It has been said that there are Indian Nagas and Burmese Nagas, politically or otherwise there are no such two groups of Nagas, this line of thinking is politically created for one’s own gain. For how can there be a division of a family?
Are not all Nagas? This division is an artificial one. Thus it is a mistake to think that there are two separate groups of Nagas.
It is a mistake to say that there are two groups of Nagas. If we are to look to the West, mainly Germany, during the cold war period, prior to 1991, there was a country divided by a wall, the Berlin Wall which divided Germany in two parts – east and west. The east being under the Communist control, they controlled the movement of the Germans, coming and going out. When the Wall came down in the early 1990s, Germany become one country, families were united. This artificial boundary which is created by political clowns to divide families; this can be seen in the case of Korea, which is divided into South and North. Are not all Koreans both sides of the border?
If one is to take this line of thinking a step further, one can say that the Nagas who are in the state of Manipur are not the Nagas of Nagaland as they are divided by state boundaries. Thus they have no right to be part of Nagaland. If fuss is made of one group of Nagas in one state surely an equal fuss should be made of the other groups of Nagas in another state e.g. Burma. How can one say that one group of Nagas has rights and another does not?
It’s a well known fact that each of the Naga tribes has its own territory and tribal laws, also that each tribe considers its territory as theirs alone. Thus have a right of say if an outsider; that is someone from a different tribe comes to stay. Even we the Nagas have to respect the say of the host tribe and abide by their customary tribal laws. In other words, when in Rome do as the Romans do. We should not try to enforce our rights on other’s territory. However division will disappear when we start to respect others’ rights. Also, we have to remember that through outside influence, the Nagas are being divided. This division first came about with the British.
The division which appeared between the Indian Nagas and the Burmese Nagas is politically inclined can be laid at the foot of the Britishers, mainly Sir Henry McMahon, the foreign secretary for India in 1914. Sir Henry McMahon drew a line around Tibet, Bhutan and India and Burma; then, at the stroke of a pencil created the new borders. However one has to note that there were no logical surveys done. Thus we have a border between two countries i.e. India and Burma, where a Naga family eats in their kitchen in India and sleeps in the bedroom in Burma.
India regards the McMahon line as a permanent national border; however the same is not regarded by China. Further the artificial border, history tells us that on July 1, 1954, Nehru wrote a memo to the Secretary-General of the Ministry of External Affairs: “All our old maps dealing with the frontier should be carefully examined and, where necessary, withdrawn. New maps should be printed showing our northern and north-eastern frontier without any reference to any ‘line’. These new maps should also not state there is any undemarcated territory... this frontier should be considered a firm and definite one which is not open to discussion with anybody.”
Thus like the British, the Indian Prime Minister with a pencil, once again changed the borders. Nehru said on September 12, 1959: “In some parts, in the Subansiri or somewhere there, it was not considered a good line and it was varied by us.”
More recently our own Nagas have also partitioned the Nagas in the 1980s under the Naga National workers, destroying villages and causing unwanted destruction to people and property in the name of Naga freedom, in what we now call Eastern Nagaland, which in part is in Burma. This is purely done for gaining power bases and to destroy one’s perceived enemies, among ones own people.
Thus it would appear that our own leaders are determined to change the boundaries of Nagaland. This in itself will create more of a problem for all, as no government can afford to make one friend and four enemies at the same time. For example let us look at the situation close at home. The GoI extends the border of Nagaland to include parts of Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh. The people of these states will rise up against GoI and Nagaland. Can any government afford to commit political suicide? What about the Nagas in Burma? Should they not be also included from the start? Or because they live across the artificial line thus can they be excluded?
If we start to make a difference between the Nagas in Burma and those in India, we have ourselves created artificial boundaries among our own people. Thus we can not call ourselves Nagas as we are not truly independent but are part of greater India. This makes us Indians first and foremost and not Nagas.
Vikishe Sema
Political Student
New Delhi
