Where The Mind Is Without Fear

Haomei *

A map of Nagaland State :: Pix - TSE

From the NPC's Sixteen Points Agreement to NNC's Shillong Accord and to the latest devolution of NSCN (IM)'s Third Country to Delhi, Outside the Box to Inside; from the 'highest level' to the reported consultation of Home Ministry with CM Ibobi on the matter of Naga Solution, it is enough for every single nagas to conclude and acknowledge that we are already or atleast partially tamed by the GOI. As such, the time has come to shed the garb of holier than thou political attitude and practices.

It is time we must learn to become a graceful loser if in the end, we meant to, and could salvage our society. Fighting for solution without unity is like fighting without a sword: how can we win. How come our learned and experienced leaders have forgotten such a simple rudimentary maxim as: Unity is Strength. To fight, we need strength. But look at our leaders, they preferred fighting without strength. The KEY towards long lasting solution will be found only in our UNITY.

The impending doom looming over our society brought by the indomitable evil force causing senseless fratricidal killings of which all the naga nationalists has been its tool is enough to trigger any Tom, Dick or Harry to spell out their thoughts. So, here I go with a noble motive regardless of my humble thoughts and background.

From topmost to the lowest rung of echelon in our society, I think, almost every nagas have had some unpleasant memories to share, of encountering violation of their basic human rights in one way or the other. In this context, allow me to pose a pertinent question. What force or forces is suppressing our rights today? I wouldn't attempt to directly answer the question, but I would rather that every individual naga finds the answer and see for themselves from what evil forces are we really needed to be liberated today.

Of all the evils, what concerned the nagas most is the continuing infightings and fratricidal vein running deep in our society. Thereby, creating fear psychosis in the naga societies and most often the people duressed into giving up their basic rights.

Since the creation of the Universe, God has granted man as well as the angels the right to follow what their conscience choose. The consequence of which, as we believed, will ultimately culminate in reward or punishment according to the choice made. And so we are born with that inherent quality that enable us to make an independent discernment of things and the Right to Freedom of Choice in any matter.

Now, even though the following topic may be subjected to debate or controversy, what I wanted to say is that differences of opinion and ideology should not necessarily become a breeding ground for all the fratricidal killings in our society. It must not allow to be taken as a license to torture or execute any individual or member of a group. Yes, differences may be a sad and unfortunate facade of every society but this is the reality of our world.

And we should not let that differences turn us into a vicious bloodthirsty wolves ready to gobble up our own brothers. Differences are bound to crop up in almost every sphere and social strata of mankind, but we must learn to cope and live with it. If we delve in with forbearance, the solution to the problem will be found in the problem itself. Or for instance, we can learn from the manipuri meitei undergrounds. Inspite of the fact that there are several groups and the fact that during one time they hunted each other, they have learnt to come to terms with reality, they have learnt to accept and respect the differences, and as of now they even have a common platform called "CORCOM". As such, we can see that they will be ready to defend the interest of the manipuri at any time now. Kudos to them! If people can, why not we?

But sadly, as we have seen, how many lives had our nationalist heroes sacrificed on the altar of their ideology and how many more lives are still needed to appease the goddesses of their ideology? Or are these goddesses of their ideology going to suck the blood of our people until no more youths are left? Who are we to judge and take away the God-given precious life of our fellow being? Let God alone be the ultimate judge to appropriately award us for our choice. There won't be a dearth of excuses and seemingly rational argument to justify all our actions but to take the life of a fellow human being; it is beyond the rightful authority of man. That authority does not belong to us. Nobody is an exception to God's law including our nationalist a la 007 licensed to kill.

The long and tiresome journey of the nagas towards our destiny, or the quest to find an honorable solution to the protracted issue which has, so far, ever been very elusive with lots of complication, has cost us many lives in the hands of our own people than our adversary. A day is not far when we will beat our chest and cry. It may be that by then, our deeply fragmented society will be beyond repair. Sadly, Nagaland or the land of the Nagas has long since ceased to be "...for Christ" for it has stop seeking what God wanted, it has gradually devolved from "Nagaland for Christ" to "Nagaland/Nagalim for NSCNs, NNC etc".

That is why blood and tears are shed everyday, hunting and constant baying, like a beast for the blood of their own kith and kin, echoed throughout every corners of the naga hills. So many attempts to bring about reconciliation by many dynamic and revered leaders are yet to make any significant achievement, I believed, not owing to want of wisdom or sincere effort but due to the incurable beastly nature imbibe into our being that has turned our heart into stones from the loving calls of the fatherly and motherly voices of our leaders. In spite of all the toils and all out effort with an aching heart that bleeds with compassion for their beloved society, it turns out to be an exercise in vain. It burnt their hearts, yet they were made a scapegoat time and again.

The people pleaded for peace; but the nationalist delivers blood and chaos. Nationalist claimed that they are fighting for our tomorrow, but even our today is snatched from us. They say they worked for us, but the killings in the midst of our societies are not what the people yearn for. They are following and doing only what their heart desired; craving for bloodshed. Do they sincerely believe that, after all these, they will be held in awe and respect in the naga country sans their AKs and money power? A true nationalist will commands awe and respect wherever he goes even without his AKs. A true revolutionary must be fearless enough to roam his country freely without any doubt. Alas! Look at the house that Jack has built!

I remembered seeing a tribute to an unknown revolutionary hero scribbled on a prison wall years ago. I can't exactly recollect the short poem word by word. But it ran somewhat like this:

The man who fought for you
With torn trouser and bare foot
Walked a thousand miles
Stones were his pillow...

Standing by the wall and musing over the poem, obviously scratched onto it with a rusty nail, I used to admire that unknown man of a hero. But over the years, that picture of my ideal hero has faded and slowly replaced by a totally contradicting image. How I longed for that hero to appear again. If we are ask to write a short poem without fear, about the man who is purportedly fighting for us, what will the lines look like today? I think it will run somewhat like this, "The man who CLAIMED to fight for me, zoomed passed me in a bolero, with a bottle of whiskey in both hands, money is his pillow..."

Please forgive my choice of words. I know there are still many sincere and dedicated men who spent sleepless nights just for our tomorrow. We still owe them and they deserve a hero's salute. But true heroes are getting rare now, and more and more are slowly getting assimilated into the system. A new breed of tyrant has appeared in our society. Human lives to them are just tools in their hands to further their personal ulterior motives. Unquenchable greed for wealth and powers is slowly turning our heroes to heartless maniac. But let it be warned that they are sealing their own doom in the process. God will bring judgment and deliver justice one day.

Once again, I apologize if my words and tone were disrespectful and harsh. It is not my intention to hurt any particular political group or nationalist or anybody. But by calling a spade a spade, it is my naive and blunt or raw way of challenging every concerned person to bring about changes. We know everybody has a beautiful picture in their heart, take that picture from your hearts and let everyone draw a beautiful picture of our society into reality.

Let us make our land renown not for every wrong reason but for its beautiful and rich culture. Now, my humble appeal to all the nationalist, public leaders and all the concerned naga citizen is to collectively and responsibly renew and revive every effort to stop all the smoking guns trained on our brothers. Afterall, we now deserve a much needed peaceful sound sleep; we deserve security and peace of mind after all these tumultuous decades of fear and insecurities.

If at all, we sincerely believe in building our fragile society, let the spirit of that unknown hero I came across scribbled in the prison wall once again emerge in the personality of every nationalist as well as every naga citizen with true compassion for their society. Let love, peace and unity reign in our hearts and land once again.

Let the song/poem of Rabindranath Tagore "Where the Mind is Without Fear" be sung in our land too.

Long live, the people.