Beyond the Colour & Merrymaking
As the colour and joy of Moatsu was celebrated across the State, it is only fair to suggest here that festivals should not only be celebrated and enjoyed but also emulated for the relevance or significance it carries. Nagaland is declared as the Land of Festivals and throughout the year each Naga tribe is known to celebrate their respective traditional festival. While each tribal festival may differ, yet there is commonality as far as the message is concerned—dignity of labour and hard work; peace, unity and reconciliation; cooperation and co-existence; love and sharing; transparency, accountability and not to forget honesty of our forefathers. And it is for renewing our values that festivals should be celebrated and given importance. However, if we notice, during festivals, more importance is given to merrymaking, indulgence, feasting and glorification of things like wealth and power. Perhaps we need to tone down this outer manifestation of our festivities and give more or equal importance to educating ourselves about the deeper meaning and significance of our festivals. If we can do this, probably we will find many of the solution to the ills facing our Naga society and politics.
One of the aspects of our Naga festivals, which can have a positive impact especially for the younger generation is the God given tradition of our forefathers to work and eat. And rightly so, this theme of dignity of labour and hard work finds a ready mention by Chief Guests, most notably politicians, who are invited to attend the numerous festivals throughout the year. In fact we need to propagate, promote and encourage the need for work to live and sustain. Many of the problems we face today such as extortion and crime is because of the misconceived notion that we can live off easy money rather than hard work. Our society has become such that there are the few who work hard with honesty yet they are being robbed of their hard earned money and labour. Then the other thing we need to propagate more through our festival is to make our politics and government more transparent and accountable to the people. For instance, truth telling seems to be an important ingredient in our traditional platform such as the Morung. There is honesty and openness in the affairs of the Morung culture besides everyone has a shared responsibility and there is accountability to each other. Perhaps our government system can emulate the openness and shared responsibility of our Morung tradition. If we can do this, there is no reason why we cannot become better in running the affairs of our State and society.
Another aspect we need to educate ourselves about from our celebration of festivals is peaceful co-existence, unity and reconciliation. And perhaps in the present context where we need to rebuild our ties with each other as one Naga family, respective tribes can reach out to each other through cultural exchange programmes during such festivities. In fact the common platform provided by the annual Hornbill Festival in December should be better utilized not just to showcase our colorful culture and tradition to the outside world but also to help in healing and reconciliation of our internal imbroglio. Lastly, festival is perhaps the best time to reconnect with Mother Nature and create greater awareness on protecting our environment from willful destruction, maintaining hygiene and cleanliness. In fact it is during our festivals that we notice the intricate link between man and nature and how our forefathers had lived in perfect harmony with nature—not by dominance or greed but through respect and sustenance. As a Land of Festival, let us celebrate our culture and identity while at the same time renewing our values.
