Al Ngullie
Lungwa Village which is situated about 42 kilometers east of Mon town towards Burma is, in all literality a definitive example of transitional reality, culturally, economically and otherwise. This sleepy seemingly ancient Naga village is incongruously wedged between two contiguous international zones one being Burma and the other India. Lungwa is an unambiguous example of a world touching two transitional, cultural worlds struggling to maintain allegiance to her cultural roots while being decidedly drawn by the convenience of a rapid 21st century.
Here is a village where children and adolescents still sleep in Morungs (Naga bachelors’ dormitories); where both men and women have separate kitchens in one household; where salt is still bartered for millet; where runners still undertake ‘mail’ errands for there are no telecommunication facilities in the village; where tattooed, bedecked, half-clothed Anghs (village chieftains) still retain rural tutelage; where the only visible signs of modernity is a tin-roofed church building standing starkly incongruous among teeming palm-leafed hutments; where the 21st century struggles to extend it’s authority over a cultural system that refuses to submit it’s archaic ways of life. This is Lungwa village.
Located right in the middle of the Indo-Burma border, the line of which slices through the village itself (“The Chief Angh’s kitchen is in Burma and his room is in India!” explained Jiangjin, a deputy Angh). Lungwa is a village with a population of about a thousand and is mainly of a pastoral economy subsisting on local organic produce and bartering. Far-removed from the mainland, the villagers have gradually begun the feel the sting of transition from archaic existence to modernity– people have begun moving to the urban areas leaving behind only the aged or little children to man their families. “My mother is scolding me for being away from home and why I don’t visit them often”, grinned Jiangjin, who now lives in Mon town and like any other world-wise individuals, are compelled to view the village as redundant in the face of modernity.
With such natural tendencies of the younger lot towards the opportunities modernity offers, Lungwa villagers are undergoing a phase of trying times. It has neither telecommunication facilities nor power connectivity leave alone any a normal facilities as transport, basic medical amenities, sanitation and schools. Only a hewn ‘road’ connects the village to Mon town which means villagers have to walk 42 kilometers even for the most basic facilities and medical needs. (The Morung Express team’s guide said people here lived and died un-reached and uncared). There is a depilated “dispensary” with a doctor who comes once a month or not at all. It was informed that the Government had detailed a nurse last year but she has still yet to show up. In times of medical emergencies the 20 AR post is the only place basic medications can be availed but it is insufficient, according to a villager.
There are also no transportation facilities; the nearest outpost in case of emergency, is Pomching about 12 kilometers away, which in all definition is no better off than Lungwa itself. For the more adventurous children Pomching offers a primary school run by Pomching’s ‘citizens’ itself. There is only one primary “school’ in Lungwa which incepted in 1971 however there are no teachers except a Physical teacher– and sadly children are most preferred if they stay home lugging on backs their younger siblings while their prematurely-aged and sun-shriveled parents toil in the fields. There are only two graduates from Lungwa: Nahlak Pensha, a Mountain View College, Kohima graduate and a private teacher to Lungwa’s children and Khampei Wangshu who graduated from Wangkhao College, Mon.
Most of the young have either left for Mon for better opportunities or passes the day hunting every day while their families till the fields. As of now their main produce are rice, millet and maize which are mostly for personal consumption. Lungwa subsists mostly from bartering with other Naga villagers from across the Burma border, exchanging everything from soap, salt and local dry-produce for clothes and vegetables. Basketry and weaving are a usual domestic diversion. With the advent of modernity, life has told hard on the lives of the villagers. Demands of contemporary existence have reduced them to near poverty and an even poorer quality of life. Hardly any of them owns decent pair of shorts, leave alone warm blankets for the coming winter. One villager disclosed that contemporary requirements have forced most of them to sell off traditional family heirlooms, ancient collectibles and artifacts to tourists and visitors to the village.
In this case, their only dependence is on agriculture and farming, although the levels of produce have declined over the years due to Jhum cultivation, rapid deforestation and decreasing familial manpower, according to the villagers. They farm in areas at least 5 kilometers into Burmese land where they have to pay a quota of produce to the Burmese field owners as well as to the Burmese army, an outpost of which is located just 20 kilometers away from Lungwa. The hardships faced by Lungwa are being compounded even more by the Myanmarese army who regularly raid the village for rations and force villagers to work for them in Army posts deep into Myanmar. “They enter our village take away pigs, chickens and other food. We cannot refuse because they hurt us” Nahlak Pensha told the MEx team. It was also disclosed that villagers are constantly herded off to the Myanmar Army posts and forced to work as porters, tillers and “general duties”, without payment or food. According to those who had been there, digging trenches, fencing and repairing camps etc are usual. The 20 Assam Rifles post at Lungwa however found no grateful mention from villagers that Lungwa was protected by the AR from harassment from the Burmese army. “The AR is there but Burmese army always harasses us. We can’t do anything” lamented a villager.
In the midst of myriad hardship faced by Lungwa, one solace offering the villagers a sense of belonging is their attachment to their cultural roots. Lungwa is still steeped in traditional lifestyles and customs. Children still sleep in Morungs (There are about 7 Morungs in Lungwa) after dusk. Families prepare food in two kitchens, one each for men and women, and make sure the convention is not violated. Also, although the “alien” concept of Village Development Boards have begun it’s slow but sure march for total domination over the traditional system, faint remnants of traditional tutelage in the form of Anghs still lingers. The Chief Angh with the assistance of 7 Deputy Anghs still preside over festivals, village feasts and community decision-making. It is required that his house be build by the whole village as a token of allegiance apart from being the chief source of felicitation to his subjects.
However, the Angh has gradually started limiting itself only to presiding community festivals. Chief Angh of Lungwa Village, Lungam Konyak into his mid-sixties is a wearied man today. Frail and sickly, he has only his surviving wife to feed him now that his other five wives have passed away. His only possessions left now are bits of ancient ornaments to relive the glorious days when Anghs were supreme and stories to narrate to his 17 children who, young, uneducated and uninitiated, seems to have no future as of now unless some benevolent political intervention decides against it.
And this will also decide the fate of Lungwa Village, once a proud Naga frontier village, where it would be, into extinction or regeneration, in the next few years.
