There is good news out of the North-East these days. A few days before the ceasefire between the Government of India and the most powerful militant Naga group was to end, came the decision of the Council of Ministers of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Issak-Muivah faction) to recommend the continuance of the ceasefire and the peace process from their side. This was followed by the news that the General Secretary of the NSCN, Thiungelang Muivah, now in a Thai prison, has nominated the chairman of the organisation, Issak Chisi Swu, to lead the negotiations with the Government of India's negotiator, former home secretary Padmanabhiah.

Brief but intense talks between Mr. Swu and his team were held with Indian Government mediators, including Delhi's chief negotiator, former Home Secretary Padmanabhiah, in South East Asia about the time that the ceasefire were renewed.The Government of India has also responded well by deciding to renew the ceasefire and the talks. This gives the three-year-old ceasefire a fresh lease of life and the peace process, struggling along with the involvement of members of Naga civil society, such as non-government organisations, prominent citizens and Church leaders, to ensure that the battling factions (there are two other prominent pro-independence Naga groups in addition to the I-M) reduce the enmity of each other and honestly face the mistakes that they have made in order to negotiate with New Delhi from a position of strength and unity, rather than division.

I write this in the North-East, as the clouds look down upon a dark Brahmaputra river which holds the Assam Valley in a fierce and tumultuous embrace. Fresh air sweeps away doubt and cleanses our lungs, polluted by years of living in overcrowded, filthy metros.

One can almost hear a sigh of relief from the Naga Hills, and Manipur further to the east, as the good news reached these distant lands. This is especially so because, during the past year, statistics show that more Nagas have died in internecine conflicts and confrontations than in clashes with Indian security forces, which, despite their show of strength, have maintained a distance. Yet, the fighting among the groups has become so bad at times that local police and other security personnel have had to intervene.

Why should Indians be interested in the Naga struggle? It has been going on for nearly 50 years, with brief respites, and people in the rest of the country seem to have gotten used to it. But this is the mother of all struggles in the North-East, especially the I-M (which derives its abbreviation from the initials of its two principal leaders) and a resolution of the outstanding issues here with all groups can lead to lasting peace in the North-East. The other groups will have no choice but to follow the Naga example for here are talks being held without preconditions, in a foreign land with ceasefire at home (however flawed) and ground rules being set down for monitoring of the peace process. This is not to say that New Delhi will have to start negotiating with all groups in foreign countries - especially those whose clout has fallen greatly due to public opposition to their extortionist and confused ways - but at least initial contacts can be made with them before bringing them into the dialogue mode.

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Muivah's decision to resume the dialogue is especially significant for it represents many months of reflection and discussion with his colleagues and other Naga well-wishers. During his six months in a Thai prison on various charges of entering the country on false travel documents and then trying to leave in similar fashion (he already is serving a one-year term for the latter), Muivah, a legendary figure among the Nagas, has had much time to think about the past and the future of the Naga struggle and his own role. This is not an ordinary rebel leader, as one has pointed out elsewhere. He was the man who established the China connection in the 1960s, walking nearly 1,000 kms with a tough band of Naga fighters across Myanmarese hills and jungles to reach Yunnan province; he networked with other Burmese guerrilla groups and supporters in Pakistan to develop bases and ground support systems; he broke with the established Naga leadership after it signed the Shillong Accord of 1975 that brought one underground faction out in the open and set up the NSCN with his close friend and colleague, Issak Seu.

There were differences with other rebel leaders and in 1988, the NSCN split into two factions after a surprise attack on Muivah's camp by the followers of S.S.Khaplang, a leader of the Konyak community who lives in Burma. More than 200 of Muivah's best fighters were butchered in that attack and he has never forgotten or forgiven the incident, calling it a betrayal of the cause. Khaplang has responded by saying that the other group was planning a deal with New Delhi, a charge that the I-M angrily denies.

Although the seeds of tribal dissensions have long existed in the Naga movement, this split sealed these differences. Muivah is a Tangkhul Naga of Manipur state, which has no representation in the state of Nagaland. Issak Swu is a Sema, which is among the larger Naga ethnic communities. The Khapang faction is largely Konyak, the single largest Naga tribe, and the third major group, the Naga National Council run by Adino, the daughter of the undisputed father of the Naga movement, Angami Zapu Phizo, is predominatly Angami. The I-M leadership, both political and military, is Tangkhul dominated.

But Muivah's statesmanship in the renewal of the peace process is snub to hawks and an affirmation of his belief in a negotiated settlement. It shows a path out of rhetoric and slogans which often trap leaders and followers in a quagmire of ideological sterility. Rhetoric is the enemy of dialogue and of reason.

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There is also, one believes, a growing realisation among Nagas about the difference between utopia, of dreams, and the practical need to develop practical solutions to their long and arduous struggle. Development is absolutely key to the latter. Health care, power and water supply, good roads and schools, preserving the environment and a basic minimum form of governance are crucial. These will not and need not wait for the day of liberation - which is unlikely to come at any point in the near future anyway. While there is a certain logic to some of the Naga historical demands - they say that they cannot be termed secessionists since as early as 1929 they had made their demand for their separate status to be restored and that on August 14, 1947, they had declared independence. So, the logic here runs, can they be termed secessionist if they were never part of the larger state?

Whatever the merits of this argument, the fact is that new historic realities exist. We cannot live in the past, although our roots may remain there. Neither India nor Myanmar are likely to allow independent states to be carved out of slices of their respective territories. The United Nations too does not support self-determination which leads to the division of an existing country. There are strong doubts about the vialibity of such small, ethnically-driven states.

Some Nagas are speaking about the need to "negotiate for an interim settlement that postpones discussion of the issues of Naga sovereignty and India's territorial integrity to a mutually agreed future time. If this interim settlement gives sufficient recognition of the political rights of the Nagas, their nationality and the validity of their historic struggle, Nagas may start to perceive that keeping the territorial integrity of India undisturbed will turn out to be the best guarantee of their future as a people."

One Naga of high integrity said recently that the Naga public was demanding of the I-M leadership "to simply propose what they consider to be the best terms for the Nagas now and to call upon the others to take a common stand by pardoning their past excesses. Their transparency will win the public and it will challenge the other factions to respond with magnanimity if they are wise."

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The North-East is a good area in which one should examine the issue of transparency. The vastness of corruption in the North-Eastern states, not just Nagaland, is mind-boggling. It runs into thousands of crores of rupees and some of the states which complain the most about alienation are those which get the maximum per capita grant assistance from New Delhi!

In addition, professionals and businessmen are also forced to pay up. The tax-raising net or rather the extortion racket spares no one, not even paanwallahs and chaiwallahs, especially in Tripura. A refusal could mean kidnapping and being held ransom for a higher sum. In parts of Assam, businessmen have gotten used to paying militants and their cohorts (as well as the pretenders) regularly every month: one of their own collects the cash.

It is here that monitoring by small independent groups made up of individuals who carry social weight and are respected for their integrity is necessary. There is a risk in this: neither the state governments or the underground groups will like it and could act extremely tough. But these are public funds paid by tax-payers to the Government of India for public purposes. The public has a right to know, anywhere in this country, how the funds are being used.

Clearly, corruption is leading to non-governance. And corruption has eaten into the vitals of the administrators and politicians as well as the militants. Each gets a cut from major projects and some state governments are believed to support one group or the other. This would be laughable if it was not so serious and tragic. Not a day passes in Nagaland without a businessman being told to give a vehicle for the cause as well as money.

Dead are the dreams of romance and emancipation; what remains for the most are extortion and freebooters. International NGOs and human rights groups which espouse such causes would be well advised to understand this side of the story.

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Finally, some good news too from Aruanchal Pradesh. In the previous column, one had spoken of the great tidal surge that swept down from Tibet through this state on the Siang river, which is the Tsangpo in Tibvet and and the Brahmaputra in Assam. Bridges were snapped, communications disrupted, villages stranded for days. The External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh, was informed of these events and raised this issue with his Chinese counterpart during their talks in Delhi last week. He extracted a promise that the Chinese would, in future, share information about floods and weather problems with their Indian counterparts. This is a major achievement and Jaswant Singh deserves the gratitude of the people of the North East for making it possible and for being sensitive to coverage of a difficult situation. It is not often that such events, as I had noted earlier, make news; even rarer is the time when such situations are used to change international policy.