Limhachan Kikon
Duncan Basti, Dimapur
The moment before us is not accidental; it has long been in the making. The scattered voices in the milieu of our terrain from moderate voices like the CNF (Concerned Naga Forum) to the more outright and strident tone organising themselves as ‘The Fed Up Nagas’ both reject the existing status quo.
A Burmese Historian of Harvard scholarship, Thant Myint-U observes in his book “The Hidden History of Burma”, published in 2019 that the fault lines of this region were never merely political—they were geographic, civilizational, and deeply entangled with shifting currents of power. He writes -
“In 1937, the British separated Burma from India, in response to a decades-old Burmese demand. This was India's first and largely forgotten partition. And whereas the second partition, in 1947, created the nation of Pakistan on the basis of religious identity, this first partition created Burma within its modern borders on a basis of racial identity.”
The question now weighing in our mind should be why the Naga Hills were not absorbed into Burma despite our common racial similarity.
Geography?
Colonial statecraft recognized what local consciousness did not. The Naga Hills—despite ethnic proximity to Burma—were retained within India. Geography overruled race. Terrain, access, and frontier depth mattered more than kindred spirit. The location was read correctly—even if its people were never told why. And so the five was rolled.
We were not special subjects only maintained to secure their tea gardens in upper Assam. But our geography was and add to this logistics, they recognised it as leverage. It is not coincidence that the Japanese invasion was finally brought to a standstill and retreat in a tennis court still visible in the War Cemetery at Kohima. The oilfields from Digboi via The Burmah Oil Company (now Bharat Petroleum) along with the roads supplying these resources, ensured victory for the Allied Forces in 1945.
The Naga Hills were never peripheral; we misread it. Treated as a frontier, they were in truth a hinge—burdened by history, yet positioned for consequence. It is not isolated. It is a bridge.
There is, however, a principle attached to responsibility that now also stands unavoidable: 'to whom much is given, much will be required' (The Gospel of Luke chapter 12).
Geography has given the Naga Hills more than what they have claimed—position between systems; India and South East Asia and China together commands above 25 trillion dollars turnover, access to corridors of trade, and the latent ability to influence flows in between.
The Act East Policy of the Government of India 2014 has a logic. The Western borders with Pakistan will likely remain mired in stalemate and the North, barricaded by the steep Himalayas is very difficult terrain.
On the other hand, the Naga Hills Trade Corridor starting from the plains in Nagaland is the best bet and this idea or Policy once legitimised by our State Assembly is no longer a matter of sentiment or historical validation. It is a matter of our affirmation, responsibility and trust to posterity. Our future pleads for it.
Emerging nodes from Niuland, Medziphema and Chümoukedima lie in waiting for processing scale and warehouses and hotels and offices. Corporates will join in from Mumbai to Hanoi to Singapore as a rule for commerce to organise, move and sustain. This is a given when spices like black pepper from Vietnam (the world’s largest producer for the largest consumer: India), Burmese pulses or supari, India consumes enormous amounts of these for example.
Despite the Assam Government efforts to position the Inland Dry Port at Karbi Anglong, our State Government appear to be dangling rhetorics and slogans. Sleeping? The moment of shift is already here. The only question is whether it will be recognized in time and prioritized.
The Naga Hills are not destined to remain a frontier; they are structured to become a corridor and corridors are not declared in slogans—they are built through competence, efficiency, and intelligence. Value risks being extracted outside and the Naga Hills becoming bystanders as trucks roll by. Woefully we have yet to see any paper even for discussion from our government.
These contingencies are no longer administrative afterthoughts; they are early indicators of a reorientation—from isolation to integration and from fragmentation to alignment. What was once seen as edge or corner is now revealing itself as entry point.
The architecture of a corridor was never theoretical—it is forming, quietly, through movement, connectivity, and intent. One simply had to step outside New Field Check Gate to Khatkati and till Bokajan and pat ourselves for enabling a thriving business model base dependent on Dimapur Nagaland.
As and when this corridor takes shape, its impact will not remain confined to a limited space—it will trigger a domino effect across the region. Economic flows, once established, will begin to realign incentives beyond borders, drawing in neighbouring communities and ethnic systems toward participation rather than isolation. Trade will begin to outcompete conflict even in volatile ethnic groups of Myanmar's fringes.
One can easily imagine our territories as places of congeniality and ease. A Vietnamese honcho or a Chinese from Singapore or a Thai businessman digging into our cuisine laced with Axone, Anishe and Rhüchak with relish as they visit here for firming up business deals. Our warmth and hospitality catering to services and our tact for language, Hindi, English, Assamese as a bridge for communication.
Recalibration is not abandonment of history, but its evolution to maturity. Systems must replace sentiment where necessary; credibility must replace ambiguity; and value must be created before it is extracted. This is the crux.
No durable future can be built by excluding those who bore the brunt of the past. The story of Naga resistance is not one of foolishness, but of courage born under pressure—of a people who felt unseen, unheard, who chose to stand, to protect identity, land, and dignity when the world around them was shifting without their consent.
The pain carried across places like Kohima, Mokokchung, Wokha, and Zunheboto, Ukhrul, Tamenglong etc is real, layered, and deserves acknowledgment—not dismissal. With time, it is clear that the movement bore the brunt of expectations larger than its structural capacity; yet it leaned heavily on emotional resolve while underestimating geopolitical realities, allowing external forces to shape outcomes in ways that were never fully controlled from within. The present situation is equally existential as society as a whole grapple with issues of livelihoods and future stance.
We are now at the inflection point. The burden of history has been carried. The clarity of geography has emerged and the direction is no longer hidden. What remains is execution—disciplined, inclusive, and unrelenting starting from the boardrooms inviting all stakeholders from Mumbai to New Delhi to Imphal and Guwahati.
The Naga Hills will either remain a narrative of what they endured, or rise as a system defined by what they enable, an indispensable pivot in the flow of goods, capital and commerce in Asia. A centre for trade and culture. Now, the moment shifts and civilizations are shaped by how we relate to space—whether we withdraw, defend, or utilize it.
The current scenario at the Hormuz Strait in the Persian Gulf is another corridor for flow and enables us to understand deeper the power of location and how outsiders rely on smooth flow of goods, with fuel rationing underway in many countries.
For decades, our posture has been protective. But as geography is re-recognized as a platform for exchange, it redefines purpose. The land is no longer a boundary to guard, but a corridor to activate. The civilizational script has moved—from preservation to participation. What we may deem issues of identity and history as politically expedient and workable in short time has little relevance in the larger theatre. We are either the obstacle or the facilitator.
The shift required now is fundamentally cognitive: to recognize reality as fact, not trick. Opportunity must be seen without distortion. The mind begins to accept what the land has always held and how we relate to it now is up to us—its potential and that relevance must be activated and legitimised only from within not from inference or prodding from New Delhi. An internal shift has already occurred and the government of the day must recognise this dynamic and become a true enabler to this possibility. Awareness has settled, fatigue has given way to clarity and clarity to intent.
There is an unmistakable signal emerging—a quiet but growing sense of being “fed up.” This is not decline or lackadaisical. It is awakening. It is the exhaustion with old patterns that no longer produce results. A group of people posturing in the social space as “The Fed-Up Nagas” is not isolated signal. Material outcomes and realistic change, not optics is the cry. The grassroots are already negotiating with the centre, from the far margins to where Kohima is.
The first message was already delivered in the election of Supongmeren Jamir as MP in 2024, representing a shift within the internal threshold of our inner world, rejecting the consensus candidate and instead choosing self-validation and worth in community, empathy, compassion and Christian affirmation, independently. Besides, the dividing space between urban and rural was always superficial, within the context of how tribal societies exist. There is a cohesion and understanding even beyond class. Why can't we choose a bold new game plan next?
An added insight is available through the perspectives outlined by Kishore Mabhubani, a political scientist and former President of the UN Security Council who served in the transformation of what we now see Singapore representing. He also served as Dean in the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore (2004-2017). He rightly points out that the age of relevance is shifting back to Asia.
Let’s recognise this moment not as aspiration but as momentum and rhythm and our response to plug into and move into the heart beat of commerce in Asia. In such a moment, regions that sit at the crossroads of such resurgence cannot afford ambiguity. The Naga Hills are not outside this shift. They are positioned within it. To ignore this is not caution: it is a misreading of history in motion.
The “forgotten frontier” is revealing itself as an unclaimed advantage. A pivot for trade flows as corridors and networks begin to define the future. The Naga Hills steps into their role—not as margins, but as connectors. What is required now is a disciplined transition: from “we were wronged” to “we understand power,” from “we resist” to “we re-position”, from memory as identity to geography as leverage. A bigger dream realistically speaking.
This is what civilizational depth demands—not the abandonment of the past, but mastery over it. Geography becomes function and function becomes value. Value then becomes centrality from where power itself becomes re-configured.
The choice is no longer distant. It is here. And it will define everything that follows from jobs, livelihoods, enhanced identity and recognition of our culture and the entire range of upgrades from services to production. We cannot negotiate with reality. We can only adapt to it and etch our place in history. With everything in motion, the moment is always now.
