Vishü Rita Krocha
Inviting readers to the upland tribal state of Nagaland to reflect upon what happens in a society long saturated in violent political conflict, “In the shadows of Naga Insurgency” a book written by Jelle J P Wouters, points to the ways in which Naga insurgency and the Indian state’s response to it aggravated the imbrications of violence and disorder, tribalism, failing development, volatile politics and corruption into the socio-political fabric of post-statehood Nagaland.
The preface of the book however goes on to state that “for all the precarity and strain that political conflict produces, Naga society is not incarcerated in a terrifying epic of violence and political disorder in any simple sense.” Theorizing from the vantage of rural Nagaland, the author expresses that the book ethnographically shows how the acts, articulations and aspirations of Naga villagers are infused with an agency and imagination of their own making, albeit often in ways that complicate, if not contradict normative practices and principles of state, development and democracy. “Their everyday enactments are undoubtedly a product of the condition of protracted political conflict but not necessarily wholly eclipsed by it, often revealing themselves indeed in the shadows of Naga Insurgency”, it further says.
Talking about how the book came into form, Jelle J P Wouters recalls the academic year 2007-2008 when he was an exchange student in the Anthropology Department of at North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU) in Shillong. “Several of my classmates and friends, including my roommate, were Naga, and, I think, it was their stories and narrations about life ‘back home’ that first drew my interest to the academic study of Naga society. My friends invited me to visit Kohima and other places during our winter holidays, but that time it was very difficult to obtain the Protected Area Permit that was then still required, and in the end I could not go”, he recollects.
However in 2011, after completion of his MPhil degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford, he returned to NEHU as a PhD scholar. In Oxford, he had read the old colonial writings on Naga society, which, he observed, are often rich in detail, but also suffer from obvious biases. “Since the retreat of imperial powers from India, Naga society received but little genuine scholarship, even as major social and political transformations were taking place. I decided I wanted to carry out fresh research on Naga society”, he enlightens.
That was when he also first visited Nagaland and during the following years carried out roughly two years of fieldwork in two different Naga villages. The first is a Chakhesang Naga village which he calls ‘Phugwumi’ in the book, which translates as ‘old village’ and the second place in which he carried out research, is the Chang Naga village of Noksen.
“I was particularly interested in exploring, what we may call, the ‘lived experiences’ of villagers, especially of elders who have seen so much and have so much wisdom to share, and relatedly in villagers’ perspectives, opinions, and concerns about the ways contemporary life is unfolding around them”, he shares while also recalling that in both the villages he stayed with a family, and came to deeply appreciate the ebbs and flows of village life.
J P Wouters says that “it is this experience of residing in rural Nagaland, and my interactions and interviews with the villagers that resulted in the raw material on which this book is based. Living in Phugwumi and Noksen was a truly enriching experience for me; not just in terms of completing the PhD thesis I was working on and eventually submitted to NEHU, but even more so because of the families I became part of and many new friendships, and I always think back of this time with a deep sense of gratitude and longing.”
The book “In the shadows of Naga Insurgency”, published by Oxford University Press is scheduled for release in June. It may be mentioned here that J P Wouters currently teaches at Royal Thimphu College, Bhutan.
