National Socialist Council of Nagaland Isak-Muivah (NSCN(I-M))

#GS 03 Internal Security

National Socialist Council of Nagaland

The Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland is a Naga nationalist paramilitary group aiming to create an independent Naga state separate from India.
It was formed on January 31, 1980, by Isak Chisi Swu, Thuingaleng Muivah and S.S. Khaplang and others who opposed the ‘Shillong Accord’ between the NNC (Naga National Council), the then Naga nationalist organisation, and the Indian government.
NSCN promotes socialism as an economic solution and Christianity as religious affiliation.
The NSCN, after years of infighting and violent clashes split into two factions, the NSCN-IM (led by Isak Chishi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah) and NSCN-K (led by S S Khaplang), in 1988.
NSCN-IM is considered as the most powerful of the two insurgent groups.
NSCN-IM had signed a formal ceasefire agreement with the Government of India in 1997.
A framework agreement with the aim of finding a political solution to the Naga issue was signed in 2015.

Naga is an umbrella term which refers to an assortment of ethnic groups belonging to the Indo-Mongoloid Family.
The term Naga was adopted by the British during the colonial period to refer to a group of tribes with similar origins but distinct cultures, dialects, and customs.
The Naga tribes are believed to have been migrated from southwest China to Myanmar and Thailand, before finally settling down in Northeast India and Northwest Myanmar.
The Naga Hills became a part of British India in the year 1881.
The Naga tribes were given considerable autonomy by the British and the British declared the Naga hills an “excluded area” in the Assam province in 1935.