During the demarcation of the India-Burma (now Myanmar) border in Nagaland in the 1970s, nine wives of the Longwa village angh (king) woke up one morning to find themselves in Burma. The angh had 20 wives, and only 11 of them were left living in India. While the Longwa village may be an extreme case, the tale is a good reminder that the Naga areas of Myanmar and India, just as within India across Manipur and Nagaland, are contiguous and inhabited by the same people. A solution to the Naga problem thus needs a coordinated effort from both India and Myanmar.

The Nagaland insurgency goes back to 1956, when Angami Zapu Phizo of Naga National Council (NNC) rebelled for an independent Naga state. New Delhi took the 1975 Shillong Accord, signed between the representatives of the NNC-Federal Government and the Government of India, as the final political settlement of the Naga problem. But elements within the NNC were divided over the Shillong Agreement and its acceptance of the Indian constitution. This resulted in the formation of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), with Isak Swu as the chairman, Khaplang as the vice-chairman, and Muivah as the general secretary.