The 72nd Anniversary of NNC Formation Day

Naga National Council (NNC) | February 2, 2018

The Naga Club was formed in October 1918, and the same leaders renamed the Naga Club as the Naga National Council (NNC) on the 2^nd February 1946 at Wokha Town, Nagaland, and the Naga Club leaders became the leaders of NNC. The aspiration of the leaders was to safeguard the sovereignty of Nagaland in those days of changing world. Today, the 2^nd February 2018 is the 72^nd anniversary of the NNC formation Day.

The achievements and history of the NNC.

With the formation of the NNC, all the Naga Villages were brought into a nation for the first time in the Naga national history. Before the formation of the NNC, each and every Naga village was sovereign and republic in itself.
The NNC blatantly rejected the Couplan plan of the British Crown Colony for the Hill people of Frontier areas, which was proposed by Sir Robert Reid and Sir Reginald Coupland in 1946, and thus the plan became non-starter.
On April 9, 1946, the NNC submitted a memorandum to the British Cabinet Commission Camp New Delhi stating that “The Naga future would not be bound by arbitrary decision of the British Government. And any recommendation without consultation would not be accepted. We have not deviated from the true path of national independence. We shall not betray our nation.”
On 27^th March, 1946, the Naga National Council sent a letter to Lord Simon, House of Lords, stated that “we the Nagas made it clear to your Lordship and your Lordship’s colleagues in 1929 that we desire to be left alone in the event of the British withdrawal from India. If the British have decided to hand Nagaland over to the Indian hands without the knowledge of Naga people, it will not only unjust but immoral.”
Again on 28^th March, the NNC sent another letters to Winston Churchill Esquire and on 29^th March to Sir Clement Attlee, Prime Minister of England enclosed with a copy of memorandum submitted to the Simon Commission in 1929 stated that “The Nagas could not be thrown into the sea of Indian politics.” (In 1929, Sir Clement Attlee was a member of the Simon Commission, when the Naga Club submitted a memorandum to the Commission on January 10, 1929, stated that “leave us alone to determine for ourselves as in ancient time”).
In May 1947, the NNC leaders rejected an autonomous state offered by Indian leaders to become a part of Indian Union, saying the Nagas are an independent nation, but India is yet to become independent.
On 26^th June 1947, the NNC signed a 9-Point agreement with the Assam Governor Akber Haydari. However, the Indian Government unilaterally abrogated it.
In order to prevent the war with India the NNC leaders met Mahatma Gandhi, Father of Indian nation on 19^th July 1947, where Mahatma Gandhi assuredly said, the Nagas have every right to become independent outside India, but India has no right to force the Nagas to join the Indian Union.
The NNC declared the age-old Independence of Nagaland to the outside and cabled the declaration to the UN as well as the British Government and the British India Government on the same day.
The NNC conducted the Naga national Plebiscite on May 16, 1951, in that 99.9% of Naga people voted to remain independent as in ancient time. This was a final verdict and a solemn of the Naga people for their future of Nagaland. The Nagas thus need no other referendum or solution besides this solemn pledge.
In January 1952, the Indian leaders attempted to conduct the first general election of India in Nagaland, but the Nagas leading by the NNC rejected it, none of the Nagas voted a single ballot. And the Indian leaders never attempted again to conduct the second general election of India in 1957.
But the Indian leaders ignored the will of Naga people and sent their armed forces to Nagaland in 1954 and started the war with the Nagas. The Nagas had no choice but decided to defend their sovereignty at all cost.
On 22^nd March 1956, the NNC formed the Federal Government of Nagaland (FGN). On the same day, the name of Naga country “Nagaland” was approved by the Tatar Hoho (parliament) of the FGN. Similarly, our National Flag was adopted in the same Session of Tatar Hoho
The NNC President Dr. A.Z. Phizo reached London on 12^th June 1960, and submitted a memorandum to the UN including with a book “the fate of Nagas”, and requested the UN to intervene the war in between India and Nagaland.
In order to sabotage the achievement of Phizo, the Indian leaders hurriedly offered an autonomous state to the Naga people with the 16-Point. Some few Naga educated people accepted it, and then the puppet Nagaland state was established in 1963.
The NNC outrageously rejected the statehood and continued to defend the sovereignty of Nagaland.
Hence, the Indian leader Shri Jawaharlal relented to sign the Ceasefire agreement with the Federal Government of Nagaland on 24^th May 1964 after ten years of fierce war with the Nagas realizing the 16-Point agreement was not a solution for the Nagas. But he suddenly died on 27^th May 1964 leaving unsolved the Indo-Naga conflict started by him.
However, the Indian Government unilaterally abrogated the Ceasefire agreement on 31^st July 1972 and re-escalated war with the Nagas in order to pressurize the Nagas to have accepted the Indian Constitution at gun-point. And lastly forced some of Naga leaders to sign the Shillong Accord on November 11, 1975, in the capacity of underground organizations. But the Indian leaders realized again the Accord became an invalid document because it doesn’t mention NNC/FGN or Nagas or Nagaland in the document, and hence they did not try to implement it, but played the game divide and conquer policy.
As a result of it, some of the NNC leaders defected from the NNC in January 1980 and formed the so-called National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) under the leadership of Thuingaleng Muivah and Isak Chishi Swu. Since then the NSCN had been fighting against the NNC joining hands with Indian leaders. They have been attempting to change and re-write the hard-won history of the Nagas, the assassination and killing of Naga national leaders/ workers and civilians more than they killed the Indian armed forces. And now, housed and fed by the Government of India at New Delhi and Hebron camp and talking of “shared sovereignty” with a propped up ceasefire and the so-called “Framework Agreement. By using these renegade leaders, the Indian leaders are attempting to solve the Indo-Naga conflict with a solution within the Indian Union by passing the NNC. However, such solution will never be a solution for the Naga people.
Despite such ups and downs political situation in Nagaland, the NNC had never deterred here and there from the Naga national principle enunciated in the Plebiscite of 1951, and will continue to defend the sovereignty of Nagaland with the help of God Almighty.