In The Morung Express and the Eastern Mirror of March 13, 2017, appears an article by Khekiye K. Sema, titled, “REVISITING ‘THE FINAL CHAPTER’.” Paragraph one of the article reminds the reader that what the reader is about to read is an article that originally appeared on March 15, 2014. The reason for the republication is this: “What was said then under trying times remains as relevant now and therefore the same unedited script that had been shared then is now being shared once again to refresh our thinking process in the hope that under changed circumstances … the Nagas will be able to see more clearly.”
The opening paragraph closes with these words: “… it still is the will of the people that must remain paramount as the final authority to determine our future. This final solution cannot be achieved in secret with hidden agendas of one Faction or the other…so fellow citizens please revisit ‘The Final Chapter’”. Thereafter the remainder of this long article is the full article from March 15th, 2014.
The 2014 article is divided into three numbered paragraphs. The first lays the historical foundation for a sovereign Naga nation: “1. Nagas began a publically visible journey of self-determination in 1929 with a ‘leave us alone’ representation to the Simon Commission. The 1951 Plebiscite laid the all important foundation of legitimacy to this claim.” Paragraph one ends this way: “Chapter 1 of Naga History therefore recorded the honourable years of innocence and supreme sacrifices with NNC/FGN in the forefront as a single United Naga House for the ultimate cause.”
Paragraph two, the longest of the three, is a lengthy discussion, commenced this way: “Then came the deluge … the infamous Shillong Accord of 1975.” It is an analysis of the details of the accord, the fact of the failure of Mr. Phizo to condemn it, and other details related to the accord.
Paragraph three discusses the Naga nationalist movement since then: “The NNM [Naga National Movement] then began its floundering course downhill with one unfortunate fragmentation after another …. With so many undesirable factions…we now own a damning history that we ourselves have begun to see it with absolute revulsion.” The article closes with this prescription for the future: “If Nationalist interest is truly a focused interest of the NPGs, it is incumbent upon each Faction to take a conscious stock of the irreparable damage that they already inflicted against the NNM …and consider the reconstruction of a United Naga House from whence we all began. It is only then that the Nagas can hope for a fruitful closure of the final chapter of our Naga history.”
There is only one problem with all of the above analysis: it is irrelevant!
As I have had articles published on this topic before, and as all activists for a sovereign Naga nation are fanatics, incapable of absorbing any facts that might weaken their argument for a nation, what I am going to do below is to spell out, for the vast majority of Nagas who are not fanatics on the issue of Naga nationalism, the reality of their situation. And I will do it by the numbers.
1. The reader will notice that the author’s paragraph one talks about the 1951 Naga plebiscite
2. The reader will notice next that paragraph two begins with the Shillong Accord of 1975.
3. The reader may then, if thinking clearly, deduce that there are 24 years missing from 1951 to 1975.
4. In 1962, the State of Nagaland Act was passed, and on December 1, 1963 the state of Nagaland was formally inaugurated.
5. The creation of the state of Nagaland means that Nagaland is, not to be too subtle, one of the 29 states that make up the nation of India. This is the case despite some Naga activists viewing the state as illegitimate, and those Nagas who worked with the Government of India (GoI) to establish the state as traitors to the cause of a sovereign Naga nation.
6. When the author writes, near the end of his opening paragraph, that, “it still is the will of the people that must remain paramount as the final authority to determine our future[,]” he is wrong.
7. The GoI is “the final authority to determine” the future of the Nagas. And that is despite all the delusional boasting of the activists about fighting the Indian army to the death, bleeding them for decades in a guerrilla war, and all the other nonsense that the activists spout.
8. The GoI will NOT give the Nagas a sovereign Naga nation under any conditions, despite all the talk about plebiscites, Simon Commissions, promises by Gandhi, martyred dead, broken promises by the GoI, and any other reasons the activists can think of to prove that the Nagas deserve, indeed have earned, in the eyes of man and God, a state.
9. The reason that the GoI will not give the Nagas a sovereign nation is that the GoI views the issue as an existential one, that is, it sees the granting of the Nagas a nation as a signal to other separatist groups to pick up guns and demand the same thing. The nightmare of the GoI is that the nation of India will fly into a dozen separatist pieces and India itself will no longer exist.
10. As one Naga nationalist told me, that issue is India’s problem, not the Nagas’ problem, which may rank as one of the most arrogant and stupid comments ever made. The fears of the GoI are the Nagas’ problem. I’ll again spell it out: the Nagas are N O T getting a sovereign nation, period.
11. The rest of the world, which includes all sovereign nations, all NGOs, and any other entity on the planet, will NOT assist the Nagas in obtaining a sovereign Naga nation because Nagaland is an integral state, one of 29, in India, and no entity on earth will interfere with India on what the rest of the world will see as a purely Indian internal affair.
12. It is irrelevant what the Nagas think of all of my statements above. The fact that there are Naga activists who view their state as an occupied nation, and view any movement to throw the Indian soldiers and government out as one nation trying to liberate themselves from another nation, is irrelevant. The GoI, the vast majority of the people of India, all national parties in India, and all the other nations, and other concerned bodies, in the world, will not view the situation the way the Naga activists do.
13. To reiterate, Nagaland is a state in the nation of India, and will remain a state in the nation of India for the foreseeable future, and the sooner the people of Nagaland accept this fact, the sooner they can get on with their lives and address real problems, like corruption and violence of Nagas against Nagas.
14. And that is why K.K. Sema’s article is irrelevant. To accept his views is to allow the blind (him) to lead the blind (you).
