The National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB), Assam's best-known insurgent group other than the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), is still talking sense despite being restive over the long delay initiating the peace talks by the Government of India. The two sides entered into a ceasefire on 1 June 2005 and eighteen months later, the Bodo rebel group, after months of quiet, has made it clear that its demand for 'sovereignty' must form the 'core issue' of any peace talks.

On June 1 this year, the truce was extended by another six months, and on November 28, 2006, the Government has just about managed to extend the truce by another six months beginning December 1. That, too, after the NDFB started talking tough and threatened to snap the ceasefire. However, unlike the ULFA, the NDFB has not made its ‘sovereignty’ demand a precondition for peace talks. In effect, what the NDFB means is that New Delhi must hear out the group’s argument in favour of its ‘sovereignty’ demand and then come up with responses. This indeed is a sensible and practical approach by the NDFB, which like the ULFA, has trans-border linkages and cannot be ignored.

Now, the NDFB is threatening to pull out of the truce if the Government does not fasten the peace process. Its leaders feel that New Delhi is pursuing the strategy of trying to tire the group's top-brass so that they would agree to sign on the dotted line on the Government's terms. If that is true, it is a dangerous idea; anything sort of an honorable or acceptable solution would force a section of the NDFB leaders and cadres to split and form a splinter group and continue with its armed campaign.

The NDFB has already expressed its willingness to accept a solution within the Indian Constitutional framework. Despite this, it is surprising that the Government is not attaching the desired importance to the group. It is clear now that the Government attaches primary importance and acknowledges those groups who carry out the maximum violence and manage to keep the security establishment on tenterhooks.

New Delhi's stand vis-a-vis the NDFB has also sent wrong signals to other militant groups in the region, which could be on the verge of arriving at a truce with the government. The militant groups may now think that a ceasefire could be seen as weakness. In so far as the NDFB is concerned, both the Union and the Assam governments have been maintaining that the group has not put forward its main demands. Now that the two sides are likely to meet for talks by this month-end, this is a welcome development.

New Delhi must avoid any deliberate delaying tactic with the NDFB. In recent weeks, several NDFB cadres, who are supposed to be on a truce-mode, have been killed by security forces. Authorities maintain that they were killed in shootouts under various circumstances, but the NDFB leaders say their cadres were killed without any provocation. But the fact remains that the lower rung NDFB men are getting restless and the leaders are finding it rather hard to contain them within their designated camps. There are a total of 1,027 registered NDFB cadres but only three designated camps exist. The group is unhappy with the Government's refusal to set up additional designated camps for its men to stay during the ceasefire period.

With the NDFB saying that 'sovereignty' must form the 'core issue' at peace talks and still not making it a precondition for the negotiations to begin, the Government has got a rather clear signal that it must come up with a fair deal for the outfit to consider. But the main problem is to work out a deal that would not clash with the agreement that the Government had clinched with the Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT) in 2003 that has led to the creation of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC), an elective politico-administrative structure with a Rs 100 crore yearly allocation.

Whether a new deal with a new Bodo insurgent outfit will be able to work in harmony with the existing deal is the big question. The challenge before New Delhi is to work out an agreement with the NDFB that would not disturb the existing Bodo applecart. If an agreement is to be reached with the NDFB for the sake of it, chances are that Assam's Bodo heartland will plunge into fresh turmoil, even a civil war.