Clear Signs from Delhi, Door Has Been Closed on Khaplang

India steps up action against Khaplang, recent action by army testimony of Delhi’s resolve to deal with a firm hand.

India’s Khaplang flip-flop

• India first tried ‘tough action’ against Khaplang by launching para-commando raids against rebel bases
• Then it decided not to outlaw the faction and send a delegation of Naga elders to open a dialogue with Khaplang
• When Khaplang refused to meet the delegation, Delhi asked the security forces to step-up the offensive against the group
• Now it is asking Myanmar to hand over Khaplang and three of his commanders to stand trial in India

With the army on the offensive killing seven fighters of the NSCN (K) on Friday, Delhi seems to be closing its doors on the Burmese Naga rebel leader SS Khaplang.

This follows a phase of indecision when Delhi’s options have swung between extremes. After Khaplang reneged on the ceasefire his faction had signed with India in 2000 and unleashed a series of ambushes that left nearly 30 soldiers killed, India hit back with para-commando raids on rebel bases on the border.

There was much talk about ‘tough action’ against the rebels. Then it toyed with the idea of outlawing the faction under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

But that idea was dropped for a while after India signed a ‘framework agreement’ with the NSCN’s Isak-Muivah faction on August 3.

It was decided to send a delegation of Naga lawmakers and elders (from groups like the Naga Hoho) to meet Khaplang in his lair in Myanmar’s Sagaing division.

The idea was to try and get Khaplang to agree to the August 3 agreement.

Mood in Delhi

The two other NSCN factions, one led by Khole Konyak and Khitovi Sema and the other by Wangtin Ao and P Thikhak have supported Indian efforts to work for a final settlement of the Naga issue peacefully and politically but resented the signing of the agreement with one faction alone.

Myanmar’s Thein Sein government was too willing to facilitate the visit of the Naga delegation, because our eastern neighbour has a stake in India finding a settlement of its long festering Naga problem.

But Khaplang played spoilsport when he made it clear that the visiting delegation would have to meet his number two, the NSCN(K)‘s military wing chief Niki Sumi, as he was unavailable.

Though Sumi is the one planning the ambushes and executing them, Delhi was in no mood to allow Khaplang ‘slip away yet once more’. That is how Khaplang’s reluctance to meet the Naga delegation was interpreted in Delhi.

“He has long taken us for a ride. He has had a ceasefire with India but he has sheltered all active North-eastern rebel groups in his bases,” says former IB official Subir Dutta.

The mood in Delhi was ‘enough is enough’.

Army’s Action

So the army and the para-military forces were asked to go on the offensive against Khaplang’s fighters.

On Friday, that led to a fierce encounter in Pangsha in Nagaland’s Tuensang district, in which the army claims 7 NSCN(K) fighters including a woman activist were killed.

But NSCN(K) publicity secretary Isak Sumi said that of the seven killed, two were Indian soldiers and five belonged to his group.

Sumi said that his group was preparing to receive a delegation of the Naga Mothers Association (NMA) which was still trying to get the rebel faction back on the road of dialogue and peace.

“Our unarmed fighters were killed by the army,” Sumi said.

The army debunked that charge.

A military press release said that when soldiers tried stopping two riders on a motorcycle, rebels following behind in a Bolero and Maruti Gypsy opened heavy fire on the troops forcing them to retaliate in even measure.

If Sumi’s claims are right about two Indian soldiers getting killed in the encounter, surely they would not be hit by ‘unarmed rebels’.

Military officials say the army and para-military troops are squeezing the rebels into a supply crisis by covering all urban or semi-urban markets.

“That forced them to come out for supplies at Pangsha,” said a major of the 23 Assam Rifles. “They were very much armed but we were well prepared.”

He said the NSCN (K) fighters killed were from their Ponyu base inside Myanmar which was targetted in the July para-commando raids.

Myanmar as an Ally

But while military action is expected against a rebel group which is unwilling to return to the table, India has complicated the diplomatic scene by asking Myanmar to hand over to India Khaplang and three of his top commanders including Niki Sumi to stand trial for the killing of the soldiers.

That is like asking Pakistan for Dawood. Khaplang has a ceasefire with Myanmar government since 2012 and neither side is interested in reneging on it.

For Thein Sein’s government that is seeking a comprehensive national ceasefire with all ethnic rebel armies after several rounds of talks, there is some risk in unilaterally acting against Khaplang .

That may upset other ethnic rebel armies because that will be seen as a violation of the terms of ceasefire and as evidence of the government’s evil intentions.

Thein Sein sees the ceasefire as a key tactic to win over ethnic parties before the November parliament elections to counter Aung Sang Suu Kyi’s NLD party.

(The writer, a veteran BBC correspondent, is author of two highly acclaimed books on Northeast India – “Insurgent Crossfire” and “Troubled Periphery”.)