the vital national interest of India. Nagas must wake up and should not allow us to be fooled twice with the same trick”, the NSCN IM added.
Applying the same logic to RN Ravi’s statement in the matter of “India as a nation should have a sovereign territory, one constitution and one national flag” the group reaffirmed that “Nagaland/Nagalim too must have sovereign territory, one constitution and one national flag within which the two must share sovereign powers and coexist peacefully as two entities as agreed upon in the Framework Agreement where he himself is a signatory”.
Cautioning RN Ravi further, who wears two hats, vis a vis the interlocutor of GoI and governor of Nagaland “not to bite off more than he can chew as far as the Indo Naga issue is concerned”.
It then asked, “will RN Ravi, the interlocutor of the GoI to the Naga Peace talks, speaks in the same bipolar language as this RN Ravi the governor of Nagaland state does”?
Shedding light on a piece of history, the NSCN IM pointed out AZ Phizo’s letter to Shri C. Raja Gopalachari, Governor General of India on the 22nd November, 1948, “I am certain about one thing, my turbulent Naga people cannot be frightened into submission.”
NSCN IM said, “the same is gently reminded to Ravi today that we are undeterred by your threat.”
