Kaka D. Iralu
Mr. Silverstein,
I have read your former article as well as the present one published in the Morung Express on May 11, 2016. I however did not reply your first article because like yourself, there are many from the West who poke their noses into our history and write sweeping statements and opinions without knowing what we have gone through under India’s occupational forces from 1947 to the present. Coming to your present article, it is a sweeping attack on my integrity based on references to my sources of information. As for your own sources of information, you have mentioned twice in your present article that your first article appeared in the Morung Express on April 4, 2016. I had lost my own copy of the Morung of April 4, 2016 and therefore frantically searched for it from neighbors and finally have it on my table. BUT there is no article of yours in the Morung dated April 4, 2016. Please therefore be careful about references to your own sources of information.
Coming to your articles about Nagaland and myself, I have no time to give a sentence for sentence reply, but would like to communicate the following facts:
1. Writing about a 69 year conflict in 421 pages was not an easy job, as you, an author yourself should be able to understand. In my experience, having to condense piles of files on atrocity reports into some perhaps, 100 pages (and not the whole book as alluded by you) was no mean task. Therefore, there may be instances where I did not mention the file number or the Region concerned. All along the writing period of three and half years, my table and shelves were always full of reports and documents so much so that thousands upon thousands of hours had to go into condensing pages into paragraphs and paragraphs into sentences while writing the book.
2. As for my sources of information, I am not an “outsider” writing an “inside” story about Nagaland. I was born on March 3, 1956 amidst the sound of gunfire and burning villages. I was a political prisoner along with my parents and grandparents at the age of seven months (as told by my parents). Also, being a grand nephew of A.Z. Phizo, I grew up “breathing and living” Naga politics right from my childhood to the present. And I have spent my entire life of 60 years living in the Indo-Naga war that I have desperately tried to portray in my book. Sixty two years of open warfare (except for the three ceasefires and peace talks) is a long enough period for any nation to be utterly wary of war (1954-2016).
3. Therefore, do not try to miss portray me as a radical fanatic Naga trying to rouse my people back to war with India again. As clearly stated in the introductory part of my book under “A note to the reader,” I had written thus: “The details (of the war) are described with revulsion and disdain. They have been exposed and described so that each reader will join the author in pleading that the war must cease.” If you have read every page of my book as you have stated, then sadly, you are the one reader, who has completely missed the whole point altogether.
4. Finally, I am sorry to learn that you have also lost a beloved daughter called Emily to murder. I am sure as a father; your Emily is not just another statistical number in the list of murdered people. Mr. Silverstein, we Nagas have also lost so many Emily’s in our struggle stretching to almost seven decades. Their numbers are not in hundreds, but in their hundreds of thousands. Please do not therefore, insult the fathers of Nagaland by implying that that Kaka should not write about these Emilys of Nagaland who have died under horrible atrocities. This is with reference to what you have written about my book in your first article in the context of atrocities. (Quote) “Saga is, for the most part, a history of atrocities by the Indian Government over a period of decades against the Naga people. Focusing on atrocities in the Indian-Nagaland context is irrelevant no matter how tragic these atrocities were. In fact, those trying to prevent a solution will perpetrate atrocities in order to foment distrust.” (Unquote)
In conclusion, we Nagas are most amused by outsiders who visit Nagaland once or a few times; speak to a few artificial Nagas in the urban areas, read a few books about Nagaland, talk to a few Indian Government bureaucrats, and then - pass sweeping opinions directing Nagas as to how they should conduct themselves regarding their future! Yes, it is an amusing pastime for us, but we try to accommodate all of you in our strides. Thank you for your many learned advice for Nagaland and my book.
