The story so far: A tripartite agreement among the Central, Assam, and Nagaland governments on June 11 to resume oil and gas exploration along the disputed 512-km border between the two States has elicited sharp reactions. Extremist organisations in a ceasefire agreement and traditional tribe-based organisations said New Delhi should first ensure an honourable settlement of the “Indo-Naga political issue” and resolve the boundary issue before giving shape to the agreement.
What is the tripartite agreement about?
Petroleum experts believe Nagaland, estimated to have 600 million tonnes of oil and natural gas reserves, has the potential to increase India’s onshore oil production by 75%. Exploration in the State, particularly along its resource-rich border with Assam, was halted in the 1990s due to extremism and opposition from local organisations.
On June 11, a tripartite agreement was inked to resume oil and gas exploration along the 512-km border shared by the two States. Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri thanked Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and his Nagaland counterpart Neiphiu Rio for “rising above differences” to chart the way forward for the region and the country. It was a reference to the bitter, decades-old border dispute between the two States and an acknowledgement that exploring oil and gas in about 1,000 sq. km (Oil India Limited said it has an exploration acreage of 3,000 sq. km in Nagaland) of the Disputed Area Belt (DAB) along the Assam-Nagaland border was crucial for India to reduce imports.
The country imports crude oil and natural gas to meet more than 88% and 50% of its domestic requirements, respectively. Underlining the importance of the DAB, Mr. Puri said oil and gas production in Nagaland after 31 years would power the next chapter of India’s energy journey from the northeast, which gave birth to the oil industry in the country.
He also said Nagaland’s significant hydrocarbon potential in the Naga-Schuppen Belt of the Assam-Arakan Basin would augment production in Assam, which accounts for nearly 22% of India’s crude oil reserves and about 15% of the country’s natural gas reserves. Nagaland-based organisations, however, do not share his optimism.
Why are these organisations opposed to exploration?
One of the first to react to the tripartite agreement was the Working Committee of the Naga National Political Groups (WC-NNPGs), a conglomerate of seven extremist outfits that signed the Agreed Position with the Centre in November 2017. The conglomerate said the Agreed Position was intended to pave the way for a permanent settlement of the “Indo-Naga political issue”.
It reminded the Centre of a clause in the Agreed Position, which says that the Nagaland Tatar Hoho (Members of National Parliament) will legislate on the ownership and transfer of land and its resources, including mines, minerals, oil and natural gas, while the governments of India and Nagaland will jointly handle radioactive elements, which have national security relevance and implications.
“This implies a post-solution Nagaland government, and unless the Indo-Naga political settlement is officially signed across the table, any attempt to explore natural resources in Naga areas anywhere is illegal and against the agreed principles,” the WC-NNPGs said.
On the other hand, organisations of the Lotha and Konyak Nagas focused on the border dispute and sought clarity on the DAB and other border issues to safeguard Nagaland’s territorial integrity. The Konyak Union also urged the government to address the concerns, respect the rights, and take the consent of the landowners before finalising the decision on exploration to ensure a fair, transparent, and acceptable outcome for all stakeholders.
Various organisations, including the Nagaland Tribes Council, reacted similarly in April 2023 when Mr. Sarma and Mr. Rio agreed in principle to facilitate oil and gas exploration along the disputed interstate border.
What is the Indo-Naga political issue?
It refers to the Centre’s peace process with Naga extremist groups in Nagaland and Naga-inhabited areas in other northeastern States, primarily Manipur. Naga nationalism, stoked when the British rulers made the Naga Hills a part of Assam in 1866, took a formal shape in 1929 when the Naga Club submitted a memorandum to the Simon Commission, demanding that the Nagas should be allowed to determine their own future.
In June 1947, the Governor of Assam signed the Nine-Point Agreement with the Naga National Council (NNC), a foundational political organisation formed to unite Naga tribes and advocate for Naga independence. The agreement granted the Naga Hills region judicial, executive, and legislative autonomy, but with a contested clause requiring renegotiation or extension after ten years.
While the NNC interpreted this as an implied path to sovereignty, New Delhi viewed it as a routine renegotiation within the Indian Union. Demanding complete sovereignty, the NNC launched an armed movement in the 1950s. The Indian government responded by enacting the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, to contain insurgency.
In 1960, New Delhi signed the Sixteen-Point Agreement with Naga moderates, leading to the creation of Nagaland as a full-fledged State within the Indian Union in December 1963. This agreement, however, failed to check the separatist movement.
The Centre signed another agreement, the 1975 Shillong Accord, with the NNC, but a faction rejected it and formed the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) in January 1980.
It split into the NSCN (I-M) led by Isak Chishi Swu and the Manipur-born Thuingaleng Muivah, and the NSCN (K) led by the Myanmar-based S.S. Khaplang. The latter broke up into several groups, mostly headed by Nagaland-based Nagas.
The NSCN (I-M) declared a truce with the Indian armed forces in July 1997 and signed the Framework Agreement in August 2015. The NSCN (K) declared a ceasefire in April 2001 but abrogated it unilaterally in March 2015. Its breakaway factions signed the Agreed Position. Both the Framework Agreement and the Agreed Position await a final settlement.
What caused the Assam-Nagaland border dispute?
Insurgency in Nagaland sustained the border dispute that stems from colonial-era demarcation in November 1925, based on which Nagaland was carved out of Assam as India’s 16th State on December 1, 1963.
Assam stood by the 1925-defined border, but Nagaland claimed historically Naga territories had been arbitrarily transferred to Assam. The disagreement triggered the border clashes in 1965 and six times thereafter—the last incident was in 2015—claiming at least 157 lives.
According to the Assam government, Nagaland has encroached upon 59,490 hectares of its land in Golaghat, Jorhat, Karbi Anglong, and Sivasagar districts. To resolve this dispute, the Centre constituted the K.V.K. Sundaram Committee in 1971 to recommend solutions to the border dispute.
This resulted in four interim agreements to maintain the status quo along the border and the deployment of the Central Reserve Police Force in 1979 as a neutral entity in the buffer zone between the two States. That year, the border was divided into six sectors—A, B, C, D, E, and F—for administrative purposes.
Another Committee headed by B.C. Mathur (later by S.K. Shastri) was formed in 1985 to examine the border conflict, but Nagaland rejected its report in 1987 for an alleged pro-Assam tilt. Assam partially resolved its border disputes with Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh through agreements in March 2022 and April 2023, respectively; the complicated dispute with Nagaland awaits resolution.
Why was oil exploration in Nagaland stopped?
In 1973, the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) acquired an exploration license from the Petroleum Ministry to explore oil and natural gas in the community-owned Changpang and Tssori areas of Nagaland’s Wokha district. The ONGC allegedly extracted more than the permitted volume of crude oil and natural gas per day without informing the community or the landowners.
Reports said that the exploration major extracted 1.04 million tonnes of oil from March 1991 to May 1994. Following protests from Naga individuals and organisations, the Nagaland government in May 1994 withdrew the exploration permit granted to the ONGC.
Between 2006 and 2007, the Centre again allotted oil blocks in Nagaland to the ONGC, which could not proceed due to community opposition. In 2009, the Nagaland government suspended all oil-related activities and annulled previous exploration and mining leases.
It formed a Cabinet Sub Committee to work out modalities to govern oil and natural gas exploration, but complications arose due to the Oil Fields Regulation and Development Act, 1948, and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Rules, 1959, which authorised the Centre to develop and regulate hydrocarbon reserves across the country and made the States holding the reserve eligible for a royalty decided by the Centre.
Although Article 371A of the Constitution of India guarantees that no Central law on land and its resources applies to Nagaland unless the Assembly ratifies it, the Nagaland government passed a resolution in July 2010, which allowed it to develop petroleum reserves in the State, acquire mineral-bearing areas, set land compensation rates and landowners’ share in the royalty, and issue environmental and forest clearance to projects.
In 2012, the government introduced the Nagaland Petroleum and Natural Gas (NPNG) Regulations. A section of Nagas opposed the NPNG for its poor benefit-sharing mechanism.
More than a decade later, the Nagaland government pursued the idea of resuming oil exploration to boost its economy, recover lost royalties, and support national energy security. The State government estimated its annual loss at more than ₹1,825 crore in oil royalties due to the non-operation of the oilfields. It signed the tripartite agreement to improve the State finances.s
