The Naga people inhabit a mountainous region that straddles the India-Myanmar border, their homeland carved up by colonial boundaries drawn without their consent. When India gained independence in 1947, the Nagas declared their own sovereignty -- a claim that New Delhi rejected. The Naga National Council, the political party that championed independence, soon developed a military wing: the Naga Army, initially known by other names including the Naga Home Guard and the Naga Federal Army. Through the 1950s and early 1960s, guerrillas fought Indian security forces across the steep terrain of what is now Nagaland state. Some of the fiercest confrontations took place in Jotsoma village. In August 1960, Naga fighters shot down an Indian Air Force Douglas C-47 during a supply drop. The Indian Armed Forces declared a ceasefire in September 1964, but peace remained elusive.

The 1975 Shillong Accord was supposed to end the fighting. A key group of the underground Naga political organization accepted military defeat and agreed to surrender arms. Around 1,400 Naga soldiers laid down their weapons. Over 600 prisoners of war were released from Indian jails. Curfews that had threatened villagers with famine by preventing harvesting were lifted, and communities fined for assisting the insurgents were reimbursed. But inspectors noticed that the surrendered weapons were old and obsolete -- the best arms, they concluded, had been smuggled across the border into Burma. And the group led by Muivah, quartered in the Burmese frontier region, had remained intact. Muivah and fellow leader Isak Chishi Swu denounced the accord in the harshest terms, calling its signatories 'hidden traitors.' Their refusal to accept peace split Naga society down the middle.

In 1997, after years of fractricidal fighting between rival Naga factions -- the NSCN (IM) led by Muivah and the NSCN (K) led by S.S. Khaplang -- the Indian government brokered a ceasefire with the NSCN (IM). Eleven ground rules were established: no killing, kidnapping, or extortion from the Naga side; no active military operations from Indian security forces. Naga soldiers emerged from jungle hideouts and established Camp Hebron as their base. But the ceasefire only papered over deeper fractures. In March 2002, Manipur Rifles soldiers stopped an NSCN (IM) vehicle at a checkpoint near Pallel and asked the uniformed cadres to surrender their weapons. The Nagas opened fire instead. Eleven died in the shootout. Days later, the NSCN (IM) kidnapped the Chandel District Commissioner in retaliation. The government stood firm, threatening to collapse the entire peace process. The commissioner was released. The ceasefire resumed. The underlying conflict continued.

The Naga insurgency has outlasted the Cold War, survived multiple ceasefire agreements, and defied every attempt at permanent resolution. What began as a straightforward independence movement has fragmented into rival armed factions, each claiming to represent the Naga people. The Forum for Naga Reconciliation, established in 2008, organized meetings between warring groups on both sides of the India-Myanmar border. A two-day Naga Convention for Reconciliation and Peace was held in Kohima in February 2009, and later that year a Covenant of Reconciliation was signed in Chiang Mai, Thailand, by the leaders of the NSCN (IM), NSCN (K), and the Naga National Council. The declaration pledged love, non-violence, and peace. Yet effective unification between the factions remained elusive. For the Naga people -- divided by international borders, internal rivalries, and seven decades of war -- the struggle for self-determination continues as it began: in the mountains, and without resolution.