Naga repatriation needs to create a policy framework— Dr. Asangba Tzudir

DIMAPUR — Critical reflection in any engagement calls for application of certain standards which include clarity, accuracy, significance, relevance, fairness, breadth and depth. This was underlined by Dr. Asangba Tzudir, an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Dimapur Govt. College, as he dwelled on ‘Naga repatriation—opportunities and challenges’ on the second day of  ‘September Dialogue,’ organised by Recover, Restore and Decolonise (RRaD) and the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR).

According to him, it is quite strange to question if Naga repatriation is really necessary. “The Naga repatriation is also at a phase where it is easy to pass moral judgments on people who are leading. However I believe the ongoing process of conscientizing the general public through various mediums and formats will help bring in the context of Naga repatriation, especially its closure, within the decolonising framework”, he said.

Tzudir underscored the returning ancestral remains and cultural items to their rightful owners while sharing on the idea of repatriation. “The rightful claim also includes how Nagas frame our own policies towards making a rightful claim and where the claim also includes the right Naga owner or who has finally consented as the rightful owner”, he argued.

Also read: September Dialogue seeks to untangle complexities of Naga repatriation process

On reconciliation and healing, Tzudir reminded that these are deep and layered terms ‘and is a process that requires renewal and recommitment as it needs to be located within an ongoing conception of Naga repatriation, which is a new terminology in Naga parlance’.

According to him, self-determination as an opportunity recognises indigenous people’s right to control their own cultural heritage. Nagas, he said, are in dire need of revisiting and reawakening their self-determining capacity by localising oneness and giving life to the idea of ownership. “This is our chance at asserting our rights within its indigenousness”, he said.

He reasoned that cultural preservation, which is about preserving ancestral remains and cultural items for future generations, is going to evoke different emotions—even hurtful—but it also presents an opportunity to revitalise culture and history and a chance at re-crafting Naga culture and history.

“Naga repatriation needs to create a policy framework which also calls for power of negotiation in our own cultural context”, he suggested.

Dolly Kikon, a professor at the University of California, remarked that the journey of repatriation has been immense. According to her, understanding decolonisation in the local context is very important.

‘How is the local context connected to the international dialogue that is taking place is another important thing that we need to connect and understand,’ she said while underlining that it comes back to the term healing, decolonisation and repatriation.

“Had the term decolonisation never been raised by indigenous scholars and thinkers it would never have entered the academy. What we are facing is something new. The Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People was only recognised in 2007 by the United Nations General Assembly. So we are actually the recipients in the 21st century of immense work that went on in the 20th century with the fractured history of decolonisation across Africa and Asia”, she said.

To a query on the divisive impact of tribalism on repatriation, she pointed out that “we have been told to accept tribalism as a negative word, we have been told it is terrible—to be united, to be together is negative and it is tribalism that tears us apart”.

“If we have to think about tribalism, think it in a way that has helped us to come and be united. It is not about learning together and dwelling on the challenges but also this opportunity that we can learn from one another,” Kikon said.