As indigenous literature from Nagaland find growing attention in Indian academic spaces, a quiet but pressing concern arises: the risk of overreach in Indianization. A subtle yet consequential trend is emerging, the tendency to interpret indigenous worldviews through dominant philosophical frameworks, often under the guise of resonance or shared cultural ground. Beneath the language of comparison lies a deeper tension: the quiet erasure of distinctiveness.
Naga thought systems, shaped by oral memory, animist cosmology, and community ethics, are complete epistemologies in themselves. They did not emerge from the Sanskritic traditions that inform much of India’s classical philosophy, and should not be seen as regional echoes of them. Framing them through concepts like shruti or dharma risks subsuming distinct worldviews into narratives that do not reflect their origins. Equating these with pan-Indian ideas may provide a sense of “national integration,” but it dilutes the unique epistemologies that Naga voices bring to the literary table. The oral tradition of the Ao-Nagas, for instance, is not merely a regional variant of shruti, but a world unto itself, anchored in lived memory. They are self-contained, shaped by land, memory, and community . They are not fragments waiting to be stitched into a broader national narrative. They stand complete, shaped by lived realities and ancestral wisdom, speaking in cadences that resist easy translation into external categories.
The desire to draw parallels may be well-intentioned. It may even seem to offer recognition. But when distinct traditions are made legible only through familiar doctrines, however venerable, the result is a flattening. What is particular and grounded becomes abstract and symbolic. What is local wears the costume of the universal. The cost is subtle but real: a gradual fading of cultural specificity under interpretive convenience.
This is not a call to reject dialogue. Cultural intersections are inevitable. But respectful engagement is not the same as interpretive appropriation. To absorb indigenous thought into dominant frameworks, especially those historically indifferent to or dismissive of indigenous voices, is to risk reducing living traditions to mere metaphors.
Naga writers and scholars bear a responsibility: not only to represent, but to resist. To protect the integrity of thought systems that were never meant to conform. To recognize that their value lies not in resemblance, but in rootedness.
Let us therefore be cautious. In an age where inclusion too often becomes assimilation, the true act of respect is to let indigenous voices speak as they are – sovereign, self-defined, and unapologetically distinct. Let Naga thought speak in its own voice, not as an appendix to Indian thought, but as a tradition with equal footing and integrity.