Calls for unity as Naga Club observes Foundation Day
Naga Club members after the observance of its 102nd Foundation Day held in Kohima on January 7. (Photo Courtesy: Naga Club)
Kohima, January 8 (MExN): The Naga Club (NC) observed its 102nd Foundation Day at the MC Hall, Red Cross Building, Kohima with Medoselhou Keretsü as the Guest Speaker on January 7.
Keretsü in his address said that the Naga Club was formed by few Naga visionary leaders on January 7 in 1918, at a time when the Nagas were living in an age of “political unawareness” without any knowledge and sense of responsibility about sovereignty or national consciousness.
Thus, by the time the British Statutory Commission from Great Britain headed by John Simon with Atlee and E Cadogan visited Kohima in 1929, the Club was already working to consolidate the various Naga tribes into a distinct Naga Nationality under the leadership of Rheichalie Pienyü, he maintained.
As per a press release from the Club, Keretsü further shared that it was during this critical juncture that the leaders and members of the Naga Club submitted the ‘famous Naga Memorandum’ to Simon Commission on January 10, 1929.
On the same day of its formation, the Club was further affirmed in 1982 during a Public Meeting and since then, the day was marked its Foundation Day, he said.
As a result, the Executives of the Naga Club observed its Diamond Jubilee on January 7, 1993 with a solemn prayer at the Naga Club Building, Kohima. Since then, the Foundation Day has been observed in 2004, 2005, 2018 and 2019 by its members.
On August 14, 1947, Naga National Council declared independence of the Nagas as being an independent nation, consistent fully with the position Naga Club had declared in 1929, he added.
The subsequent all-out struggle waged by all Naga tribes, starting with the Naga voluntary Plebiscite in 1951 reaffirming their stand, the boycott of the first two Indian general elections, and the enormous price Nagas have paid up till date for their declared aspirations, have shown the Nagas believed their position was fully justified, valid and legitimate legally, morally and from all other considerations, Keretsü added.
The objective of Naga Club formed by the forefathers 102 years ago was to realise the need of coming together as a people and “We could be trusted by words of the mouth,” he also noted.
“Regretfully, today we have lost the trust and thus, we are living in a world of division and disunity created by ourselves” he lamented.
To this end, Keretsü implored upon the gathering to remember that “we should, at all times remember that we are one people, one race, one family,” adding, “No force on earth should deter us from uniting.”
Earlier in the programme chaired by KN Mhonthung Lotha, General Secretary, Naga Club, Dr Kenyeseng Tsela, Pastor, Rengma Baptist Church, Kohima pronounced the invocation while Vixepu Swu, Treasurer, Naga Club extended greetings.
