Meyitir Imsong
A few weeks ago, I received a message from one of my teachers asking if I would like to give a speech at the assembly the next day. Without hesitation, I accepted. I agreed not because I was agood speaker — on the contrary, I was just as nervous and timid as anyone else — but because I saw it as an opportunity to exercise my public speaking skills.
When I inquired about the topic, I was told it could be about anything. So naturally, I called up my father to share the news and ask for suggestions. He was excited about the opportunity and asked me to do one on competition. While I didn’t dislike the idea in general, I didn’t want to garner any attention and was apprehensive about how it would be interpreted by my classmates. Later, my father suggested kindness, and I was quite relieved. I spent the night ruminating -I even considereda parable, but it felt boring and overused. So I slept on it.
The next morning, I woke up early, and the idea came to me — identity. I would speak on identity, revolving around kindness.
When I went up to the podium, I was quite prepared and began:
“Good afternoon everyone, my name is ______ from the ____ department, and today I am going to give a speech on identity.
Identity can be defined as a distinguishing characteristic — it could be your name or any other fact about you.
So if a person that is not from Nagaland asks you who you are and where you are from, you say your name and that you are a Naga from Nagaland.
Similarly, if a Naga asks you the same question, you identify with your tribe.
Now, if a tribe member asks you the same question again, you could further identify with your clan and/or your village.”
Everything was going as planned. I was facing the audience as I was speaking, looking from left to right and making eye contact. But slowly, at the “clan and/or village” part, my voice began to falter — the words just wouldn’t come out as normal. I had originally planned to show how identity narrows down — from Naga to tribe, tribe to village, village to clan, and clan to lineage. The words were stuck in my throat, but I quickly improvised:
“Basically, what I’m trying to say is that there are many subdivisions within Naga society. You could identify with your tribe, village, clan, or lineage.
Now the question arises — what does it mean to be a Naga?
The term ‘Naga’ seems to be a name we did not give ourselves but how others identified us. So it is only natural that we, as Nagas, do not hold a very strong affinity to the term ‘Naga’ within ourselves.
But in the same light, when asked by people outside Nagaland, we identify ourselves primarily as Nagas.”
This part went well, so I went on:
“Naturally, under these many classifications within Naga society, it is understandable that unity — amongst Nagas as a whole and even within the many tribes — is often lacking.”
As I said this, my throat tightened again. I sensed this was sensitive and controversial. Afraid to take a long pause, I gulped and carried on:
“So when we talk about unity and uniting people together, identity again plays a strong role. It helps you form a community based on common values and principles,reinforces solidarity, and gives you a sense of being.
Therefore, we can conclude that identity is a double-edged sword. It can divide — but it can also unite.”
I paused briefly between “divide” and “unite” to emphasize the dual role of identity. I continued:
“Thus, the term ‘Nagas’ can be said to be a name given to us — but over time, we made it ours. So identifying ourselves as Nagas first could be important in our development as a society.”
To stress that line, I raised my voice slightly on “Nagas first.” I concluded:
“But that goes without saying — we should also not forget our other affinities like tradition, culture, customs, etc.
At the end, we should all be kind to one another and remember the quote by Jawaharlal Nehru: Unity in diversity. Thank you.”
As I ended my speech and went down from the stage, I was unsure how the audience received it. Earlier, I had asked one of myfriends to record my speech to show my father. When I watched it back, I noticed something interesting: I found that the parts where I stumbled were parts where I touched on sensitive issues — divisions within Naga society and our struggles with unity. Saying these out loud almost seemed taboo — I felt an opposing force urging me not to mention them.
That’s why I wrote this — to share my experience while giving this speech on identity, and to help start a dialogue on seemingly controversial and sensitive topics which are important to address. In our development as a society communication is key and acknowledging points of contention is essential. And sometimes, all this takes is a nervous speech at an assembly.
~ Meyitir Imsong