Kaka D. Iralu
What had eluded the Naga public and their wishes for thirty long years (1980-2010) seems to have been finally achieved with the top leaders of the NSCN GPRN, the GPRN NSCN and the NNC/FGN coming together to sign the document for reconciliation, cooperation and cessation of all hostilities. And in this historic achievement, the FNR and all who have tirelessly worked together for this achievement must be congratulated by every person who calls himself or herself a Naga. We however must remember that there are still other groups who have also equally sacrificed for the nation but are not signatories to this historic achievement. I hope every Naga will agree with me that their sacrifices and stands cannot be just wished away as nonexistent or as none issues.
Also at this juncture, allow me to quickly point out some factors which I think had prevented such a reconciliation from taking place long ago. Here I am keenly aware that some of our leaders may not agree with my analysis but never the less, I will state them as I have seen them. On my part, I leave the records of the facts for the Naga public to judge as well as for our leaders to correct me if I am wrong.
THE POST MORTEM ANALYSIS.
To begin with, the Naga national movement was not at all a tribal movement from the beginning. At the initial stages, some particular tribe leaders might have contributed more than other tribe leaders. But it still remains a fact that these prominent leaders launched the national movement after taking the opinions, consent and cooperation of all the other tribal leaders under the banner of the NNC. It is also an equally undeniable fact that some tribal leaders outside the 16 tribes of the present Nagaland even refused to join the movement when they were invited to do so at the initial stages. However, later on in the1960’s, these tribes too joined in and gave their all and their best like the other 16 tribes of Nagaland.
In this way, the Naga national movement went from strength to strength and even in spite of terrible sufferings succeeded in bringing the mighty Indian army and Government to a bilateral and international ceasefire on September1, 1964. However, while the ceasefire was still in operation and talks were still going on at the highest political levels (Prime Ministerial level), some tribal leaders from a certain tribe, along with a few other leaders broke away to form the Revolutionary Government and later surrendered to the Indian Government on Aug.6, 1973. This was a tragic day for the Naga national movement when some of our splendid leaders walked away with their followers from the national movement. Here to cut a long story short, the Revolutionary Government’s surrender and the cooperation given to the Indian army by them further led to the signing of the Shillong Accord of Nov.11, 1975. This tragedy happened when some surrendered cadres of the Revolutionary Government led Indian soldiers to Naga army camps and relentlessly hunted them down and eliminated many of them.
Then as if to add further salt to the grievous wound of the Shillong Accord, instead of trying to save the nation from further disintegration, The NNC and the FGN were condemned as traitors and a new organization called the NSCN was formed on Jan. 31, 1980. These new organization further split into the NSCN IM and NSCN K on April 30, 1988.
The NNC as mentioned earlier did not have a tribal tag or a tribal leader’s name attached to it, but now tribal leader’s names were being arrogantly suffixed to the Naga national movement with foreign political ideologies guiding the organizations. The result was- the ugly tribal and factional war where even entire tribes like the Angamis were branded as traitors while the entire Tankhul tribe was given quit notice and even branded as non-Nagas!
In the mad melee that ensued, even sacred political events and dates like the Naga Independence day of 14 August, the Plebiscite Day of May 16 and the Naga Martyrs day of Oct 18 were abandoned on the allegation that it was just some particular tribal group’s actions and days for observation. I can go on describing that horrible chapter, but I will stop there because it will not bring back the dead who were butchered on tribal altars through this so called revolutionary movements.
But after all these bloody bloodbaths, one hopes that by this new development of reconciliation, our leaders will now forgive all these past atrocious acts committed on one another on tribal lines and political ideologies.
One also hopes that by the reconciliation’s wordings of “working out our differences” our leaders mean that they will now stop the “blaming game” of putting the blame on the other group and now work together for the common good of the nation. I think it is high time that we learn from our past mistakes that tribalism and private ownership attempts to take over the Naga national movement leads nowhere. From the past tragic retreat to our tribal cocoons, let us now return to our non tribal national and historical political foundations. The present leaders at least owe this to all our fallen heroes and the new generation that is looking up to them for direction and inspiration. May God bless them all.
