Neiphiu Rio and Okram Ibobi Singh

Kohima, June 16: Round two of the Nagaland-Manipur tug-of-war over ?Naga integration? may have just begun with the Neiphiu Rio government appealing to Delhi for affiliation of schools in Manipur?s Naga-inhabited areas to the Nagaland Board of School Education.

Rio and his colleagues decided to make the request during a meeting of the Consultative Committee for Peace yesterday. Urging the Union human resource development ministry to ?sympathetically consider the request? of the Nagas of Manipur, the Rio government said it would gladly allow schools in the hill districts of the neighbouring state to be affiliated to its board.

The United Naga Council (UNC) and the All Naga Students Association of Manipur were the first to drag education into the debate over the integration of contiguous Naga-inhabited areas of the Northeast. K.S. Paul Leo, president of the UNC, said in Imphal last month that the campaign was a part of the non-cooperation movement launched by his organisation against the Ibobi government.

In the Naga-inhabited districts of Ukhrul, Senapati, Chandel and Tamenglong, textbooks prescribed by the Nagaland board have already been distributed among students and teachers of classes VIII to X. For Classes I to VII, there is the option of either following the old syllabus or taking up the one prescribed in Nagaland.

Naga organisations are involved in this exercise despite Ibobi Singh sternly warning private schools in the hill districts against any change in syllabus. The chief minister said recently that no school in his state would be allowed to discard the textbooks prescribed by the Manipur Board of Secondary Education and the Council of Higher Education, Manipur.

As many as 60,000 students of 150-odd private schools in the four Naga-inhabited districts would be affected if there is a change in syllabus. Manipur could even derecognise private schools that adopt the Nagaland syllabus.

?If the Manipur government does that, it will be very good for us,? a defiant Paul Langhu, president of the All Naga Students Association of Manipur, told The Telegraph over phone.

Langhu said students and teachers had already begun ?studying? textbooks prescribed by the Nagaland board.

The Nagaland government, however, is in a quandary despite its show of support. ?Affiliation has to be done with the permission of the human resource development ministry. Otherwise, it will be an infringement (on laws),? school education minister Imkong L. Imchen said.

The Rio government has time and again claimed to be a ?facilitator? in the dialogue between Delhi and the NSCN (Isak-Muivah). In the last four decades, governments in Nagaland have adopted four resolutions supporting integration of the Naga-inhabited areas of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh with Nagaland.