One of the popular mantra of the present Naga People’s Front (NPF), which is in power in Nagaland, is the oft repeated phrase “the culture of high command politics is alien to the Nagas”. This mantra has become more pronounced in the last few weeks ever since the Opposition Congress brought out a long list of allegations against the NPF government. According to the NPF mantra “we as a people cannot accept Nagaland Congress leaders marching to Delhi to resolve internal issues and also imposition of such culture upon our people”. The NPF goes on to argue that it is a regional party where “its leadership and its policies are determined by our real high command which is the people and the masses”. Justifying that the NPF leaders are “focused on working for the grass roots”, the regional party goes on to claim that the Congress leaders are “spending all their efforts and time focusing outside Nagaland”, which obviously means Delhi. The NPF may ridicule the culture of ‘high command’ and similarly the Opposition Nagaland Congress may term the regional party as less than patriotic to the Indian union. Regardless of whichever party it may be, the question therefore is whether such claims and counter claims is at all helpful in addressing real issues of the people. A few years ago the political discourse in Nagaland was centered on the so called ‘equi-distant’ and ‘equi-closeness’ policy respectively of the Congress and the NPF. But what did such high sounding phrases achieve for the people? Did it bring peace, reconciliation or unity among the Naga armed groups? Thankfully, we do not hear of such things anymore.
Here if we may say so, this so called practice of high command is actually found in every large scale organization and so why only blame the Congress. Those who have studied political science would have come across a person by the name of Robert Michel who propounded the “iron law of oligarchy” in his classic book ‘Political Parties’. According to him democratic parties have “built-in characteristics that inevitably lead to rule by a dominant few”. He goes on to explain how parties and its leaders in order to organize and maintain a mass movement must create a permanent bureaucracy with officials. So subsequently it claims that rule by an elite - or “oligarchy” is inevitable as an “iron law” within any organization as part of the “tactical and technical necessities” of organization. So you see even if the NPF may idealize or ridicule (in this case), for the organization to function effectively centralization has to occur and power will end up in the hands of a few. Perhaps the NPF Central Office in Kohima is the high command of the party and rightly so if important decisions and political strategies has to be chalked out so that the party functions effectively and in an organized manner. And let’s admit it, at the time of elections (ticket distribution) or formation of government (taking decision on political alliance or portfolio allocation etc.), the culture and practice of high command will be highly prominent in any political party including the NPF. The ruling party may be right in stating that the culture of high command politics is alien to the Nagas. But haven’t we also inculcated many other things such as corruption, which was alien to the Nagas?
