Benito Z Swu
In the Naga people’s struggle for self determination since from the time Zapu Phizo brought together the seclusive and warring Naga tribes to fight for a common cause, we the Sumi Naga people have proved ourselves to be great warriors and a fighting force to reckon with, but sadly in the arena of political pragmatism and diplomacy, and in exhibiting statesmanship character, we, indeed, have not been able to prove ourselves to be so.
Zapu Phizo, as the man who first propounded the theory of Naga Nation as such, and as the President of the NNC, commanded and, unreservedly, deserved respect, but we failed in giving even that which was due to him. We stood vocally critical against him and criticized his staying away from home, questioning his motives without re-evaluating our own motives. We failed to realize that it was the fear of the disintegration of the very organization which he had founded that forced Zapu Phizo to self-exile.
We were at the helms of affairs in the FGN during both the 1964 ceasefire and peace talks, and the 1966-67 straight talk with the Government of India, and in both we failed. We literally adopted the policy of “head I win, tail you lose,” by exploiting, and thereby abusing, the ceasefire to rearm and regroup without respecting the sentiments of the people and the Church who were all longing for peace and tranquility to return to the land. It was all, very telling, when the Foreign Secretary, Mr Gundevia, representing the Government of India in the 1964 Peace Talks pointed out that while the government had accepted so much, the underground had accepted nothing of what the Peace Mission had struggled to produce.
We failed to take ownership of both success and failure, and in our attempt to reinvent at any cost, we formed the Council of Naga People (CNP) and the Revolutionary Government of Nagaland (RGN), thus breaking the once solid NNC/FGN, and sowed the first seed of disunity and division in the one Naga body. We then disbanded and surrendered before the Government of India who rehabilitated us, and thus, paved the way for the Government of India to transfer the Naga Affairs from the Ministry of External Affairs to the Ministry of Home Affairs. We, however, have no compunction in pointing our fingers at the Shillong Accord and proclaiming that it sounded the death knell of Naga political unity.
The Shillong Accord, if viewed in its actuality, cannot even be categorized as an accord because it was signed by just a miniscule section of the NNC leaders who were seriously tired of the unabated violence in Nagaland even as disunity and division had already racked the once solid body of the NNC/FGN, and with the GOI taking all advantage and patronizing the full fledged state government in every possible way. It was wise on the part of Zapu Phizo to have not commented on the issue since it had already become like a fashion for the Naga Nationalists to come rushing to him only after the damage had already been done. The Shillong Accord was, as such, much like a case of much ado over nothing.
Taking into consideration all the past events that had taken place in our land, the signing on the ‘framework’ document by Isak Swu was a much needed reaffirmation of our faith and hope in our real belief that we the Sumi Naga people are not just brave warriors, but also are team players who can rise up to the occasion under any circumstances in the interest of the whole.
As it is written and taught to us by the Big Book that there is a time to kill and a time to heal, all the reconciliation moves that Isak Swu had made especially in the later stage of his life reaffirms his and our belief that today is the time to heal, if not overdue. That today is not the time to be sarcastic and divisive. Th. Muivah, our living Naga patriot and leader, knows Isak Swu better than any living Naga today, and it is our ardent prayer and hope that he will reinvent or do whatever it takes to bring forth what the both of them had dreamt together, in the best interest of all the Naga people. Amen.
