P. Shilu Ao

P. Shilu Ao (December 24, 1916 – September 19, 1988) was a Naga politician who was involved in the negotiations leading to the creation of Nagaland, in the far north-east of India, as one of the states and territories of India in December 1963. Ao then served as the first Chief Minister of Nagaland until August 1966. Ao played a part in persuading the Indian Government and Lok Sabha to accept Nagaland's statehood, but was not able to reconcile many Naga nationalists, who regarded him and his party as stooges of the central government.

Ao was born in the Longjang village of the district of Mokokchung to Metongchiba Pongen and Melungnenla Imchen on December 24, 1916. He was schooled at the Impur Mission School and completed a bachelor's degree and a law degree from the Cotton College, Guwahati and the Guwahati University. Like the majority of Naga people, he was a Christian. He then worked as a school teacher, as a headmaster and the Inspector of Schools at Kohima. Having joined the administrative service of Assam in 1954, Ao served as an assistant commissioner and first class magistrate with the Government of Assam from 1954 to 1960.

In 1960, Ao resigned from government service and entered politics joining the Naga People's Convention (NPC). The Naga inhabited regions of Assam had been racked by insurgency ever since India's independence in 1947 with the Naga National Council under Angami Zapu Phizo calling for Naga independence from India. The Convention, established in 1954, however took a moderate stance calling for the establishment of a separate administrative unit within Assam by merging the Tuensang division of North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) with the Naga Hills District of Assam. The Government of India agreed to this demand in 1957, creating the Naga Hills and Tuensang Area. In 1960, Jawaharlal Nehru met an NPC delegation and the Government of India and the NPC signed a 16-point resolution, which called for the establishment of a state of Nagaland. Nehru announced the acceptance of this resolution in Parliament on August 1, 1960. Ao was part of the NPC team that drafted the resolution and met with Nehru and was one of the signatories of the accord reached between the Nagas and the Indian government.

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