By Kaka D. Iralu
Any national political organization or institution needs a nationally mandated platform to voice the nation’s position and its aspirations. In the case of the Naga nation, the Naga National Council (NNC) was that only political Platform and Institution. It is also a fact that because of the NNC’s stated position, hundreds and thousands of Nagas sacrificed their lives for the nation’s defence. Yes, it is true that Naga commitment to the NNC had cost them dearly both in physical as well as material dimensions when over 600 Naga villages were burnt to ashes and over 100,000 Nagas perished in the jungles from starvation and diseases in the mid 1950’s when Indian troops invaded Nagaland.
But can the Nagas therefore, reject their own mandated NNC platform and hope to achieve their national objective under some lesser platform just because their association with the NNC had cost them too dearly? Indeed, the NNC’s platform has been smeared with a lot of Naga blood and Naga tears. But the corollary question is: Can there be another Naga platform that can politically and legally substitute the NNC in bringing about a solution to the case of India and Burma’s invasion of our country?
After all, it was only the NNC that submitted the six memorandums to the departing British Government before the Transfer of Power Act in 1947. These memorandums had stated all the historical and political facts of the Naga nation to the then most powerful Colonial Power on earth-Britain. Copies of these memorandums were sent not only to Her Majesty’s Government in India but even to the House of Lords and the British Parliament through Lord Simon and Clement Atlee, the then Prime Minister of England. It was also only the NNC that sent ten memorandums stating the same Naga national stand to the incoming Indian government leaders before India was born on August 15, 1947. It was also only the NNC that raised the Naga flag of Independence on August 14, 1947- one day ahead of India.
And it is only because of all these political and legal actions of the NNC, that the Naga stand for Independence and sovereignty stands irrefutable and unchallengeable today or even into eternity.
(Let the reader note here that, at the end of world history, all the nations of the earth will bring their honour and glory into the New Jerusalem which is the symbol of eternity). Rev. 21:26.
But if we Nagas move away from this NNC platform, than we will be moving away from all these political and legal actions that anchors our national rights to the foundations of human history, international politics and international law. Such a move away from the NNC will leave our historical rights as a nation hanging on some foundationless political organizations which were conceived and born long after India and Burma had achieved their independence on Aug.15, 1947and Jan. 4, 1948 respectively. Such an act would also condemn us to being a most foolish nation that stood by, voiceless and action less when the whole Asian Continent was agog with the birth pangs of new born nation states in the late 1940’s.
Coming to internal matters, like any other nation on earth, Nagas can also form tribal organizations, like the Ao Senden or the Angami Public Organization etc and even bring them together under a common umbrella called a Naga Hoho. They can also form various civil societies like the NPMHR the Naga Mother’s association etc. They can even form some internal political organizations based on political ideologies like the NSCN. These organizations can have their legal validity within the internal social and legal framework of a particular country. But none of these other internal political or social organizations can ever represent the Naga national issue of Independence in any international forum. This is impossible because the Indo-Naga-Burma issue is not an internal Naga issue or an internal Indian or Burmese issue. The Indo-Naga Burma issue is absolutely an international issue where two sovereign nations have forcefully occupied another sovereign nation that had declared her independence ahead of both the invading nations. Under international law, no nation can just move its troops beyond its own borders and forcefully occupy a neighbouring country through brutal military might. In the case of India and Burma, this is exactly what they have done to Nagaland. And as for evidences, there is an uncountable record of data that can be shown in any international War Crimes Tribunal.
If however, an internal tribal and ideology based, Naga political organization like the NSCN IM would like to negotiate with the Indian Government for a so called “Shared sovereignty” for the benefit of its cadres, they can go ahead. They however must remember that they cannot impose such a settlement on the rest of the Naga people who are still standing behind their NNC Plebiscite of May 16, 1951 which was for total independence. This national Plebiscite was duly followed up by the solemn act of declaring that Independence on Aug 14, 1947. Here, the NSCN IM and the Indian Government must remember that neither they nor any other power on earth can ever undo the independence declaration of a nation from the pages of human history.
In this context I would like to end by posing this hypothetical question to the NSCN IM and the Government of India
Surely every sane nation on earth would laugh at such a ridiculous settlement!
N.B. Today is my birthday, and I am told that when I was born on March 3, 1956 amidst the sound of gunfire and bombings, my late aunty Rano Shaiza- who was then the President of the NNC Naga women wing- brought me out in my swaddling cloths and declared: “Another NNC has been born.” Well, this article is my 61st birthday gift to the NNC!
