Dr. Xavier P Mao
Abstract
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he word Naga came into currency for the first time in the late 17th century in the Ahom Buranji(Chronicle) referring to the Nocte, Wancho and Tangsa tribes of Arunachal Pradesh who are part of the larger allied and cognate groups of the konyak Nagas like the Tenemia groups of people. Naga means highlanders with pejorative implication from the Ahom word Kha which in Assamese is pronounced as Ga or Naga. In the past Nagas used to refer to themselves by their village name. Nagas are not one linguistic group but are an ethnic group. If one looks at the ancient cartography of India till the British coming to the Naga hills: the present day Nagalim was never a part of Indian or Myanmar kingdoms or empires. By and large till the British occupation of Naga Hills in1880 Nagas were not subjugated by any group of people for whatever the reasons may be. It is from this spirit of carefree and freedom loving lifestyle that the Naga political struggle for complete and sovereign independent Nagalim arose in the early 20th century. During the last 60 years of struggle, there are so many social, economic and political forces had taken place within the Naga society. The Government of India conceded some small measures of autonomy to the Nagas in the form of Article 371A. Further, along with the rest of the North-East tribals Naga employees have been exempted from paying income tax if they happen to work in the hill regions of North-East India. However, partly due to the weak political will of the Government of India, even the Constitutional provision of Article 3 could not be used to integrate the contiguous Naga inhabited areas with the Nagaland state although that is the legitimate aspiration of the Nagas in line with the principle of the creation of the different Indian states. Nagas on the other hand, are politically too weak to bargain their cherished desire to live under one political roof. Some of the major challenges and problems confronting the Naga society today are the following:1. There is no serious attempt to develop the Naga languages and literature.
2. The excessive policy of violence used by the Naga insurgents has played tremendous havoc in Naga society having deep and wide negative impact on all Nagas.
3. Bangladeshi influx is another serious issue of concern.
4. Wine, liquor and drug abuse is another major problem facing the Nagas.
My humble suggestions and remedy to the persisting challenges before us are to give up the happy go lucky life style and seriously develop the culture of hard work and industry. We ought to have self-analysis, serious introspection and self-criticism as the Naga problem is not clearly political but economic, cultural, social, linguistic and psychic as well. The culture of peace has to be cultivated. In nutshell, Nagas must change their old mindset so that they could regain their past glory of freedom loving people with the changed circumstances of the world today.
Before writing or speaking anything on Naga it is imperative on us to be clear about the origin, genesis and meaning of the word Naga. At the outset some scholars claim that the word Naga is a Sanskrit origin word. It is a fact that Naga, Nāgā and Nagendra are Sanskrit words. Naga means that which does not move that is, one who is immovable. In this sense tree, mountains, hillocks are Nagas for the simple reason that they do not move from one place to another. The mount Himalaya is known as Naga-Dhirajo. This means the Lord of the immovable. Quite likely the word Naga is derivative of the word Nogo. Further, the word Naga in Sanskrit means snake cobra. In Hindu mythology and tradition Nagas are original ancestors of certain group of people.
It may not be out of place to mention in this connection that the Ahom chronicle compiled by courtiers of the Ahom kings and some family members the word Naga mentioned in the late 17th century means hill people or forest dwellers with very low status. In Hindu mythology Gandervas and Kinaras have been mentioned. These people were forest dwellers and they were very good looking and freedom loving people. Most likely those who coined this word Naga have these things in mind. It may be mentioned in this connection that some words particularly proper name and common name are not meaningless. In other words, there is rich content behind every proper and common name. In the absence of any historical record created by the Naga people about themselves, this meaning of the word may be accepted. For the sake of convenience and explanatory value till date no Naga has written any authentic history about themselves. In the absence of any such authentic document we have to depend on this meaning of the word Naga.
No language is God given. Languages come into existence over a period of time. User and speaker of a particular language is developed over a period of time. In this sense, there is no universal language. First man began to speak and after centuries together the language takes a written form. The oldest record of speech is Vedas. Initially Vedas were not committed to writing that is how the word shruti means that which we hear and remember. Nagas today speak about 50 languages. But they have not been able to commit them to writing or develop their own scripts. What does it show? Without casting any aspersion on any Naga group it can be said that from the stage of wandering, hunting and collecting food from the forest and jungle, Nagas straight away came to modern or ultra modern stage. This quantum jump has been beneficial to them but at the same time it has created problems in linguistic, cultural and socio-economic in nature. In a word, language constitutes the primary basis of identifying a particular group. I may be allowed to state in this connection with a sense of apology that Nagas do not have a linguistic identity of their own. There is no serious action taken to create and develop their linguistic identity. If we look at the Indian situation, majority states express linguistic identities of people, coming under particular state like Bengali, Tamil, Oriya, Gujarati etc. They are linguistic identities. Maithili and Bhojpuri are linguistic identities. Linguistic identity gives rise to a variety of literature and even emotional integration which is lacking in Nagas at present in spite of common political goal. The great Epics of Ramayana, Mahabharata and the 18 Puranas were created and recreated after the Vedas and Upanishads in the regional languages. Nagaland University has set up linguistic department and yet the department did not take any step to compile a dictionary of Naga languages what to speak of compiling a multi-lingual dictionary comprising all tribal languages of North-East. Further, there is no awareness and no effective demand even today to develop their mother tongue. Rather their languages are almost dying and nearly replaced by completely different language which is called Nagamese. They remain happy with English as the medium of instruction even at the primary stage as it is happening in other parts of India. This state of affairs does not augur well for the Nagas. This is most unfortunate that a group of scholars in North-East studying and reflecting on the so called problem of tribal identities are blissfully ignorant of this dimension of Naga problem. It is high time that all the Naga tribes must sit together and chalk out plan to develop their languages and literature.
Whatever may be the origin of the word Naga, Nagas as a group of people were within the British Empire. Even today the fact remains that we are helplessly within the Indian union and within the Myanmar union. It is necessary to mention in this connection that right from 1918 some Naga leaders demanded sovereign, independent and separate Nagaland. History of the recent times showed that a lot of bloodshed and terrible destructions both physical and psychological took place in the Naga society. A. Z. Phizo led the movement for a complete sovereign, independent and separate Nagalim with a well trained fighting force with the sophisticated modern arms and ammunition. He left for Great Britain for the mobilization of the international support for the Naga cause of the Naga political struggle and towards the end of his life his dead body was brought back to Nagaland. It is not appropriate at this point of time to discuss in this connection whether Phizo was right or wrong because the historical conditions were different at that point of time. Even after 60 years of struggle there are Naga leaders the number may be far and few between still stick to the original stand of separate, sovereign and independent Nagaland. Will such struggle lead to the situations of newly created independent states or we may face the situations of LTTE of Srilanka or Khalistan of Punjab or other completely demolished struggle elsewhere in the world. We need to seriously ponder over this. Another important subsidiary demand is being made from time to time is that other Naga inhabited areas of adjoining states should be integrated with present Nagaland state so as to make complete Nagaland. Further, in this connection demands are being made to give more autonomy to Nagaland in terms of finance, administration and other forms of autonomy to Nagaland. The Government of India simply does not know how to solve this problem and fulfill the demand of the Nagas. From time to time the Union of India set up commission and committee to solve the age old problems of the Nagas. This is the biggest challenge and it poses the greatest problem before Nagas and the Government of India. It may be mentioned in this connection that the first empire building activity or process by Chandra Gupta Maurya started before the beginning of Christian era. Before that the entire sub-continent was divided in to 16 major parts. If one looks at the ancient cartography pictures of Gupta period in the 5th century A.D the entire North-East does not appear in it. Though at the same time Manipur ( Manipur is not the present day Manipur state since the name Manipur was given only in the 17th century) and Kamakhya Chitraganda and Ulupi and Nagakamya are found in the great epics both Ramayana and Mahabharata. The word Prakjyatisour(the present day Assam) was well known with the script writers in ancient India. Incidentally it may be mentioned in this connection that perhaps after Ahom invasion of some parts of North-East, the word Assam came into currency. Though there is parallel version that Assam means unparallel or extraordinary or unique. The other version is Assam is from Ahom. The fact that the North-East does not occur in the map of ancient India is indicative of the important fact that the prince and rulers of great empires were not interested in conquering or coming to the North-East. It is necessary to point out in this connection that kingdoms and civilizations developed on the plains particularly on river banks because of obvious reasons. The river valley of Tigres and Euphrates of Iraq, The Nile valley of Egypt and the Indo-Gangetic plain in India attracted people in large numbers. Civilizations including agriculture, trade and commerce developed in such areas though at present things are different. Historically speaking the Nagas lived a happy go lucky life in the forested, hilly and mountainous regions of the present North-East bordering China, Myanmar and India. At the same time it can be said that the Nagas are a historical group. The historicity of the Nagas cannot be precisely deciphered. Ethnically they resemble Chinese and other related groups in terms of food habit and broad linguistic structure and tonality etc. Nagas like Chinese eat all types of meat and all types of salubrious health giving vegetables. They don’t have any inhibition. Their care free lifestyle is very much highly valued by them. The white Europeans wrote all kinds of things about the tribals in general and the North-East in particular. The words dirty, smelly naked or half naked and ugly looking were very common in describing the North-East tribals. Time has come that tribal scholars must reflect research and write on these dimensions of themselves. It seems to me that the Naga political struggle for complete sovereign, independent and separate state spring from their freedom loving carefree lifestyle. In such lifestyle they have been living for many centuries together. Subjugation is unknown to them. There is a sense in which it can be said that state formation is a kind of subjugation. It is on this understanding that a group of social scientists and philosophers while reflecting on the origin of states claim that force is the ultimate source of the formation of states. Human is free but he or she becomes subjugated to the formation of states. This explains the great resentment and the bloody political struggle of the Nagas coming under the yoke of any state particularly Indian and Myanmar states. I wish to point out that state is evil but a necessary evil. Nagas should reflect on this dimension of state formation in the contemporary period and the present geo-political situation and location of Nagaland. Unless the mindset changes in accordance with the historical and political conditions of the time things cannot improve. The Naga intelligentsia particularly the educated youths should realize and act on this principle otherwise our future may not be optimistic. Democracy in principle is a form of participatory government. Since independence the Government of India categorically and Myanmar rejected the Naga struggle for independent Nagaland. It even used brutal military force in the mid 50s and 60s. Nagas being a small group of people compared to the might of India the loss suffered by Nagas both in terms of psychological and physical is enormous. The Government of India in trying to address the Naga political question decided to give a separate state with some measures of autonomy in 1963 by way of Article 371A without integrating all the Naga inhabited areas. But later on partly due to the heavy dependence of money by Nagaland state on the Central government even the autonomy of Nagaland state being under the External Affairs Ministry had converted into under Home Ministry in1971.The Government of India has adopted many measures to improve upon the quality of lives of tribals through the policy of job reservation and the exemption of income tax if the tribals of North-East happen to work in the hilly region of the North-East. Because of the policy of job reservation now one comes across many Naga university and college teachers and in various other walks of life much better than their counterparts in Myanmar. It is high time that the Nagas should give up their leisurely indulgence lifestyle and do hard work. There is no substitute for hard work. One of the evils among the Naga youths is taking wine and liquor in abundance. Another major evil in Naga society is that the so called freedom fighters themselves have turned out to be a big terror (Frankenstein image) to the Naga public. This is amply borne out by the emergence of ACAUT (Action Committee against Unabated Taxation) and the occasional various forms of open confrontation of the public with the insurgents. Even the Naga tribes of Arunachal Pradesh refusing to call themselves as Nagas due to the excessive extortion and unwarranted endemic violence perpetrated by the insurgents.Time has come for Naga youths to reflect on this and do a bit of self-analysis. Without this no nation can develop and grow. In other words, at this crucial historical juncture without serious self introspection, soul-searching, self-criticism and self analysis we cannot lay the foundation of rapid progress. It is high time for the Nagas in general and the educated one in particular to reflect to examine and reexamine and embark upon the programme of future course of action based upon what is rational and reasonable. No community, no tribe and no country can develop without this.
Whatever may be the socio-economic and historical reasons the fact remains that today Nagaland is an integral of India and Nagas are Indian citizens for all practical purposes though the overwhelming majority of the Nagas are reluctant to be called Indians. To say this is not to accept the hegemonistic idea and principle. It may not be out of place to mention in this connection that India as a democratic country in spirit is based upon the principle of participation, criticism and comments including the voice of dissent. As pointed out earlier historically Nagalim was never a part of India and Nagas are not Indians. Today not only Nagas but other tribals of North-East India have benefited to a large extent by being a part of Indian Nation whereas the other tribals of Myanmar and Bangladesh are much worse off than them. By saying this I should not be misunderstood for pleading the cause of India. But the brute fact must be stated. The state is a contract and each group has its right to secede and form the state of their own. But the demand for secession should be based upon reasoned consideration. Secession for the sake of secession is not reasonable and not acceptable. It is a historical fact that in the past existing nations and societies have been vanquished and people have been slaughtered from their homes. What happened to Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, America and etc.? After the Norman Conquest the native fishermen were slaughtered to pieces. After the discovery of America the Red Indians and the black African people of America were slaughtered to pieces by white Europeans. It is perhaps because of this reason in1998 when there was proposal to celebrate the 500 years of the arrival of Columbus, the natives objected to it saying that the arrival of Columbus in America had caused damage and decimation of the natives. Similar things happened in other parts of the world. Even on the Indian soil such things happened. The conflict between the so called anario Dravidians and Aryans is a case in point. The rig Veda contends the story of such struggle and fight. Indra is supposed to be the leader of Aryans and there is prayer in the Vedas to let the enemy of India be crushed to pieces. The imperialistic and hegemonistic tendency in human being is not totally absent even in the contemporary period. May be in the dim past national borders were not there and even if loose vague boundaries were there they were never fixed. Consequently people from one part of the globe move out and settle down in other part of the globe. This is how the present day ancestors of the Red Indian inhabiting the west coast of America reached there from Asia. Further Buddhists were slaughtered and oppressed in India by non-Buddhists and they reached China and the whole of south-east Asia. With the formation of states in modern times the movements of people have been restricted to a large extent. The very idea of “mine and thine” with respect to country and nation have to be reconsidered and re-examined. Should the international community tell Europeans to leave U.S.A, Latin American countries, Canada, Australia, New Zealand etc to go back to Europe? Similarly all other nationalities who came to other countries be asked to leave the present respective places to go back to their original places? This proposal is not only unreasonable but dangerous. In nutshell, the concept of mine and thine in terms of particular territory has to be very carefully used in connection with nation and nationality. May be the ideal of one world is the evolved alternative which has to be cultivated otherwise border districts not only between states to states and nations will continue forever. In the past the border districts and between nations have ultimately resulted into mutual fighting and warfare causing death and destruction of human beings and properties. Human beings do not seem to learn anything from their past. Further in the context of India there are persisting disputes continue between the states having borders and boundary lines. What is the solution? What is to be done? As far as possible the center and the states should try their best to solve such problems in an amicable manner on the basis of reasonable and rational principle. It is reasonable to think that people of a particular ethnic, cultural and linguistic group should be put together. But if this integration leads to other problems and difficulties then we have to find out other different ways and means. The demand for integration of Naga inhabited areas of adjoining states with Nagaland is a genuine and reasonable demand. In a democracy problem could be solved by discussion and deliberation. Democracy being a participatory form of government it is very different from dictatorship, autocracy, meritocracy, plutocracy and other forms of government that imposes the views of a particular individual or group on others. Historically speaking democratic form of government evolved after many centuries. In principle and ideally the decisions in a democratic form of government are made by the people and not by an individual or groups of individuals. In 1975 we have seen a particular Prime Minister resorted to a dictatorship form of government and we seen the consequences of such an action. By far democracy is the best form of government but party based democracy and electoral politics has done irreparable loss and damage. In parliament or assembly of various states in India decisions are writ large with the interest of the ruling party in power. In the name of democracy and free movement of its citizens to any part of the country under the Constitution and the free flow of foreigners from the neighboring countries I do not wish Nagaland to become another Tripura or Sikkim or Barak valley or complete dispersal of the Koch-Rajbangsi people.
To conclude time has come that the Nagas should seriously reflect and re-examine whether the present form of political struggle should continue or resort to constitutional form of struggle to bargain more for their autonomy and demand more for opportunities for their own intellectual, cultural, economic and social development. Nagas must cultivate the habit of hard work and industry. The Nagas in general and youth in particular should give up and say no to wine and liquor. It is in this connection to remember M.K.Gandhi’s words that wine and liquor have brought ruination in human societies. To begin with manufacture and sell should be treated as cognizable offence. Gandhi had vision not only for India but for the whole world. It is difficult to make a distinction between drinking and drunkenness. Many high officials make clearly the distinction between drinking and drunkenness. According to them drinking is not a crime but drunkenness is a crime. Nagas must reflect and realize this dimension of life. The Naga insurgents are also such a terror to their own people that ordinary Nagas are so fearful to raise their voice of protest and complaint. Internal suppression, oppression and intimidation should be eliminated. Without such elimination the situation of internal colonialism will eventually lead to internal implosion which will be very dangerous. This situation has to change for the freedom of the common people. The non-Naga language is being widely used as the lingua-franca called Nagamese language is fast destroying the true Naga languages thereby Naga languages are in the danger zones of extinction according to the United Nations Report. My humble suggestion as a remedy to the persisting Naga problem is placed for discussion and deliberation before the Nagas today. To sum up the challenges that the Nagas face today are not clearly political but economic, cultural, social, linguistic and psychic as well. In nutshell, Nagas must change their mind-set so that they could regain their past glory of free loving people with the fullest possible development of their talents and potentialities.
The writer is Professor,
Department of Philosophy
NEHU, Shillong-793022.
