Dr. Paul Pimomo
For months I’ve been bothered by a nightmare. A series of violent images, connected and disconnected and nauseatingly repetitive, has haunted me but I can’t get rid of it. The names of places and people in these images sound familiar...
Here are some of them:
• Thirty houses set ablaze by Sumi youth in Wungram Colony in Purana Bazar in retaliation for the torture of three boys the night before and for the bombing of a prominent leader’s residence earlier, both supposedly perpetrated by NSCN (IM) that has ties to Wungram Colony.
• Events in the nightmare come confused and jumbled as a whole, but some individual incidents are as clear as reading from a newspaper headline, like this one: “Nagaland teetered on the brink of lawlessness as the Kaplang faction of the NSCN gunned down two leaders of the Isak-Muivah group to avenge the seven casualties inflicted by rival militants four days earlier.”
• The players in this ritual of violence remain the same but their positions and alignments change. So this time it was NNC/ FGN that tortured and murdered a villager from Yoruba, which was followed sometime later by another unconnected “firing incident” between FGN and NSCN (IM).
• Next came NSCN (K’s) abortive attempts on the lives of two well-known citizens in Kohima. The tension was diffused by the Angami Public Organization, which called for an end to “the madness of violence and gun culture” among Naga nationalist groups.
• In a perverse logic of numbers reminiscent of the Wungram Colony incident where thirty houses went down in flames, NSCN (IM) cadre razed thirty houses in Jalukie-Zangdi village a few weeks later in an attempt to evict the owners from the area who, according to the group, had no right to the land they were living on.
• NSCN-IM Chaplain Stone, his wife, and three others, traveling from Imphal to Dimapur, were abducted and murdered near Phiphema by NSCN (K).
• Ten Kuki men were killed by NSCN (IM) for terrorizing Naga villages.
• The Rev. Dr. Tuisem Shishak published a confessional public letter calling for repentance and humility among his people and for humanity and understanding among Nagas. NSCN (IM) quickly questioned his authority to speak for Tangkhuls, and shortly thereafter he was ex-communicated from his community for six years by the Tangkhul Naga Long.
These events and others like them all happened in Nagaland in the last five months, from April to September. Except for the participants in this endless bloody maze with no exit, everyday reality in Nagaland has become a veritable nightmare. But Nagas seem to have become so de-sensitized they don’t recognize it as such.
UN Declaration:
Unlike the nights, my waking hours are pleasant. A few days ago I was sitting with my laptop checking out Kuknalim.com in the backyard of my modest Northwest American home under a small canopy of fruit trees that had yielded the year’s harvest. It was not quite dusk yet, but the air suddenly felt milder than I had felt all summer. It was September 13, the day the UN General Assembly adopted its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Like many others, I took the declaration as a milestone for indigenous peoples of the world and a step in the right direction for humankind. After all, if there are such things as universal human rights and freedoms that the world community recognizes, why then should they not apply to the 300 million indigenous people, including the Nagas? Of course, a declaration of the right to self-determination is just that, declaration, not the real thing. Yet the acceptance of the principle by the UN is a historic event, a promissory note, if you will, that indigenous people can redeem through negotiations with the appropriate governments. I was elated. But I was also quickly reminded of the fact that I was reading about the Declaration in the United States instead of in Nagaland, where I was born and raised but left more than twenty years ago. So what did this news have to do with me after all these years, especially in the autumn of my life? I think the reason is simply that we humans inevitably carry our past in us, and for some of us reconnecting with our roots becomes more compelling with age, especially if the cultural life of the people we left behind was as influential as the Nagas were when I was growing up. Things are clearly different there now.
Realities:
So today I’m sitting in my backyard again with the nightmare of the night, trying to sort the details, events, ideologies that haunt me from back home, to clarify to myself the realities on the ground. I admire genuine freedom fighters everywhere, Nagas in particular, because they make uncommon sacrifices to secure human rights for us and for the oppressed. But I also know that they can change because they are people, and sometimes people and organizations change for the worse.
A month before the UN Declaration -- almost to the day -- Nagas enacted the ironic situation of celebrating 60 years of freedom from colonial British rule under postcolonial Indian rule. How about that? Celebrating Independence Day without independence. A symbolic gesture for a wish denied? Or was it an enactment of a paradox? But paradox and irony in the exercise are not confined to the Naga side. What about India? Is taking a paradoxical position constitutive of the history of the nation-state and of nationalism itself, both for those who would be a nation and those who would deny others the right they themselves enjoy and guard with such exclusionary patriotic zeal? For now, though, I’d like to stay with the internal contradictions of Naga nationalism.
Within days of the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, NNC/FGN felt compelled to contradict just about every other Naga organization including the NSCN (IM) by declaring that Nagas are “not indigenous people.” Because Naga territory was never completely overrun and settled in by outsiders, so the arguments goes, Nagas are not indigenous. I can appreciate FGN’s fear of losing the distinctive history of the Naga struggle for freedom, but do Nagas have to be nearly decimated to qualify for indigenous status? That line of thinking would lead us to equating the 300 live indigenous people of the world to mummies in a museum of colonial genocide. Just hours ago, NSCN (K) came out with a statement to reinforce FGN’s position. They too argue that Nagas are not indigenous people “because Nagas of Nagaland are so far the owners and rulers of our own land.” That’s a strange argument. Doesn’t the word “indigenous” signify precisely the kind of natural affinity with the place one lives in? So how does Naga ownership of Nagaland render Nagas un-indigenous? Besides pulling up the word from its etymological root, this argument parallels the logic of a man who shoots his leg because it is not a hand.
With such diverse and contradictory views on every issue in the Naga Question, it’s hard to separate fact from opinion, reality from fiction. But it is important to make the effort. So, then, Fact One: Nagaland was never overrun and completely overtaken by outsiders, and Nagas are still the majority in our land. Let’s grant this fact to FGN and NSCN (K) even if their stand on indigenousness sounds masochistic.
What is the Naga Question about then? Fact Two: Sovereign Nagaland. For once, the sworn enemy NSCN factions agree on this goal, except that they disagree bitterly on details, including the size of the Naga nation, over which they are both prepared to go to war. Interestingly, FGN holds rather adamantly that independence from India is a non-issue, though they are for a sovereign Naga nation. If that sounds convoluted to others, it’s not to them because Nagas who never surrendered their independence to India in the first place cannot be asking it back from India. Naga sovereignty has been and is under attack by GOI, and the day India leaves Nagaland, the Naga Question will have been resolved. The explanation sounds logical as far as logic goes, but what is logical is not necessary true or reasonable. These are the nationalist positions on the Naga Question. The rest, namely the majority of Nagas, are mostly ambivalent. They seem to function fine under the Indian State Government of Nagaland, which has been in existence since 1963, but there are many among them who are also not averse to the idea of an independent Nagaland if it should arrive someday wrapped like a Christmas gift.
If Naga sovereignty and its recognition by the world community is the goal of Naga nationalists, while the state government under India runs the show, what then is the nature of the relationship between Nagas and the Government of India? Is Nagaland Indian territory or is it under Indian occupation? Nationalists believe it is under Indian occupation. Many Nagas don’t think so, however, and insist that Nagas were “a free people” and are a free people under India. Nagaland is not under Indian occupation, they say; indeed, Nagas ought to be grateful to GOI for the financial sustenance it provides the people of Nagaland and for keeping the state from disintegrating. So whether or not Nagaland is under Indian occupation is up for grabs. Until we realize that there is a fact beneath the confusion of opinions, which leads us to Fact Three: Nagaland is under Indian occupation whether we like it or not, whether we deny it or not. We are free of course to ignore the fact and live as though the occupation doesn’t exist, as many do, but the daily events associated with it, including the governmental institutions and financial sustenance, are all reminders that Nagaland is indeed under Indian occupation. If you don’t believe me, try telling India to leave Nagaland for good (which is what Nagas have been doing since 1947) and see what happens. India hasn’t left. Or imagine the UN declaring tomorrow that Nagaland is a sovereign nation, not a state within India, and see what India says and does.
Fact Four: At this stage in the history of Naga nationalism, the signs of implosion are real and looks like Nagas need to lean on GOI. But while not dismissing Nagas who say we ought to be grateful to GOI, let’s not forget too that it was GOI in the first place that broke our legs and is now throwing us a pair of crutches.
Fact Five: There was a time when Naga national workers rightly commanded the respect and gratitude of the Naga people because of their love and sacrifice for our homeland. There must still be national workers who belong to that tradition of dedicated service, and Nagas value them. But all right thinking Nagas of every tribe and station in life who love our land, people, and cultures are sick to death of Nagas killing each other and destroying ourselves from within in the name of bogus “freedom” and through a blasphemous use of the “Nagaland for Christ” slogan. The Naga public knows there is neither freedom nor Christ in violence. There is no excuse for this inhumanity.
Action now. The needs in Nagaland are many and urgent, but two things are a foundational must for a better Nagaland. The first requires action from Nagas, the second a fresh start and negotiation between GOI and Nagas:
• We must stop Naga-on-Naga violence and resolve our differences on the Naga Question.
• The Indian occupation of Nagaland must be addressed. Why? Because like all other human beings, including Indians, Nagas too have the right to self determination, and the subversion of that right by GOI has led to too much suffering and unspeakable cruelty among Nagas, and has also created a moral burden for India and for right-thinking, human rights-respecting Indians. India will not be worthy of its illustrious past, and cannot remain a self-respecting postcolonial nation, as long as it refuses to settle the Naga Question once and for all. The Government of India and Nagas have a timely catalyst in the UN Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. We can use the declaration as an opportunity for a new and mutually enriching Indo-Naga relations. Once GOI commits to an implementation of the Naga right to self-determination, Nagas can work out the future among ourselves and begin peaceful negotiations with GOI as to independence or integration, and upon what terms. But without India’s commitment to Naga right to self-determination, conflict is inevitable because of the nature of the relationship in place, namely control on the Indian side and resentment on the Naga side.
As I write these lines in the first week of autumn under the same canopy of trees I read the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People two weeks ago, I know spring will arrive in Nagaland, as it does in the rest of the world, if we survive the winter of our violence. The choice is ours.
(Kuknalim columnist Dr. Pimomo was born in Nagaland, is Professor of English at Central Washington University, USA).
