Over the years, I have been a casual listener of Lt. Jim Reeves but on the evening after bidding farewell to a dear gentle departed soul of Lt. Niketu Iralu, one gospel music of Jim Reeves struck me more profoundly and meaningfully than ever before… “The chimes of time rings out the news another day is through….Someone slipped and fell…was that someone you? You may have longed for added strength your courage to renew…Do not be disheartened…for I have news for you….It is no secret what God can do…what He’s done for others…He’ll do for you…with arms wide open…He’ll pardon you…It is no secret what God Can Do”!!!! The clock keeps ticking ceaselessly onwards even as we slip and fall each day while slumbering in our bed of indifference. We have stubbornly upheld an emotional sentiment trying to achieve ‘Sovereignty’ over the years without any deviation or re-evaluation…but what if we flip the coin and see what may be on the other side of that coin…that maybe the Good Lord wants to use the Nagas and all our other Christian Brothers and Sisters in India to Sheppard billions of Non-Believers in India into a Christian majority Country from within. Have we ever given a thought to this? Remember how a whole staunchly animistic ancestral Naga community eventually converted to Christianity within decades once they were introduced to the gospel? Maybe the Good Lord wants Nagas to sincerely and honestly believe in Him to become the conquerors rather than be the conquered? Also remember, several decades ago the white American majority scoffed at the very seemingly impossible idea that a day may come when a Black American minority could become the President of the United States of America over a predominantly white majority…and then Obama happened! Nothing is impossible in the Hand of our Good Lord…What He’s done for others…He’ll do for you…if we only believe!
Having said that….For how much longer…YES!!!!…for how much longer do the Nagas want to remain in our egoistic little pond, croaking about ‘sovereignty’ while the world beyond our little pond has moved far (f-f-f-a-a-a-r-r-r) ahead on a fast track towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) managed planet…while 75% of our rural population continue to stagnate on ‘slash and burn’ agricultural livelihood like our head hunting forefathers did…a century ago? But instead of taking a brave pragmatic step forward we are slowly but surely sinking in the quicksand of an opposition-less Government steeped in corruption without transparency, without accountability…totally focused on money and money and money day in day out while the helpless common majority scrape the earth for survival! Nagas have thus far sacrificed two generations of our youth at the altar of sovereignty and our present third generation is being herded for slaughter at the altar taxation/ extortion under the guise of sovereignty. We are inadvertently creating a GENERATION WITHOUT HOPE!
Let me therefore sincerely flag a few honest viewpoints hereunder once more for due consideration by those concerned:
1/ National Workers: Our so called “National Workers” have shamelessly reduced their once honoured status to that of “Money hunting Mafias” of the lowest order…with money as their God…personal ego as their chariot…while ‘sovereignty’ lie rotting in their septic tanks. No single country on earth has ever hosted 32 Presidents and 32 Prime Ministers at a time except in Naga country… and the sad unfortunate picture is that the Sumis are visibly omnipresent in almost all the Factions. And yet the Sumi Apex Hoho has had no courage to address this worrisome subject…even as all the other brother tribes look at us, the Sumis, with disgust! Beyond this immediate awful scenario, the common majority may presently be cowed down by fear of the guns but a time will eventually come, and come it will, when Factions can no longer hide behind their guns and the rule of Law becomes the norm, then each ‘Big Shot National Worker’ will be answerable to the common man that they are contemptuously trampling upon today. Mark my word…this day will come as unquestionably as God made the little apples! The sooner they all realise this inescapable truth and rectify their despicable misdemeanours the better it will be for their future reckoning. The time is rife for all Factions to realise that their respective personal future wellbeing lies in getting their acts together and unite for a final settlement for common good. This is an unadulterated advice from an elderly member of the Naga community being given without imposing any consultation ‘tax’. This is the raw brutal truth!!!
2/ The State Government: The State of Nagaland enjoys a very unique but questionable status of an “Opposition-less Government” applauded by the opportunistic money focused minority while the ignorant and indifferent majority silently flounder in the dark tunnels of democratic wilderness, weathering the burden of a corrupted Government without transparency or accountability. We have an “opposition-less Government” hypocritically proclaiming a role as a facilitator for “speedy solution” to this vexed Indo-Naga dialogue! They have set up “Political Affair Committee” (PAC) purely as a window dressing but with a diabolically opposite intention of short-circuiting the already concluded “Framework Agreement” of 2015 and “Agreed Position” of 2017 instead. Nagas seems to suffer from short memory but this short memory span gets even shorter at the sight MONEY…ancestral Naga honour be damned! So…on 12th February 2021, when the then Governor of Nagaland, Shri. RN Ravi, delivered his Governors’ address in the 13th Nagaland Legislative Assembly declaring that the Indo-Naga Political Talk has finally been brought to a conclusion on 31st October 2019, the Members of Nagaland Legislative Assembly along with MR. Dr. Niphiu Rio, Hon’ble Chief Minister, had spent hours of debate in the House and had finally endorsed their vote of thanks to the Governor’s address without any amendment(s). The simple question to Mr. Dr. Niphiu Rio is…SIR…what were you and your 59 VERY HONOURABLE MLAs endorsing at that time? Having done so then and now trying to revive the talk at a ‘political level’ and through “Pan Naga Hoho” all over again is a clear depiction of a hypocritical leadership…perhaps more focused on MONEY without radar or a moral compass…because…for better or for worse, these two Agreements have been arrived at after years of brutal discourse, registering the historical rights of the Nagas as free people but finding the middle course for the Nagas to co-exist with our counterpart India, establishing a rationally honourable status in critical areas of Naga identity and Nagas’ unassailable rights. We owe the Naga negotiators a huge gratitude for their valiant efforts to steer an insurmountable discourse towards a final honourable settlement. However we now have a State Government pledging to speed up the Naga Political Solution while working hard to find a longer confused route of never ending discourse and that too without any clarity. Here I would like to ask the Chief Minister another pointed question: Is he aware of the “PAN NAGA HOHO” (PNH) as seen through the prism of our Tangkhul chief negotiator in the NSCN (IM)? Or is he knowingly compromising the future of the Nagas of Nagaland to our Southern (IM) ‘brothers’ for his own political survival by endorsing PNH as the only platform through which solution must be found? Fellow Nagas, take a closer look at this despicable PNH philosophy one more time, being perpetuated by our Southern Tangkhul ‘Brothers’ in the NSCN (IM) through their so-called Competency Clauses:
Let us refresh our minds and revisit the salient features of how Pan Naga Hoho is going to look like in the post solution era as envisioned by the Southern ‘Brothers’ in NSCN (IM) in a nut shell : In the absence of “Integration”:(a) Pan Naga Hoho would be an assembly of all Naga Tribes from within and outside the present State of Nagaland…(where Nagas of Nagaland will be a minority from the start as was the glaring example of Naga Hoho where our minority Nagas Tribes of Nagaland have all walked out without exception because of this reality. The scenario is basically the same even in the NSF); (b) The President/Chairman and the Executive Members of the PNH will all enjoy the powers and privileges equal in rank to a Cabinet Minister; (c) The present State of Nagaland will have a Bicameral House in which 6 (six) of the Upper House members shall be nominated by PNH; (d) PNH shall be consulted in all matters relating to Naga Customs, Traditions and Culture including the subjects of Education and Development; (e) PNH will nominate Members to the Rajya Sabha of the Indian Parliament; All this necessarily makes our elected Government a simple stooge being dictated by a nonentity PNH; After already having envisioned all these damning autocratic authority, the NSCN(IM) goes on to say that the powers and functions of PNH will further be worked out in due course; Is this an acceptable status that our present Chief Minister want to reduce the Nagas of Nagaland in the post solution era??!!! Have the Nagas of Nagaland struggled these past 80 years against India just so as to get re-subjugated by a handful of scheming Tangkhuls in the (IM) all over again for all times to come?! Further, do the 14 Tribes of Nagaland still remember their petition submitted to the Prime Minister of India on 17th December 2019 wherein they have vehemently stated (Quote): “We therefore make ourselves clear once for all that the proposed PNH, in its present form, is unacceptable to us without territorial integration?” (Unquote). But today our Apex Tribal Hohos of Nagaland remains absolutely silent when the Chief Minister of Nagaland declared that the Naga political solution should be resolved through the PNH. Such unprincipled leadership can only usher in disaster for the Nagas of Nagaland if their declared stand remains only in paper. We expect better leadership from our Apex Tribal Hohos of Nagaland to shed their yellow streak and collectively stand on their declared principle firmly in the greater interest of the Nagas of Nagaland.
In view of such impending threats hanging over the heads of Nagas of Nagaland the Concerned Nagas Forum of Nagaland (CNFN) had requested for a consultative discourse with the Political Affair Committee in which the Chief Minister is the convening Chairman, but they have declined to even have a frank exchange of opinion. It appears that the Nagas of Nagaland is being led by a bunch of cowards afraid to even have an honest unadulterated discussion!
It is now a common knowledge that the present roadblock to a final solution lies in the demand of NSCN (IM) wanting “Flag” and “Yehzabo”…which to my mind is more to do with the emotional satisfaction of the Nagas, far removed from the reality of the actual Agreements which have already been concluded within the Indian Constitution. It would be far more relevant for the Nagas to ensure that whatever hard earned agreements that have been achieved are legally safeguarded in an ironclad status disabling unilateral tempering by India. Therefore, rather than the “Flag” or the “Yehzabo” as seen by NSCN (IM), perhaps we should be taking a more careful look at the changing tide within the Indian system and safeguard the Naga identity and rights for all times to come. Towards this end here is an alternative thought that the Nagas may like to ponder over:
Naga identity and rights finds safe heaven under SECULARISM and Article 371(A) within the Indian Constitution thus far. [The so-called “Yehzabo” as a separate chapter IN the Constitution of India being demanded by NSCN (IM) is a status which is nothing more than an elaborated version of Article 371(A)]. Keeping in mind that India has historically treated Nagas as a people being tolerated as secondary nonentity…I do believe that Nagas must constitutionally establish an ironclad counter protective measures from India’s inherent wielding of unprincipled unilateral dictate. Now, seriously consider the ominous projection of RSS for an eventual HINDUTVA AGENDA for India. This will shake the very foundry of Naga identity in the foreseeable future if their ideologue BJP Party or for that matter any other Party gains absolute majority in the Indian Parliament. The very existence of Article 371(A) can become as questionable as that of Jammu and Kashmir. The only hundred percent safeguard and guarantee that the Nagas can have is a disempowered Indian Parliament from abrogating Article 371 (A) unilaterally no matter what the majority is in the Indian Parliament as long as the Nagas disagree. Rather than clamouring for “Flag” and the “Yehzabo”, Nagas should perhaps be concentrating more on an inalienable feature in the Indian Constitution that would ensure any arbitrary efforts of removal of Article 371(A) without the expressed will of the Nagas or else should tantamount to officially acknowledging Nagaland as an Independent/ sovereign Nation. To my mind this would be the ultimate Constitutional safeguard towards an assured and guaranteed future for the Nagas within India. Think about this dispassionately!
It’s about time that the Nagas climb out of this corrupted pit of stagnation and proudly join the rest of the world in a march forward with dignity.
KHEKIYE K. SEMA, IAS (Rtd)
(The views expressed are those of the writer and not of the newspaper)
