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Nagas are not living in anybody else's territory but in their own, so the question of 'claiming' any territory does not arise, National Socialist Council of Nagalim (I-M) leader Thuingaleng Muivah has said.
"We don't have greater Nagaland nor do we have smaller Nagaland. We have just the land that belongs to us," Muivah, general secretary of the underground group said in Bangkok, Thailand.
"We Nagas are not living in anybody's territory, we are in our own territories. It is a fact, so the question of claiming does not arise," he said.
Commenting on the 'substantive issues', which the ceasefire agreement between the government and NSCN (I-M) seeks to process, Muivah said foremost the Indo-Naga issue had to be fully understood by both sides together.
"If the Indian authorities and Nagas would not understand the true nature of this issue it will be very difficult to talk," he added.
He acknowledged that if the Nagas were not prepared to appreciate the difficulties involved on the part of the government regarding the Indo-Naga issue 'there can be no negotiation'.
"We have come forward to understand India's difficulties and have come close to India as far as it is possible," Muivah, who loves reading revolutionary philosophy of both the West and the East, said.
On the need for mutual trust between the two sides, he said it also depended on how much 'we honour the commitments to each other'.
Asked what the next step would be for the NSCN (I-M) after four years of ceasefire, Muivah said, "It will be to find a solution though it may take time. It will have to be a mutually acceptable solution to the issue, which has seen over 53 years of confrontation."
"If solution cannot be reached within the ceasefire period, we will be bound to go back to square one," he said.
Muivah, who claimed that his faction had bases in South East Asia, Europe, the United States of America and Canada, said since childhood he had wanted to spearhead a movement for making Nagaland a separate country. "I was constantly told by my mother how our people were harassed," he said.
Asked whom he would involve in the discussions, he said, "Eventually the consent of the Naga people in general would be the deciding factor."
He added that they had to rule out involving the Khaplang faction of the NSCN as 'they have accepted the Indian Constitution'.
Asked why he was opposed to Nagaland being a part of the Indian Union, Muivah said the Nagas feared that they would lose their identity. "They fear losing the right to live on our own."
In neighbouring Tripura, he said, where originally locals constituted 80 per cent of the population today 'only 20 per cent were Tripuris while the rest were from other states'.
"Native people are being marginalised to the extent of extinction," he said.
He said it was the same in Assam now where the Assamese made up only about 50 per cent of the population. "I fear that will happen to Nagas (as well)," Muivah added.
Stating that Naga fears are justified, he said, "Before 1947, there was not a single Indian in Nagaland. Only one Punjabi had come in as a businessman. Today, there are 500,000 Indians there."
Muivah said his favourite heroes include Mahatma Gandhi and Subhas Chandra Bose and claimed that Gandhi had always favoured a separate country for Nagaland but Nehru had not shared this view.
On the extortion committed by the Naga rebels, he said, "We will check all such instances and take action."
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