The decade-old Framework Agreement remains hostage to disagreements over sovereignty, a separate flag and constitution, and a deepening trust deficit. With NSCN (IM) threatening to revive insurgency, the Government must seize the latest initiative to negotiate a durable political settlement before the window for peace closes

The appointment last month of former Director, JIC, Ajit Lal, as interlocutor, along with additional political representation to kick-start the Naga peace process, stalled since 2021, has been welcomed by the Nagas. On October 26, 2025, the frail but spirited 92-year-old NSCN (IM) supremo Thuingaleng Muivah returned to Somdal village, his birthplace in Tangkhul Naga district, Manipur, and issued his sternest warning against the ‘use of force’ in the face of ‘ultimatums from GoI’ because of its difficulties ‘in accepting their demand for a separate flag and constitution’, adding, ‘We will not surrender.’ Muivah’s most recent and dire threat to restart the insurgency, which PM Narendra Modi had intended to end with the big-bang Framework Agreement (FA) of August 3, 2015, one year after he came to power, came in his June 2026 interview with The Week magazine. Terminating the mother of all insurgencies was not going to be simple; it would entail ‘sharing of sovereign power’, which NSA Ajit Doval and principal interlocutor, IB Director RN Ravi, had assured they would be able to accomplish.

Ravi engaged Muivah and his team from 2014 to 2021 without achieving any breakthrough, even though he wore the additional hat of Governor of Nagaland from 2019 to 2021, when he was appointed Governor of Tamil Nadu. Strangely, the text of the FA was never made public, even as IB Special Secretary AK Mishra, on taking over from Ravi, informed Muivah that ‘no record of GoI competencies submitted by Ravi was available’. In November 2024,........

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