The NSCN (Isak-Muivah) on Saturday alleged that there is a coordinated attempt in collusion with the Indian intelligence agencies and the Home Ministry officials to create confusion, division and create fear psychosis and threat perception within the Nagas.
The outfit said this referring to the timing selected by the “propagandists” targeting its general secretary Th. Muivah and NSCN at a time when informal talks between the government of India represented by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) team and the NSCN are going on in Delhi on a day-to-day basis.
It called it a very bemusing phenomenon taking place behind the informal talks.
In a statement, the ministry of information and publicity of the NSCN (I-M) said the propagandists wanted to create insecurity feeling, hatred and bigotry. But the Naga people are no longer naive to this kind of manipulated media onslaught launched with venomous and divisive sting, it said.
The statement alleged that the media has been pulled in to put pressure on NSCN by writing baseless but tormenting things about Naga chief negotiator Muivah and other abhorrent things about the Naga solution.
It said the truth shall never simply run away and that the truth hit hard and the NSCN had done it time and again to set the record straight, which sent shock waves across.
The statement said the NSCN was compelled to unleash a blistering attack against Centre’s interlocutor RN Ravi, also the Nagaland Governor, for his alleged “mischief” on the Framework Agreement and “other misdoings”.
It said shortly after informal talks started, known and unknown professional figures in media changed colour to sell themselves doing the bidding of the intelligence agency that have something to grind against the NSCN.
“This is what we are seeing in the media market floated with distorted and manipulated stories and articles on Naga issue targeting NSCN and its chief negotiator Th. Muivah. The truth, however, cannot be sacrificed at the altar of misinformation campaign launched against NSCN,” the statement said.
It alleged that Deepika Singh who teaches Political Science at Delhi University is using the media platform such as News18.com to write on Naga issue but burnt her fingers when she went for the issue that is too big for her to handle.
“She was reckless from the word go as she went hammer and tongs against the NSCN general secretary and Naga chief negotiator Th. Muivah accusing him for playing tribal card to scuttle any peace deal following the talks that took place after the first Indo-Naga ceasefire in September 4, 1964,” the statement said.
The NSCN said it is understood beyond an iota of doubt that Singh simply went for the Naga issue without knowing the head and tails and added she will go nowhere if she desperately tried to magnify her professional image by using the Naga issue to score points,.
It said she provoked indignation when she went far enough to arrogate herself to touch on Naga issue for the pleasure of “malicious fabrications”.
On Shekhar Gupta, the Editor-in-Chief of The Print, the NSCN said he is not new to the Naga political struggle but he proved himself as a senior journalist who knows which side of the bread is buttered.
He published an article calling Muivah a “past master at scuttling Naga peace deals” on tribal line. But he was also grounded as his writing finds no historical records to support his accusations against Muivah, the outfit said.
It said all these baseless accusations against Muivah are nothing but malicious falsehood to further confuse the Naga people at this critical stage.
The outfit said Deepika Singh and Shekhar Gupta proved themselves as nothing more than malicious mischief mongers.
It noted that propaganda is also manufactured that the NSCN leaders are simply using the flag and constitution issues to derail and delay the solution for the Naga issue.
“Flag and constitution are the heart and soul of the Naga political movement. Flag is the political identity of the Naga people and constitution tells of the Naga people as a nation and shows the way forward as a distinct people who would not give up their land in lieu of anything,” the NSCN stated.
It called wild media speculation that the NSCN’s Chinese government connection is forcing it to go slow in negotiating with the government of India as unfounded allegations.
“The same unpleasant situation created by Ravi last year when he set October 31 as deadline to seal the deal is being propagated by the media wherein it is mentioned that the deal may have to be signed by September 2020, even without NSCN,” the statement said.
According to the outfit, such an unhealthy manner of conducting talks between two entities is against the spirit of Indo-Naga political peace process that has travails 23 years where mutual respect and consent has carried the talks all along.
It said it is the settlement of the pending issues that matters and not the deadline that need not be in tearing hurry.
“This is rather interpreted as testing the nerve of NSCN as prodded by vested interests when informal talks are going on day-to-day basis with the IB team to smoothen the competencies,” the statement added.