A very warm and hearty welcome to all the visitors and well-wishers who have come to Nagaland State, to be our most honoured guests at this time of year. In addition to the traditionally acclaimed hospitality, I, as a responsible host, am duty bound to also serve you with a juicy slice of the Naga National Political History in the briefest nutshell, without which the full course of the Naga dish is much too incomplete and not as wholesome.
The very first ever foreigners the Nagas happened to come in contact with had been the British and the American Missionaries without any shadow of a doubt. The British sowed the Political Seed for better or for worse. And the American Missionaries brought the ever virile Seed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and sowed the same in our fertile land. The Nagas can never thank these two Nations sufficiently enough no matter how hard we try and attempt. But the naked truth can never at the same time be denied that both of them had fallen abysmally short for not speaking out the truth of and about the Nagas; leaving her factually orphaned and helpless, only to be ravished by the cruel demonised hands of India for all of these seventy odd years of untold persecution and brutalisation. If you Democratic and Christian Countries (UK and USA included!) do not look after our welfare and speak up for and advocate our just case; to whom do you suggest we turn to for support and succour?
Against all norms of natural justice and peaceful co-existence, the haughty British came intruding into our land and our lives; so the Nagas had to rise and do battle with her. Being much of a powerful Nation (then!) the Nagas could not prevail for much too long and gave way to her in gaining control over a small portion of Naga Land. She christened that parcel of land as the Naga Hills District most inauspicious. However, there never had been any written Treaty between us to ever pollute History divine. This goes to prove that the Nagas had never sold off her Political Rights neither had she ever lost possession of them at any point of time, near or distant.
The group of Nagas who were being most unwillingly governed by the British, in 1929 under the guise of Naga Club submitted a Memorandum to the Simon Commission. The crux of the written work had been that as and when the British withdrew her Government from Naga Land she should never be left to the mercies of any strange Nation – meaning India; but be instead left free and independent as in ancient times. Accordingly, the august British Parliament discussed the issue threadbare and passed the historic British Parliament Act 1935 whereby the British Naga Hills District had been declared “Excluded area”. God Bless(ed) The Queen!
Next to follow in the Stream of Time, after the WW II, the British Imperial Government declared that she would grant independence to the Indian sub-Continent colony. Taking the cue most seriously, the Nagas immediately established the Naga National Council (NNC) and reinvigorated the clarion call of Naga Nationhood sounded by the Naga Club in reasserting our stand.
Therein, while the British were still very much around, on August 14, 1947, one day before India; we officially declared our independent status afresh.
Then, in the way of consolidating and reaffirming our stand, the Plebiscite/ Referendum was carried out on May 16, 1951, very timely. An unprecedented 99.9% of Nagas voted firmly for Naga Independence most spontaneous.
In the meantime, Government of India on the audacious assumption that Nagas were also Indians, imposed her 1st General Election on her. But since the Nagas had absolutely nothing to do with the Indian Election, not even one single vote was cast, creating History most explicit.
What clearer proofs and or evidences are there beside these?!!
Since and because India claims to be a Democratic Country and a very strong proponent of Democracy at that; should she also not honour and acknowledge the Democratic Rights most spectacularly executed by a people; even if they be the Nagas?
India absolutely had not the slimmest of avenues to entangle the Nagas in and with; but she most shamelessly claimed and clamoured that the British had bequeathed Nagaland to her and on that flimsiest of excuses started and never stopped occupying her territory after invading her in late 1955.
Whatever would the Nagas do then? Nagas could most certainly not stand up to the mighty India. So should she just surrender to India, cringing in fear? Or should she speak up her rights even at the great risk and certainty of being squashed completely? Emboldened and empowered most supernaturally, the Nagas were enabled to conclude that we would never give up our eternal God-given rights, total anathema! To this end, we set up the Federal Government of Nagaland on March 22, 1956 and from that day the actual physical war with Government of India had been wagged.
Had the Government of India been half as sincere in her efforts to solve the Indo-Naga Political conflict, she should have most obviously held talks with the actual adversary, here the Naga National Council (NNC) and the Federal Government of Nagaland (FGN). But instead, India chose the unholy option of shunning the NNC and FGN most deliberately and adopted the furtive path of negotiating with the Naga Peoples’ Convention, an entity she herself bred and nurtured; and entered into the so-called 16-Point Agreement and granted Statehood to her very own scions. Thus on December 1, 1963, the State of Nagaland under Indian Union came to be inaugurated.
All tenets of Political Science scream out the blazing fact that the 16-Point Agreement is but very much one of a unilateral agreement. This has nothing to do with the NNC and FGN and therefore has no legal binding whatsoever. The 16-Point Agreement is merely a deed of treacherous National betrayal at best. The whole exercise boiled down to a hollow “Indian made Nagaland”. The Nagaland State Government in real essence is a Puppet Government; nothing more. This can never be construed to have solved the Indo-Naga Political conflict, in the most absolute. The final word has not yet been said much by very, very far. In order to arrive at the appropriate conclusion, the Government of India’s motive and approach would matter most vital.
The Indo-Naga Political Conflict has been festering for the last seventy odd years. Nagas have brilliantly triumphed morally many times over; but India is much too strong physically. And she adamantly squats right over us by most cruel brutal force and evil intent. But for just how many years more would this be allowed to continue?
May the sublime sense of natural justice and sane fellow feeling most aggressively permeate in and prevail upon the International Community at large and the Government of India specifically, resulting in setting the Nagas free in very good quick time. Otherwise, in consonance with the saying “A mighty flame followeth a tiny spark” (Dante Alighiere), the apparently trifling Naga Case left unattended might ignite and invite matters of much grimmer consequences, so says the wise Owl! Kuknalim.
