The Nagaland Baptist Church Council has come up with strong resentment over the usage of the Naga traditional attires, artifacts and cultural pieces as decorative elements inside and outside the Durga Pandals in certain part of the city in Dimapur. Religious celebrations and rituals should be done within the ambit of one’s own religious practice. What is intended to be an attraction can be taken as an insult to the community when unrelated culture and religious elements are used by others. The intention appears to be to provoke and hurt the sentiments of the people and to give false presentation and impression to the outside world that Nagas are Hindus. A propaganda is as serious as false conversion accusation used by the Hindu majority group to persecute and demolish the sacred institutions of the Christians.
Let your Durga puja celebration and rituals which you go through during this season remain yours in a peaceful manner. Do not try to portray wrong image and picture to the outside world by using our attires as decorative piece. When you do know the deep seated meaning of those cultural pieces you have used, the hurt will go a long way in creating misunderstanding between communities. What the Hindu community has done is not only an insult to the culture of the people of the land but it is a religious bigotry and blasphemy.
Let us build bridges and not walls which will widen the misunderstanding that has been created. Let us be sensitive to each other and avoid things that will create further division during religious festival and ceremony. Let us learn to respect each other and peacefully celebrate our festivals and religious ceremonies. Decorate your pandals according to your Hindu culture and religious practices and do not hurt the sentiment of the community who are different from you by misusing their culture, traditions and practices.
Rev. Dr. Zelhou Keyho, General Secretary, NBCC