Change is constant. The Naga people have been yearning for change and yet, change does not seem to have come to the Naga people. It is almost a contradiction in terms, because while change is continuous it somehow is not being felt in the lives of ordinary Naga men and women. Has Change failed, or have the Nagas failed to notice the presence of Change in their midst and subsequently, missed the opportunity to nurture the seeds of Change. Have Nagas succumbed to the chains of fear; and become mute to the hope of Change?
A time has once again dawned upon the Nagas to collectively discern and choose between Fear and Hope. Some have said that Hope is what threatens power; Hope is what drives the revolution forward. If hope is a decisive element that defines the line between status quo and transformation, between oppression and justice, then surely hope is what the powers that be would like to erase. But hope is what the voices of change should nurture and strengthen. The anti-thesis of hope is fear. There is a constant battle between hope and fear, and eventually, the one that succeed defines the existential fate of how a nation conducts its affairs.
Just as it is the struggle between memory and forgetting, it is the struggle between hope and fear. While hope is life-giving, fear paralyzes life. Hope is abstract and dwells on the bigger picture, while Fear is immediate and very concrete, it is very real and has the capacity to rip families apart, destroy resources and obstruct the growth of a nation. It is the intent of the powers that be to ebb away any form of hope and create conditions that instill fear in people’s minds. Often it seeks to create fear that leads to hate and dehumanization.
Nagas are at a time when they have to search deep within themselves and collectively decide what to choose. There is no doubt that fear as gripped the Naga heart and mind which has done more damage than good. It has further fragmented the society, sown seeds of suspicion and division, replaced critical thinking with complacency and most of all; it has induced a situation where people are no longer living. Consequently, people are becoming indifferent to the question of the common good, and have increasingly accepted the status quo as the norm.
The Naga future stands on soft and precarious ground. Nagas cannot wait for hope to come to them, they must choose hope and commit themselves to attaining it through their actions. The steps toward hope must be an active, energetic and organized process. Hope is the most basic need for Nagas to be transformative. For too long, Nagas have continuously lived in the past. To move forward the present generation is dependent on hope, a hope that is transformative and visionary. It is by embracing hope that Change becomes real.
