Nagaland integral part of India: RN Ravi

KOHIMA, Aug 16
A day after several organisations in Nagaland observed Naga Independence Day, Governor R.N. Ravi said Nagaland has been and shall ever remain an integral part of India.
His statement on Sunday coincided with a 24-hour shutdown called by an apex Naga civil society organisation across the Naga-inhabited areas to protest an order by the government in adjoining Manipur to hoist the Tricolour in all villages on the Independence Day.
“In the autumn of their rule, when the British conspired to partition India and give away northeast India to Pakistan, the leaders of Naga Hills stood in solidarity with the rest of the country and thwarted the diabolical colonial conspiracy. Naga leaders played significant roles in the constitutional evolution of India,” Mr. Ravi said in his Independence Day speech in Kohima.
“On the auspicious occasion of the 75th anniversary of our Independence, a grateful nation pays homage to all the martyrs and heroes of Nagaland who gave their utmost for the cause of India’s freedom. Unfortunately, except for a few like Rani Gaidinliu, they are largely nameless. Their names and glories shall be pulled out of the forgotten pages of history and suitably installed to honour them and commemorate their immense sacrifices for the posterity to remember them with pride and also to appreciate the value of hard-earned freedom,” he said.
“My dear brothers and sisters of Nagaland, preserving our unique cultural identity, we must break the colonial miasma and march in step with the rest of the country in our journey of shared prosperity. In the unfolding epochal story of India’s resurgence, Nagaland cannot be left behind,” Mr. Ravi said.
He reminded the people of Talimeren Ao, captain of post-independence India’s national football team, who raised the Indian Tricolour at the London Olympics in 1948.
Apart from government structures and security establishments, the National Flag is hardly hoisted in Nagaland and Naga-inhabited areas of Manipur. This has its roots in decades of conflict with sovereignty-seeking extremist groups.
Though the groups have been pursuing a peace process since 1997, the Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland,  in particular, has been insisting on a separate flag and constitution for ‘Nagalim’ comprising all Naga-inhabited areas in the northeast. The Hindu