As per media reports, the Organizing Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), North East in charge P Chandra Shekar Rao has suggested to the people of “eastern Nagaland” to either join the BJP or form their own ‘eastern political party’ to strengthen their demand for a separate state. Such a suggestion coming from a so called national party like the BJP should be condemned as it smacks of encouraging more division and that too along tribal lines. People should not be misled by such kind of communal agenda being propagated in the name of electoral politics. While every person irrespective of his/her religion, place of birth or tribe has the right to join any political party of their choice, however to expect everyone from ‘eastern Nagaland’ to join the BJP is wishful thinking. More damaging is the ill-advised suggestion asking the people of Eastern Nagaland to form their own party. At this point of time when efforts are on among the Nagas to unite and co-exist as one people, imagine what will happen if a party owing allegiance to a group of tribe starts to function. Then it will probably encourage the Aos, Sumis, Angamis, Lothas etc to also form such kind of political parties for electoral gains. If it comes to that, it will be a tragic moment for the Naga people. Perhaps this is a good time for us to value and cherish the ethos of secularism. It will demand of us to preserve the sanctity of such secular institutions like the modern government system or the present political parties where your loyalty is to the government or party and not to primordial ties like your religion or tribe.
While internal conflicts and differences among the Nagas have always been there, yet the manner in which they are being accentuated and promoted is a cause for concern. Every right thinking Nagas should ponder upon—are we ourselves encouraging division or unity. Just consider the emerging tribal groups like the ENPO, Tenyimia People’s Organization (TPO), Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) which includes the Sumi Hoho along with some other tribes. Recently another tribal conglomeration called SARK was floated—a platform of students belonging to the Sumi, Ao, Rengma and Kyong tribes. Even if we have such groupings the more fundamental question is whether we are giving priority to the common Naga interest instead of creating further divisions within the Naga family. Echoing similar sentiment, Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio has also raised the slogan of unity, reconciliation and integrity. In fact, Rio has gone to the extent of making some welcome suggestion for the Naga people. These include the need to do away with “individualism, tribalism and partyism” and coming up with a new idea – “Nagaism”. We need to start a people’s movement to propagate these positive ideas of common Naga interest to the rest of the people whether politicians, tribal hohos, Church, students, mothers, national groups etc.
What we think and do has grave consequences if we are not wise and careful. The suggestion to mobilize a political party along tribal line should be vetoed. Just another instance is that we are more and more noticing the compartmentalization even when it comes to buying or selling land. It is time to seriously ponder whether we want to live together as one people. The obvious challenges that we will have to tackle in the days ahead is how we can think and act as a cohesive entity—shedding our different identities and interests to be united on common goals and a shared future. Today we have very few frontal organizations, which are representative of common Naga interest. We have some many organizations, unions and groups, each promoting their own interest. In a democratic society we must definitely give voice to the diversity of interests. But a limit has to be there otherwise our Naga identity will get drowned in the multitude of disarray.
