The Borders the Nagas Never Chose

Integration is blocked; independence is remote. Realistic futures for the Nagas of India and Myanmar lie in constitutional autonomy, local self-governance and cultural continuityBesesayo Kezo, IPS, Retd. DGP An estimated 2.5 million Nagas live in India—primarily in Nagaland, with substantial numbers in Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and Assam—while roughly 300,000 reside in Myanmar. Their distribution is the direct product of colonial border-making. On the eve of independence, British authorities drew the Indo-Burmese border and assigned Naga communities to different administrative units in India and Burma without meaningful consultation of the inhabitants. Neither the emerging Indian Union nor independent Burma had previously ruled these tracts. Naga nationalist accounts treat the partition as an arbitrary gift from a departing colonial power.Historically, Naga political organization consisted of independent village republics. Each village functioned as a self-governing unit with its own territory, customary law, and decision-making structures, without kings or a central authority. Colonial administrators and early ethnographers frequently compared these to ancient Greek city-states. Villages often lived in a state of armed truce or open hostility with neighbors, and social and political life rarely extended beyond the village. British officials, observing shared physical characteristics, cultural practices, and this decentralized form of organization, classified the diverse groups as a single “Naga” category. This taxonomy, later reinforced by American Baptist missionary activity, modern education, and the experience of the Second World War, helped generate the idea of Nagaism—a pan-tribal political consciousness that did not exist in the same form before the twentieth century.In India, the long-standing demand to integrate all Naga-inhabited areas—those in Manipur’s hill districts, Arunachal Pradesh’s Tirap, Changlang and Longding districts, and pockets in Assam—into a single administrative unit remains central to the “Nagalim” vision associated with the NSCN-IM and other groups. Realizing this would require the active cooperation of the state governments of Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, and Assam, as well as the Union government. That cooperation has been consistently absent. Neighboring states regard territorial integration as a direct threat to their territorial integrity and political stability. In Manipur, where Naga-Kuki tensions re-emerged in 2026 amid the wider post-2023 crisis, any suggestion of redrawing boundaries is especially volatile. The Union government has repeatedly stated that existing state borders will not be altered.Under the Indian Constitution, Nagas in Nagaland enjoy significant protections under Article 371A. No Act of Parliament relating to Naga religious or social practices, customary law and procedure, the administration of civil and criminal justice under customary law, or the ownership and transfer of land and its resources applies to the state unless the Nagaland Legislative Assembly specifically adopts it by resolution. The provision, inserted following the 16-Point Agreement of 1960, was designed to prevent absorption or exploitation by non-Nagas while integrating the area into the Union. In practice, it has preserved substantial local control over land and custom, though it has also complicated resource governance and occasionally generated disputes over the precise scope of “land and its resources.”Eastern Nagaland has recently secured the Frontier Nagaland Territorial Authority (FNTA) through a 2026 tripartite agreement among the Union government, the state government, and the Eastern Nagaland People’s Organisation. The FNTA provides enhanced administrative, legislative, and financial powers within Nagaland rather than full statehood, addressing long-standing grievances of neglect while remaining within the existing state framework. These arrangements mitigate some fears of exploitation or cultural absorption, yet goodwill remains limited. Many Nagas living outside Nagaland feel the state does not adequately represent their interests, while some within Nagaland worry that further accommodation of integration demands could dilute special status or open the door to demographic and economic pressures. Competing claims over land, forests, and development resources continue to generate friction with neighboring communities.In Myanmar, Nagas primarily inhabit the Naga Self-Administered Zone in northern Sagaing Region, with additional communities in neighboring areas of Sagaing and Kachin State. The 2008 Constitution established the zone with limited self-administration. In the junta-organized elections of late 2025, the Naga National Party won the majority of elected seats, though military-appointed representatives and the Union Solidarity and Development Party retained influence, including the chairmanship. Various armed groups, including NSCN factions, operate across the India-Myanmar border, adding layers of insecurity. Myanmar’s broader civil conflict has weakened central authority in many ethnic areas, creating both opportunities for local initiative and risks of protracted instability.Within Myanmar’s constitutional framework, Nagas can pursue improved political representation, social services, and economic conditions through the Self-Administered Zone and by engaging with existing authorities. Cross-border Naga organizations that operate without formal political borders can maintain and strengthen cultural relationships—language, church networks, festivals, and kinship ties—while engaging the governments of both India and Myanmar and, where appropriate, international bodies. Such cultural and developmental engagement is less threatening to state sovereignty than demands for political unification and offers practical benefits to communities divided by an international boundary. India’s decision to end the Free Movement Regime along the border has complicated traditional cross-border movement, but cultural and organizational links continue.The aspiration to restore or approximate ancient independent village republics can be pursued democratically by preserving historical memory, customary institutions, and local governance practices. Nagaland’s policy of communitization and the continued role of village councils demonstrate that elements of village-level self-governance remain viable within modern frameworks. Keeping alive the history of how the hills were partitioned without consent has educational and cultural value. However, a literal return to fully sovereign pre-colonial village republics is not a realistic political program. Those villages were small, often mutually hostile, and lacked the institutional capacity to manage contemporary economies, infrastructure, external security, or international relations. Contemporary Naga society is overwhelmingly Christian, literate, integrated into cash economies, and connected by roads, schools, and communications. The village remains a vital social and moral unit, but it no longer functions as an independent political sovereign in the older sense.The more ambitious vision of an independent Nagaland, encompassing Nagas from both India and Myanmar as a single sovereign country, faces structural obstacles. It would require the consent of two sovereign states, the acquiescence of neighboring communities with their own territorial claims, and the capacity to sustain a viable polity across a rugged international border. Decades of armed struggle, ceasefires, and negotiations have not produced such an outcome. India’s Framework Agreement of 2015 with the NSCN-IM and Agreed Position of 2017 with the NNPGs remain without a final, comprehensive settlement; Myanmar’s political trajectory is dominated by military rule and civil war. International recognition of a new Naga state is improbable. For practical purposes, full independence spanning the international boundary remains a memory of past mobilization and a distant aspiration rather than an achievable near-term objective.Critical examination points to a more limited and differentiated set of futures. In India, the realistic path lies in the effective implementation of constitutional protections such as Article 371A, the successful operationalization of the FNTA, equitable development, and the peaceful management of inter-community relations—particularly with Kuki communities in Manipur. Resentment over perceived absorption or exploitation can be reduced by stronger local governance and transparent resource arrangements, but only if Naga political groups prioritize internal cohesion and practical gains over maximalist territorial claims that neighboring states will continue to reject. In Myanmar, incremental improvement of conditions within the Self-Administered Zone, combined with sustained cultural cross-border engagement, offers more immediate benefits than revolutionary projects. Naga organizations operating “without borders” can contribute constructively by focusing on education, health, language preservation, and dialogue with both governments.The seed of Nagaism, sown by colonial classification and nurtured by modern education and external contact, has produced a durable sense of shared identity. Whether that identity finds expression primarily through strengthened village and tribal institutions within existing states, through enhanced autonomy arrangements such as the FNTA, or through continued pursuit of larger political unification will depend on choices made by Naga communities and on the willingness of the Indian and Myanmar states to accommodate legitimate cultural and developmental aspirations. Full restoration of ancient village republics or the creation of a single independent Nagaland spanning two countries appear, on present evidence, to be aspirations whose political realization is remote. More attainable futures lie in negotiating durable space for cultural continuity, local self-governance, and equitable development within the constitutional orders that currently govern the Naga hills on both sides of the border.Besesayo Kezo is a retired Indian Police Service officer and former Director General of Police. The views expressed are personal.