Thepfulhouvi Solo
The Angami and the Chokri armed fight against the East India Company Force during 1832 to 1879 was neither for the expansion of their Territory nor for a Freedom movement for a Naga Nation. It was not a Liberation Struggle or a National Freedom Movement; it was just a fight for the Honor of the Village and of the glory of Head hunting.
The explanation of the origin of the occasional rather than Traditional or Customary practice of Head hunting among the Nagas, will require long and detailed discourses, this may inordinately delay the discussion of the topic at hand; hence it may be kept for some other times.
The British administered the Naga; but they did not rule over them. No British Law, no British System was imposed upon Naga Hills except:
i. a ban on Head Hunting.
ii. a ban on selling of land outside the Community.iii. an unhindered Right of Way on the Empire’s Highways and the Mule Tracts for the Sarkar’s Dak Runners with Bell Ringing or with an ancient Hurricane Lamp at night.
iv. a Red Waist Coat –the Angami called ‘Scooteh’- for its Dobashi or Interpreter to wear on duty.
v. a Red authoritative Roman Toga to drape the Village Elder called Gaun Burah.
Except for these Principles, on all other things, the Naga governed himself as in the ancient times.
When the British East India Company forces first appeared in the Naga Country of Semaguting (Chümukedima) Village, they desired for a Peace Treaty with the Naga and sought an audience with the King. The Villagers fixed a Spear on the ground in the front and pointed it to be their King. Since then the Colonial Power never sought to enter into any Treaty engagement with any Naga.
Mahatma Gandhi supported the Allied Forces in WWII with a pre-war political understanding with British, that when the War is over, the British would leave India. Mahatma Gandhi was against the continuance of the British Rule in India and his support for them in the war is not for nothing.
The Naga support for the British in the WWII, on the other hand, was in honor of the Loyalty for a just Administration. Some INA (Indian National Army) soldiers of Subash Chandra Bose, accompanying the Japanese force tried to win over the Naga by saying the Japanese and the Naga are both Mongolian race and together they would drive out the White Man from the Country and have their own Sarkar.
The Naga however had no such agenda for their support of the British Forces in the WWII. They supported the Government for its just Administration. The Naga favored the white man’s Administration in the Naga Hills; they would have welcomed a British Protectorate for the Naga Country for some time even after the Indian Independence.
The RSS Theoreticians would have us and the wide World believe their assumed agenda that the Naga also joined the Indian Independent Movement of Mahatma Gandhi against the British. This, the RSS Cohorts are doing because the Naga had all along been saying they did not participate in the history of India and the Naga had declared in a memorandum to the Simon Commission in 1929, prior to the Colonial Power leaving India, that in the event of the British leaving the Naga Country, the Naga should be left as they were before.
It is in the understanding the Naga would not join Burma or China that Sir Akbar Hydari Governor of the Province of Assam, on behalf of the Government of India, on June 26 to July 1, 1946 that the NNC entered into a 9-POINT AGREEMENT and after 10 years the Naga would decide their own future. Immediately NNC appointed Mr. Kevichüsa, Mr. Khelhose, and Mr. Mhondamo Ministers, but the Government forced the NNC to stop functioning and Phizo was jailed.
There is no mention of Naga participation at any time anywhere in the Ancient History of India the Students read in the Colleges or Universities of India. The IM used this one cardinal point also in the recent PEACE ACCORD with the Government of India who has accepted the History of the Naga. The Naga always held their non-partition in the History of India as their fundamental Stand for a separate Naga life from India.
The Naga was never against the British Rule in India and had never heard of Mahatma Gandhi’s “Quit India Movement”. But RSS Thinkers like Jagdamba Mall (Relevance of Rani Gaidinliu in Nagaland and the Country: ‘Page’ of 09/16/2015 and other Local Papers) would have the Naga and the world believe, that the recently manufactured wind of Mahatma’s Freedom Movement blew in the Naga Hills through the draughty bamboo Walls of the Rani’s Thatch House. But such see-through crafting reads like Grimm’s Fairy Tale rather than serious the thinking of the present day generation of the Naga.
Some other RSS Proponents have the Rani even accompany Gandhi in his Train Journey in 1921 from Dimapur to Golaghat and had even presented a solid Teak wood crafted Table of unbelievable 60cm diameter. This must have been when the supposed Rani was 6 years old if she was born in 1915!
Such concocted stories read like amusing magic to the Naga readers who know the real life of Gaidinliu. Dimapur as a Train Station, was officially not known to the Indian Railways then, it was ‘Manipur Road’ and only after the creation of the State of Nagaland was the Station officially became known asDimapur.
In their attempt to paint the Naga and the whole of the North East participated in the Indian Freedom Movement to pretend India was a solid homogenous Bharat, the RSS Theoreticians may go to any length and concoct any fairly tales on the Rani; at this rate, my wife tells me, ‘they’ would even have the Rani fly up to Heaven!
