A significant split has opened within the NSCN-IM, the Naga insurgent group that has held a ceasefire with New Delhi since 1997 and remains central to the long-stalled Naga political talks. The group’s Eastern Flank — based across the border in Myanmar’s Sagaing Region — has declared a breakaway “provisional government,” rejecting expulsion orders issued against its senior commanders by the NSCN-IM’s mainline leadership.

The declaration followed what the faction called an “Extraordinary Joint Emergency Meeting” of its civil workers and Naga Army officers at Mt Horeb Camp on July 21, chaired by Lt Gen (Retd) H.S. Ramsan. The meeting named Ikato I Chishi Swu as chairman of the provisional government, with Ramsan, Lt Col (Retd) Victor Angami, Lt Gen A Raman, Brig Detail Dani and Angyo Jacob Jingseya as members, and Ngaranmi Jagoi, Merry Ramsan and Rev Vitovi Yeputho as advisors. The rupture follows the mainline NSCN-IM leadership’s expulsion of Ramsan and Raman on grounds of insubordination and refusal to engage with reconciliation efforts; the Eastern Flank has framed its declaration as a rejection of that expulsion rather than an acceptance of it.

Background: why this split matters beyond internal politics. The NSCN-IM was formed in 1988 when the original NSCN split into factions led by Isak Chishi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah on one side, and S.S. Khaplang on the other. Isak Chishi Swu co-signed the 1997 ceasefire and later the 2015 Framework Agreement with the Indian government — the accord that remains the basis, on paper, for a final Naga political settlement — before his death in 2016. That the Eastern Flank’s newly declared chairman shares the Chishi Swu name is notable and unremarked upon in the coverage reviewed; Sentinel NE Desk could not independently confirm the exact relationship between Ikato I Chishi Swu and the late Isak Chishi Swu and is not asserting one.

More concretely verifiable is the operational context: the Eastern Flank has itself been an active combatant in the same Kamjong-district border belt covered in our reporting on this week’s bridge blast. Public reporting from earlier in 2026 documents Eastern Flank cadres killed in an inter-factional ambush in March, and armed clashes between the Eastern Flank and the Kuki National Army-Burma (KNA-B) in April in Kamjong district along the Indo-Myanmar border. The faction now declaring its own provisional government has been directly engaged in the same cross-border armed contest, in the same district, as several incidents Sentinel NE has covered this month. Whether that combat history shaped this week’s leadership rupture is not addressed in any source found, and we are not asserting a causal link — only noting the overlap for readers tracking the region’s overlapping conflicts.

No response from the NSCN-IM’s mainline leadership or the Indian government to this specific declaration was found in coverage reviewed at publication time. Details of the provisional government’s membership and intentions come from the Eastern Flank’s own statement as relayed by the outlets cited below.

No response from the NSCN-IM’s mainline leadership or the Indian government to this specific declaration was found in coverage reviewed at publication time. The relationship, if any, between the provisional government’s named chairman and the late NSCN-IM co-founder of the same surname could not be independently confirmed and is not asserted in this article.