Achan Ramsan
While the talks with the NSCN-IM leadership is on the right track, the breach of the ground rules by both the factions of the NSCN is really unwarranted – Oscar Fernandez on factional clash (MExN, July 2, 2007).
So far, so long: at the receiving end - under the diktat of circumstances. Bullied and brutalized – the process of change must begin now, or perish forever. This is the best epithet speaking at the moment for the Naga emancipation process. We don’t want freedom to be subjugated by another form of suppression, we don’t want self-determination to be a determination of other’s will upon us, so said a Naga citizen concerned of the strife in the current context of tribalism and factionalism. This also means giving free room to the Indian government to dictate the talk in its own term.
Naga history underwent agonized phase of suppressive interference from within and outside that a culture of shock set in, replaced by silence as insulation. As an outcome, fear and indifference prevails that people are afraid to make decisions that affect their lives and future. Now that a shell of silence has become a way of life, it is time to exorcise the ghost of the past, get rid of it and go on a new footing. Where in the past, undergrounds were a secluded organization, let them open up to the judgment of the public; where the public were unable to voice their grievances, let them open up freely, expecting their voices to be heard, heeded and needed.
The peace talk, in fact, should be a role reversal; undergrounds may have earlier imposed their will, now the underground should accommodate the interest of the people for any meaningful future. If not, then we are sitting on dynamite. There is no guarantee that the future is secure as long as public do not make the decision. In other words, the public are the future. But sadly, somewhere along the line, the truth seems to be either ignored or misconceived. Otherwise, what are all the fuss, noise and confusion about?
Given the seeming intersection or inclination of interest into tripolar locations – NSCN (K), NSCN (IM) and the public on the other hand, it is time the public ring out its voice and rein in the elements detrimental to its interest. The works of the national workers in all their implication and ramification need to be scrutinized, as long as the people’s interest and future are concerned.
It would be tantamount to jeopardizing and undermining the peace process, if the professed national fora of the Nagas failed to notice the voice of the people. This will also become the bone of contention between the various entities engaged in the Naga peace process. Therefore, relegating the stature of the Naga peace talk to impose the stature of their organization and engendering an isolationist policy.
The Naga national movement, having landed in such quandary in the perception of the people, a noble gesture, a noble voice of truth and sanity transcending the narrow domestic wall is needed. Unless both the factions transcend their ideologies to encompass the whole structure and interest of the Nagas, peace-talks will sound empty and hollow. But out of such structure, the bold and imaginative move of the NDFB (Nagaland GBs & DBs/ federation of the Goanburas) to ‘impose’ ceasefire on all the feuding factions is an assertion of the people’s will. It’s a new paradigm shift in Naga politics and policies, in the otherwise dormant voice of the people. Where active participation is absent, there is no assertion of the people’s will: as the past has been, with the public remaining as passive listeners only.
So, a broad based analysis is required that paved the way to a new vista for a strong participation of the people. The people’s voice is indispensable to nation building and self-determination as its soul, and not only indispensable but also inevitable if at all, the underground movement is to be brought over ground. Unless, such movement gained momentums in the present context, death warrant of the ongoing talk as well as the movement is imminent.
This emerging fact should be the new basis for collective public responsibility and undertaking of the future. The only way for the peoples’ indifference is: if people perceive themselves as excluded from the future of any programme and policy that they will be as passive onlookers without any active role. In such context only death, decay and irrelevance of the movement could be expected. However, the present assertion of the people’s active role as evident in the new development points to the willingness of the people to prevail the greater interest of the Nagas. Thus, a growth of a new healthy trend, which must be encouraged and due place be accorded for its growth.
Killing galore in the national arena must stop, and a forward movement embraced and pursued. The simple reasoning is this: dare the factions indulge in killings, if all public unite and forbid such act? No way. And how does one upturn the scourge of fratricidal killings into and advantage. History will bear witness to the ingenuity of the Nagas to overcome the curse of the ‘Quit Notice’ into a blessing than a killing field.
A blessing in the first place for any ill undercurrent is bound to surface. It is just the tips-of-the-iceberg in the relation of the Nagas. I believe, many more lie buried. Now, the uppermost question: are the Nagas determined and committed in finding a just and honorable solution? Without justice, no solution is honorable and without understanding, all agreement is an illusion. Only, when there is mutual respect in owning up to all wrong commission and omission be hope; to forgive and forego the differences can there be light to forge ahead to a new partnership.
In this direction the journey of understanding embarked by the Pukreila, the Peace Crusaders and the Tangkhul Hoho (Nagaland Chapter) across Ukhrul in the last part of June to a ready audience is worth a thousand walk. The humble walk just tells how people in Nagaland fared under the shadow of the ‘quit notice’. The true depth of their concern and conviction is a trail blazing journey fraught with risk and danger that set a new standard in understanding the factional feud in a new dimension. Exercising maternal instinct and concern over and above petty domestic walls, averting bloodsheds of both the factions, rising above politics were their main concern in the right direction. Meaning that intervention from the public has become necessary.
The crux of the matter: people are supreme, over and above politics. This must dawn in the Naga consciousness, if any forward stride is to be contemplated. But sadly, some of our gun-toting brothers, it seems, wanted to believe otherwise. Having long been accustomed to threshing out results from the barrel of the gun, the preference for pushing their factional ideology over and above the greater interest of the people will only prove disastrous.
Indeed, working for a party, being absorbed in its works, thoughts and processes, the individual within that organization loses his individuality, to be swallowed up by the organization itself for its manifestation. Such conditioning, though unfortunate, is a reality no more to be ignored. That is the price of struggling for too long. But we owe it to ourselves and to our society to wake up to the reality. Better live a Naga than a faction; better live for an ideal than be bereft of it. For even when society failed, there will always be an ideal to strive for. So, be a Naga of the ideal, then you will never lose.
