Commemoration of the 77th anniversary of the Declaration of Naga Independence
Emeritus Prof. Paul Pimomo, Central Washington University, USA, &
Secretary, Global Naga Forum (GNF)
I feel specially honoured to be asked by the Organising Committee to speak on the topic: “Naga Summit — Vision for a Unified Naga Nation.”
There’s a Japanese saying to the effect that “You don’t know something until you have lived with it through the good, the bad, and the ugly.”
By this standard, if there’s one thing Nagas know really well, it’s got to be nationalism. Nagas have lived with nationalism through the good, the bad, and the ugly for over seven decades. We don’t need to get into the details of that experience here.
And by the same measure, we must admit that Nagas don’t know anything about the Naga Nation, and that is because we have not had one in political administrative terms, though because of our shared ethnic and cultural ancestries, Nagas are a people and a nation in social anthropological terms. But the reality is that Nagas have not lived through a Nation together, despite the fact that the Naga Nation as a hopeful vision has inspired and fired up generations of our people. But Naga are not there yet. Not because we don’t have the right to be, but because our right has been effectively suppressed. Such that as we commemorate the 77th anniversary of the declaration of independence, Nagas are all over the place and headed in all directions when it comes to what the Naga Nation would look like, which means Nagas are not heading toward nationhood despite our long engagement with nationalism, which further means that Nagas as a people may be speeding down a Lost People’s Road. Now, that is an extremely good reason for Nagas to have a Summit – real or metaphorical — on the Vision of a Unified Naga Nation.
A good place to start the conversation on the current dilemma of the Naga Nation is to begin with what we know best, Nationalism, and to ask: What kind of Naga Nations, plural, have we invested the last 76 years of our national struggle into? And the answer is readily available in our history:
First, the Naga idea of a Nation was the Westphalian Nation-State model, because of our colonial history with the British Empire. So the doctrine of a sovereign and independent Naga nation came to be our creed, in defense of which Nagas were prepared to fight and die. This model was reinforced by the fact that Nagas became Christians represented in the phrase “Nagaland for Christ.” So Naga nationalism devoted itself to a Euro-Westphalian-Colonial-American-Christian Naga Nation. Despite their differences, the NNC and the NSCN-IM have for the most part been adherents of this model.
The second model has an indigenous origination. The autonomous and sovereign government of the traditional Naga village made it easy for Nagas to intuitively take to the sovereign nation-state model as the one and only universal structure of self-determination. For Naga leaders of post-WWI era to the second half of the 20th century, the modern nation-state was the Naga village writ large.
The third model of the Naga Nation was based in safeguarding Naga cultural autonomy with the possibility of integration of the ancestral Naga lands within India, which meant handing over political, economic, and military control of the Naga homeland to the Indian government. This has resulted in three things: a) turned Nagas into complete economic dependents of India; b) instead of the promised integration, it separated Nagas into four states in India; and converted the Naga ancestral lands into a militarized zone under the control of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA).
There are currently two reformed (as distinguished from original) models of the Naga Nation. They are more like thought experiments than settled ideology. One centres around integration of the Naga ancestral lands into one self-administered state within one of the existing nation-states, whichever can guarantee that. The adherents of this model support it as a case of natural and international law, based on the reasoning that a family must have a home; likewise, the Nagas are a people who belong together in their ancestral homeland even if it means living in the ambit of a neighbouring nation-state. It is also a right underwritten by international law and the UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples.
The other current model is a revival of the Naga cultural autonomy approach to Naga peoplehood, but cultural autonomy not just within each of the Indian states where Nagas presently live, but across state and national borders in India and Myanmar, including Nagas living in other parts of the world. Advocates of the international cultural and social Naga nationhood argue for it based on the unavoidably interconnected world we live in today, in every sphere of life – political and diplomatic, business and economic, instant mass communication, social media, cultural flows and global civil society organizations across international boundaries. All these make a single physical Naga homeland with one administration unnecessary, they argue. The supporters further argue that this model has the advantage of starting Naga nation building in the right order, by building cultural and social bonds among Nagas across the existing artificial state and national boundaries and beyond international barriers, instead of the old Naga nationalism’s trajectory of starting from the destination of nation-state, which has ended with Nagas fighting one another and hopelessly divided.
In short, after 76 years of Naga nationalism without a Naga Nation, Nagas urgently need a consultation summit on what may be a possible, doable, pragmatic vision of a Naga Nation that most Nagas can unite for.
Lastly, in respectful commemoration of the good and heroic parts of the last 76 years of Naga nationalism, allow me to conclude by quoting the last four lines of Achingliu Kamei’s poem titled “The Resilient Woman.” Though the lines refer to a different context, they aptly apply to the Naga struggle for self-determination and a vision of a Unified Naga Nation, I quote:
You have not broken my spirit
For you have not crushed my hope
For you have not killed my dream.
My dream is killed only when I killed it.
Kuknalim!
