Nagas don’t think enough to heal the wounds, says Niketu Iralu

Naga Hoho is a very important body and it must be restored

Our Reporter
Dimapur, Nov. 20 (EMN): Today our youths are starting to ask difficult questions about the rightness or necessity of the struggle for our aspirations that our Naga elders and pioneers launched a century ago and which has continued to this day, said Niketu Iralu, peace activist and member of Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR), on Friday.

Iralu was speaking at a webinar organised by Naga Peoples Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR) Delhi sector, on the theme “Nation Building: The Challenge of Fragility”.

‘The assertion made is that Nagas have become people of the nation on the basis of the acts of our history which are indisputable but the subject does not end with the assertion,’ he stated.

He stated that ‘we cannot just go on shouting our slogans and remain as people who do not solve their own problems but create problems that threaten to bury us’ because of “shocking irresponsibility, shameless selfishness and the hurts and wounds we have inflicted on each other”, adding that ‘we do not think enough how to heal those wounds’.

He said that the time for using excuses and blaming others is over. “To answer this weakness and failures by reaching out to one another sufficiently is a challenge and meeting the challenge will reveal our fragility, vulnerability, our need for one another’s help and compassionate understanding of each other mistakes, wrongs we have committed in our responses to the challenges that have come to us,” he said.

He also opined that ‘our understanding of our history is something we are very clear and we have no sense of guilt about it, and it is important that we become worthy of that understanding’.

Iralu stated that the government of India has for a long time regarded us as the people whose history is meaningless and they taught us the histories of ancient civilisations of India, but that is not important and that has been the problems for so many years. He added that more ‘thinking people of India have today realised we have our own understanding of history; and they must understand if a workable solution has to be achieved’.

He said that Nagas have made so many mistakes while responding to challenges and struggles, and “the result is what we have today, the crisis we all understand is the outcome of a much-damaged process”. Nagas need to start healing the damaged process as damages have been done for a very long time and “all tribes, groups, individuals have in different ways contributed our share to the damaging process of our struggle”, he asserted, adding that ‘the outcome that we have today is a very dangerous one’.

The peace activist further said that Nagas are afraid of what the settlement will bring; has to be serious about the common position that there will be no more violence whatsoever. We can have a series of differences and misunderstanding can be resolved, but there should be no violence at all, he said.

“It is possible that concerned Nagas are there who can take the responsibility to bring our people together, to sort our differences and understanding of one another in a compassionate way and say that we have to create a new future for the coming generation,” he opined, adding that ‘we cannot pass on to the new generation a more damaged outcome which will simply produce killing fields’.

He further mentioned that ‘there have been enough hurting done within Naga homeland already, and if we allow ourselves to indulge in violence, it can become uncontrollable, and again this will go on to the Northeast India and we need to realise that we can prevent it’. ‘Going beyond our ego, pride, selfishness, fear and that will be the beginning of nation building,’ he said. ‘In areas where things have gone wrong, if we are really honest, responsible and if we want nothing of ourselves but want something right and sustainable for our Naga family, we will see that we can take steps starting with ourselves,’ he added.

Iralu stated that ‘unless our relationship is restored, we are very weak and that is where we have to build our strength by developing mutual good for one another and desiring one another to be great instead of just our tribe’s progress on one’s own success’.

He further said that Naga Hoho is a very important body and it was widely respected in the beginning but has become discredited today and suggested that Nagas restore the body. Talking about two different negotiating teams having different views on Naga flag and constitution, he said that the people must respect the positions of both sides but “it just shows how much distrust has come into our relationship over the years”. On sovereignty, Nagas are not honest with one another, he added.