VP Slips up on Nagas

Conferring ‘citizenship’ on India’s Vice President is one way of signalling sovereignty.

The conferring of ‘honorary citizenship of Nagaland’ on Vice President Dr Mohammad Hamid Ansari during his visit to the Northeastern state earlier this week amounted to a vocal declaration by that state of its ‘unique’ status, preferably outside the Indian Union. Ansari, who inaugurated the world’s first ‘Bamboo Day’ at Kisama, a Naga heritage village near state capital Kohima, on Sunday, 19 September, unveiled a monolith erected by the state government that declared him an ‘honorary citizen’.

This mischievous attempt by no less than the state government did not, surprisingly, raise any eyebrows even within the VP’s entourage. Nagas and militant outfits in the state like the NSCN (IM) have been asserting what is commonly referred to as the state’s ‘unique identity’.

The Indian Vice President quite happily unveiled the monolith, thus accepting ‘citizenship’ of Nagaland, in front of over 500 delegates to the international conference from 11 countries (including USA, Japan, Norway, France, Korea, Thailand, Italy and Greece).

The Nagaland government did not spring this as a surprise on Ansari. A few days before the VP’s visit, Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio declared that his government would confer honorary citizenship on Ansari. Imagine the cacophonic reaction in the national capital if the J&K government were to make a similar announcement! It was also no surprise that the Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) government in the state—that was behind the move—has consistently backed many demands of the NSCN (IM), and religiously refers to the dialogue between the rebel outfit and New Delhi as an ‘Indo-Naga’ dialogue. According Ansari honorary citizenship wasn’t the only move by the Nagaland government to position the state as one outside the Indian Union.

In a short speech at a dinner he hosted for Ansari, Chief Minister Rio hoped that the VP would “take back fond memories of Nagaland and be an ambassador of the Nagas so that Nagaland could be at par with other countries”. There was no reaction from Ansari, or Governor Nikhil Kumar, or anyone else, to Rio’s reference to Nagaland as a ‘country’.