Dimapur, December 18 (MExN): While greeting the Nagas for peace and tranquility during the festive season, the Naga Hoho has said that the leadership is ready to pave way if the Nagaland tribes are willing to come back under the banner of Naga Hoho to rebuild and restore the Hoho.
In a press release on Friday, the Naga Hoho stated that, “The Naga struggle for freedom as a collective birth right, is binding on all of us and it should be revered as sacrosanct, bigger and above all the Naga organizations and their leaders.”
The Naga Hoho strongly believes in unity for an inclusive and honorable Naga Political solution, it said while appealing all Naga people and the political groups and leaders to come together for a journey of common hope for "one Nation, and one solution."
“The current leadership is even ready to pave way if the Nagaland tribes are willing to come back under the banner of Naga Hoho to rebuild and restore the Hoho,” the release stated.
It said that currently, the Nagas “seem to be living in the ‘caged societies’ planted and nurtured by the ideological, organizational, and territorial politico-administrative divides compounded by an overriding loyalty to our respective ethnic and tribal communities.”
Despite the tall proclamation that the Nagas are a separate entity, a nation that merits to be left to itself as a sovereign nation- state, we have not been able to transcend these boundaries and the associated world views especially that of our respective ethnic/tribal groups, it added.
It also claimed that ‘divisive mentalities’ and ‘hawkish elements’ have relegated the Nagas to mere prisoners, setting them up against each other as mutual enemies. “The dilemma faced by the prisoners is that each is tempted to think that he is better off confessing against his partner than remaining silent. But in doing so, both of them ends up worst off than they would have been if only they had cooperated and not defect against each other,” it added.
It further stated that the Nagas cannot afford to forget the past blunders and repeat it again. “The choice before the Nagas clearly is to talk to each other and find a common ground to lend support to a position that realistically constitutes our non-negotiable position for an inclusive, honorable and acceptable solution,” it said, while adding that “piecemeal political solutions in the guise of securing constitutional rights without securing a common political future will not heal the land and its people.”
“Unity is unquestionably the desire of every Naga soul. However, unfortunately we have hypocritically taken ‘unity’ as synonymous with ‘uniformity’. While unity accepts differences necessitating the need for democratic dialogue, open-mindedness and mutual respects to work towards the recognition of common goal and the greater good of all as the fundamental basis for unity; uniformity involves an imposition of one’s will and preferences on others without space for negotiation and compromise,” it stated.
It expressed belief that Nagas are ‘one’ and that the only way forward is to settle differences through dialogue within the Naga family and to be unified in purpose by agreeing to converge at a non-negotiable position for recognition of the identity of the Nagas as embodied in the flag, constitution and integration of the Naga ancestral homeland.
Stating that 2020 is coming to an end and Christmas is approaching, the Naga Hoho appealed every Naga leader to “forgive one another and embrace together with renewed vision so as to face the new challenges with the dawn of New Year.”
It also wished everyone a blessed Christmas season and a prosperous New Year.
