Nagaland of my dream
- Part 1 -

Jagdamba Mall *

"A society that does not have vision dies"
Padma Bhushan Rani Gaidinliu

No nation can survive without a vision and no political system can survive without a vision for the nation.
Bharat Ratna Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, Former President of India

Firstly, I don't deny that we are Indians. I am a Naga of India and I try to adjust myself with this big nation.... As I enter 90 years and after 60 years in politics, I feel that we are further and further going away from the truth.
- Rishang Keising - A Tangkhul Naga and longest serving Chief Minister of Manipur in an interview with Ngathingkhui Jagoi (Eastern Mirror 26.04.2009)

I have a dream to make real the promises of democracy, to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice, to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood, to make justice a reality for all God's children.
- Martin Luther King Jr. August 28, 1963. Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC. who fought against annihilation of Black People by white men in USA

1. Current State of Affairs of Nagaland :-

After thorough study of insurgency in Nagaland, I found that early insurgent leaders including Phizo and his lieutenants lacked political vision for Naga society. On the instigation of some foreign forces, they just adopted the war-path against the nation that looked after their welfare.

The Church added fuel to the fire. They coined the slogan - Nagaland For Christ and did everything and anything, legal or illegal, right or wrong, violence or non-violence, to convert Hiudu Nagas to Christianity and brought over western culture.

Everything native and indigenous - religion and culture, rituals and festivals, traditional costumes and social practices, all were dubbed as satan practices, hence, prohibited. The Church has misled the society and bulldozed Naga's indigenous faith and culture. Even Hindu Naga elders were condemned as head-hunters, wild, savage, unclean and raw-meat eaters.

In doing so, the Church and NNC ( Naga National Council led by Phizo) were helping each other. This has led Naga society to such a state that there is a crisis of identity in every righteous aspect and 40,000 Nagas stand killed by now, more will be done away with if situation does not improve.

Immorality in every walk of life has engulfed the Naga society. In the words of Dr. T. Aonok, Nagaland is a drug, alcohol, illicit sex-cursed society and imitations of Hollywood alongwith Washington DC consents to every whim of it.

However, the most sick and shocking point of all is that nine-tenth of the professed Christians vote for rulers who are not only wicked but who even pledge to do wickedly. (Nagaland Post 19.02.2009). At one place he has described Nagaland as diseased whore. I also notice the same destabilizing and disturbing trend. This is because ethics of the society has disappeared.

It is societies' ethics that help share a people's cultural values, social structures, economic sustainability, political life and defines the nature and prowess of participation in the political realm while enabling its critical consciousness and world views.

After adoption of foreign religion and western culture Naga people have developed the habit of converting the aberrations into the normal, the regular and the routine. This is a recent development.

It was not there in Hindu Naga Society. Poverty is not the cause of corruption. Look around you, most of corrupts or criminals are wealthy and well-placed in Government, NGOs or Church organizations. I must say, Church brought this doom.

This has happened with all the native people in all the Christian countries without any exception, I dream for the day when Nagas modernize without having to westernize based on their own indigenous values and principles that have sustained their survival and existence as a people for generations.

History is the proof that imitating and borrowing concepts and values that are not relevant to the society have only proven to be destructive. That exactly is what has happened to the Nagas.

I dream that Nagas identify their self-inflicted injuries and sufferings and come out of the present crisis. Those who are dreaming only for sovereignty and nothing else are living in fool's paradise and dream palaces. They should come to the sense of reality.

2. Human Decency :-

In the second week of February 2009, Britain was shocked to learn of a 13 year boy fathering a child with a 15 year girl. The British media termed the whole unhappy episode as 'Britain broken' from religious leaders to social scientists, to your everyday-John and Smith, everyone had a lot to say.

Then things reportedly took a more astounding turn when three other 14 year boys - all claimed to be the father of that baby, so till the last reports, there are now four young teenagers who are children themselves are claiming to be the father of the baby. Reportedly, this young 15 year mother is said to have been sexually active with around eight youngsters at the same time. Britain is stunned.

So are we (Childhood Robbery- Nagaland Page 21.02.2009). Late Chalie Kevichusa had narrated another story in his Chatterbox column of Ura Mail. "In a queue to Cinema ticket in London in broad day light, the boy started copulation with the girl standing in front of him in same queue. Nagas fancy in aping British life-style. Do Nagas would like this life style also?" asked learned Chalie.

Naga society had come a long way on the path of western life style leaving behind their own ancient ethos and human decency, when women had highest honour in the family and the society.

"Today, our own 12 year olds," writes Smt. Monalisa Changkiza in same editorial column, "are delivering babies - go to Mother's Hope and check it out for yourself. And no one is even claiming paternity. These days we cannot even deny rape, incest and all kinds of sexual licence in our society" Compare British society and state with that of ours. Both the societies and states live in worlds far apart yet the problems we have are same. How do we count for this? (Nagaland Post 21.03.2009)".

Though British and Nagas live in two different continents of the globe situated far apart, but one thing is common - Christianity and western culture. This has uprooted the ancient value system and propagated wrong history.

(To be concluded)