It began with former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao who first met with the leaders of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (IM) in 1995, in Paris. The talks would continue after that, but it wasn’t till Atal Bihari Vajpayee came to power that the Thuingaleng Muivah and Isak Chisi Swu, who make up the I and M in NSCN (IM), got a chance to speak to New Delhi on home ground.

The above video from the Associated Press archive shows Swu and Muivah entering Vajpayee’s residence in Delhi, in January 2003, their first visit to the Indian capital in nearly four decades. After more than 15,000 people had died in one of the country’s longest running insurgencies, the peace efforts carried forward by Vajpayee managed to not only hold substantive talks with the leaders, but followed it up with a landmark visit to Nagaland later that year.

As scholar Sanjoy Hazarika puts it, what Vajpayee said in 2003 “set the tone and pace for a possible Naga settlement,” primarily because he emphasised the idea of peace with dignity and honour. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s deal with the NSCN (IM) is an incomplete one, yet in his emphasis on honour, dignity and dialogue, he echoed his predecessor in the role in attempting to solve a conflict that has troubled India since before independence.