QUO VADIS INSURGENCY AND IDENTITY: ACCOMMODATING ‘THE THIRD VOICE’IN  CONFLICT ZONES OF NE INDIA.

If ULFA can bring back the treaty of 1826 there is no earthly reason why the other tribal groups can’t claim independence as they were too independent before they were brought together by the Ahoms to form what prof. Guha says—‘Bor Asoam’( Greater Assam). This is what the Nagas are trying to do by demanding –‘Nagalim’ or greater Nagaland by bringing some reference of history.  The main demand of the Nagas , i.e. unification of  all the Naga tribes into one Nagalim is structurally problematic  and recipe for ethnic clashes in the North East region.

This trend of identifying one territory as belonging to a specific group does not augur well in a highly mixed ethnic society like North East India—this trend is also becoming contagious in the neighboring areas of Manipur, Assam, Tripura and Meghalaya. There are separatist and secessionist groups in all these states who are trying to create independent (or within India) a homogenous land for their respective communities Such domination of one group is simply neither possible nor desirable in any of the states as they are mixed with diverse groups and languages

AN URGE TO BROADEN PEACE-BUILDING PROCE IN NE INDIA :

Thus it is imperative that peace process in order to be enduring has to go beyond the usual two voices of conflict which proceeds in the form of negotiation and in the end - if successfully dealt with-leads to an agreement between two parties (what John Paul Lederach calls the ‘reconstructive approach’). Such Conflict Resolution is conducted at an elite level and is generally aimed at political concessions without involving representatives of civil society. Failing to identify and involve all actual or potential disputants in a conflict resolution process is one reason why such processes fail. Generally, it is desirable to make sure that all the parties who are likely to be affected by a decision are aware of the decision making process and are given the opportunity to participate in that process in some way.

mistrust,etica, sans-serif">If parties to a conflict are excluded from negotiations or other decision-making processes, or their voices are overlooked and ignored, they are likely to become dissatisfied with that process. This exacerbates public undermines the legitimacy of any agreements reached, and may well hamper implementation of those agreements. In addition, if the terms of peace are simply imposed on the population, this may perpetuate traditional power structures rather than bringing about social change. In general, it is important that representatives of civil society and non-combatant groups have some say in the design and implementation of peacemaking and peace buildingagendas. This does not mean that all parties must be directly involved in the negotiations–it is impossible to have hundreds or thousands or more people sit down together at a negotiating table. However, all the affected groups must feel that they are being adequately represented in the negotiating process. This requires that the people at the negotiating table be accepted by their constituencies as legitimate spokespersons, and that these representatives keep their constituencies well informed about the progress of the negotiations, collect dissenting views, and feeding these views back into the negotiating process in a way that allows them to be dealt with adequately.

If this is done carefully, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people can feel that they were actually "involved" in the decision and are likely to support the results of the decision making process.Peace –building involving people’s voice what we call ‘the third voice’, covers a wider area and, in most cases, a longer time scale. Its aim is a change in the social structure underlying the conflict, and change in the attitudes of the parties to the conflict Such an approach what John Paul Lederach calls as the ‘transformative approa and Elizabeth Cousens as the ‘inductive approach’ attempts to examine the political, social and economic forces that have led to an armed conflict and invites more holistic assessments of the situation.

ACCOMMODATING ‘THE THIRD VOICE’ IN CONFLICT ZONE :

The Government is creating mono-ethnic homelands one after another. What do the common people want –how do they look at the issues of co-existence, their own rights and rights of others? How the smaller ethnic groups of the state like the Singphos, Aiton, Turung, Tai-Phake , Lichu and many more are reacting to this process? The opinion of the people at the grass root level is always taken for granted. Even in the peace negotiations with various insurgents’ outfits there is no effort to involve civil society groups be it on the part of the insurgent outfits or on the part of the State. Accord centric peace with an exclusive social group can’t bring a durable peace process in Assam. Assam accord was never successful in bringing a durable peace; nor can exclusive peace package with ULFA, NDFB, DHD and UPDS. While acknowledging the importance of negotiation with individual groups, at some point of time we need to involve all the contentious groups together along with the representatives of civil society.