UKHRUL, NOVEMBER 18: The United Tangshang Naga Council (UTNC) has urged the Government of India to Immediately stop and withdraw all border fencing activities along the Indo-Myanmar border.
In a statement issued on Tuesday from Nanyun, Naga-Self Administered Zone, the UTNC said the Indian Government’s plan to construct border fencing is a dishonourable act that constitutes psychological oppression against the indigenous Naga people and a strategic attempt to divide and erase the community’s identity.
“The construction of fencing and boundary fortifications currently being undertaken in 2025 between Indo-Myanmar Border Pillars No. 173 (Pangsau Pass) and No. 172, within Nanyun Township, falls squarely within Tangshang Naga-inhabited territory. The act of constructing physical barriers to divide the Naga people who are of one people and one family-disregards our existence and deeply pains the entire Naga community,” the United Tangshang Naga Council stated.
“No matter what visible structures are erected to separate us, the invisible unity of our blood, our identity as one people, and our belonging to one homeland cannot be erased or divided by any authority,” it added.
It stated, “We, the Tangshang Nagas in particular and the Naga people in general, have inhabited our present ancestral homeland since time immemorial as an indigenous people. The Government of India is well aware that we did not arrive here as a result of settlement, occupation, or assimilation by any other powers.”
It continued, “According to the norms governing the formation of modern nation-states, the Republics of India and Myanmar came into existence, and only in recent decades were the boundaries between the two countries demarcated and established as international borders under their respective administrative systems.”
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The UTNC maintained that when the Indo-Myanmar border was delineated, the Naga people-who have lived in these areas for countless generations-unexpectedly found their ancestral homeland divided into two separate territories.
“Although we were administratively separated into two nationalities, the Naga people of both sides have continued to live honestly and peacefully under the governance of the two countries, while freely upholding our shared identity and our unity as one people and one homeland in accordance with our customs, culture, and traditions,” it added.
It further stated that any attempt to deny, undermine, or destroy their oneness as a people and the unity of their ancestral homeland will not intimidate the Tangshang Nagas, regardless of the cause or nature of such threats. “We shall never submit or accept any action intended to divide us,” it stated.
Stating that India, as one of the powerful nations of the world and as a great democracy that values human rights, should use its strength and institutions only for the benefit and support of humanity, the UTNC said the Naga people expect only positive and uplifting actions from such a great nation.
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Calling for the immediate cessation and withdrawal of the project the UTNC demanded recognition, respect the presence and value of the indigenous Naga population on both sides of the border. It also urged to avoid all political arrangements that divide the indigenous Naga people, and continue to preserve and protect the kinship and coexistence between Naga communities on both sides.
The UTNC further warned that the Government of India must take responsibility for the consequences arising from the public unless the border fencing project is ceased and withdrawn.