I welcome and do appreciate Dr. Hesheto Y. Chishi and Naga People’s Movement for Human Right (NPMHR) who has discussed on my article “Nagas are not indigenous people”, which appeared in Nagaland dailies on 18th September 2007. They shared their point of view that Nagas are first settlers, native people and therefore Nagas are indigenous people.
But my point of view is, Nagas are not indigenous people, but it does not mean the Nagas are not first settlers of the lands or native people. However, the question is; Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Thais, or Burmese etc. are the first settlers of their lands. Yet, the word ‘Indigenous’ does not apply to these people, because they are nations. Why then should we apply the word Indigenous to us? Generally the word ‘Indigenous’ has been applied to people such as the Aborigines of Australia, the Maories of New Zealand, the Red Indian of North and South American continents, the Samis of the Scandinavian countries, the Chakmas of the Chitagong region of Bangladesh, the Rangkhols and Tripuris of Tripura. Because these people have been reduced to minority in their own land by the waves of migrants from outside to their homeland; and the migrants who became majority controlled the government, economic and all social systems. Hence the native people (first settlers) completely submerged and assimilated into the political and social system of migrant people. Therefore, the native people had driven to seek the status of Indigenous people in the international forum. But the Nagas never reduced to seek the status of Indigenous people in the past or in our life time. Therefore the Nagas have nothing to do with the word ‘Indigenous people’.
Thus we can say the Nagas are not indigenous people. Thousand years ago our ancestral Fathers occupied this no man’s land and till today we are occupying it and we are the people of the land and we are a nation which had never fallen into foreign domination in the human history. We are not living under the mercy of other majority race of the migrant people. And we are not fighting for recognition as an indigenous people, but for not to reduce into indigenous people (minority) in our own homeland. Especially while we are fighting against the aggressor India we should not label ourselves as an indigenous people lest the international leaders be misunderstood on the Indo-Naga conflict as an internal affair of India. It is the fact that the Indigenous right and Human Rights become international issues; even then the phases of Indigenous right and Human Rights are internal affairs of one’s own country, and self-determination is purely internal affairs. The fact we have to understand that the Indo-Naga conflict is not an internal affair of India or Burma. Let us remember once again the word of our leader Eno Tubu Kevichusa, former NNC General Secretary who stated as follow on 25th August 1995;
“It is not only important to know who we are. It is equally important to say clearly as to who we are. For people will take us according to what we say we are. If we say we are an ‘indigenous people’, then the world will think so accordingly and the matter would end there. If we say we are a Nation, then ultimately men of good reason will recognize us as a Nation. It is not only important to speak with one voice. It is equally important to speak on one issue only”.
Dated Oking; V. Phutoi Zhimomi,
Midan Peyu Cum, Finance Secretary,
Federal Government of Nagaland
