[NSCN-IM & Thepfulhouvi Solo]
Kekhrie Yhome
kekhrie@yahoo.com
To read the unremarkable but precedential abhorrence re-emerging between NSCN-IM and Mr. Thepfulhouvi Solo over the latter’s write-up recently is like configuring a Bonapartian nemesis and sovereign royalty. But, to attribute historical figures to an idyllic and solute ideas in the focus of the storm today, is not necessarily a confrontation that opinions are viral and sacred; or, that freedom of expression is still pre-humanist indeed; or, that the binary-politics of overground and underground is still a morally pre-sanctioned, predestined, earth-based-opinion via cosmological transmission of divine virtue… but, rather, these are predictable signs of decadence and determinate markers of tasteless intolerance, exhibitionism of puritanical and clandestine self-righteousness thawing into warpath again, in auto-mode like self-destructive firework display – an absurd theater for a lifeless audience – entertaining, serious, but meaningless.
A teaser well before the main course, for the digital-age-born-youngsters! When, couple of years back, Mr. Thepfulhouvi Solo, IFS, was PCCF, he sensationally refused to deduct the salary of his Directorate and pay NSCN-IM tax (read extortion). Of course, like all Naga social sanctions, Mr. Solo’s Khel and Kohima Village youths came to guard (over pork curry, of course!) his physical harmony, on the imminent threat to his bare life, apart from the motley crew of rifle-issued body-guardians by Government of Nagaland. To defy a parallel but appellate authority is youthful energy and Mr. Solo lived to see his second yeast brewing with NSCN-IM again when he philosophized gerontology to their Angami Regional commanders as having “seen the moon” before them! To therefore read the trilogy of Solo-IM paper-war is more than skin-deep – the hairstyle, the clothing, the walking or talking styles, simply irritates, like post-divorce readings on symptoms of enough(s). The bridge of no return was solidly built, much before rock and roll was overshadowed by the synthetic music we see today as ‘the’ Third Thepfulhouvi Solo-NSCN-IM non-bullet/bomb-proof Paper-War.
The final course for the meal indeed! The uninitiated would therefore ask, “What kind of political philosophy does this Mr. Thepfulhouvi Solo propound, which seems too detrimental for NSCN-IM’s objective for a ‘sugar-candy mountain’?” Is he a pro-Indian mole? After all he was an IFS, nah? Lol-LMAO! Is he anti-Naga, then (weight and measures)? What cyanide-laced wisdom does he articulate for the NSCN-IM to go gaga about him? By even issuing vile threats, of gnostic ‘national interest’? Is the NSCN-IM overacting or are Mr. Thepfulhouvi Solo’s grandeur writings epistle-latory? Can the public divulge or is this divorce simply an issue of labeling an individual as requiring psychiatric attention? Of having gone deviant? Of having hormonal decadency, in origin-identity, as highlighted earlier by NSCN-IM, in descendants? What is the comparison (degree) of Naga Hoho shouting today on behalf of NPF-led Government against NSCN-IM extortion and an unconventional individual like Mr. Thepfulhouvi some few years back? Is the party eternally (therein divinely) above the individual; old humor from pre-disintegrated USSR vodka fraternizing?
An individual is small and weak (Aesop tells us the one twig and bundle-twig fable). A personal opinion is traditionally singular and minor, given the plurality on how decisions were made through politics of the larger majority or stronger party (not necessarily democratic). To therefore attempt to silence a lamb, just because one’s struggle is 50-years plus, or just because one has some second-hand assault rifles well-oiled, or just because one has a successful history of using violent threats (‘azha’), is not an issue of being gross – it is outrightly despicable. The attempt to silence and warn Mr. Thepfulhouvi Solo for an opinion in local newspapers by NSCN-IM requires no contemplation – it needs to be straightaway challenged. To attribute such arson of hatred as ‘national’ importance is also unjustifiably attributing an intellectual position to gimmickry frog-welled superstitions morbidly indulging in publicity lottery stunts for self-relevance.
Personal opinions, vying for public scrutiny and audit, whether for larger public purpose and good, or as personal gratification, or as consequential and therefore ethically called for, whether in the line of medieval acerbic ‘satire’, or as reflective policy, or as public information moratorium, or as musings, especially in the print media, and in the context of Nagaland, has progressed tremendously, in the last quarter of century, which reflects the importance of media growth, not only as a channel for communication and information, but as an active embodiment for engaging a thinking and discourse-forming platform. Perhaps the test lies here, not in the content of politicking, but in the apparent insecurity to commensurate democratic space and anarchic militancy!
The self-confessed frustrations and hopelessness on Naga politics of Mr. Thepfulhouvi Solo may not alter history. The rebuttals and evil rejoinder of NSCN-IM against their individual freak may also not contribute anything to history or to their politics. Lame vain. What is history, after all? It will be re-written tomorrow even if one tries to justify oneself today endlessly, fashionably, or supported by two M-16 wielding body guardians, side-by-side, or penned today in high chair, or as pseudo-critics. What is however dangerous from the outcome of this Paper-War, which is neither an issue of political law or nationalism, is the vile-threats issued (which, poor Mr. Solo defended himself, and which requires much public support), directly assaulting individual freedom – tantamounting to hooligan proselytization by NSCN-IM! Not in our name – if Naga Nation is such an agreement! Other factions, as habitual by now, must be clapping!
Who and what is NSCN-IM to stop Mr. Thepfulhouvi Solo from expressing his fanciful ideas of personal convictions to the public? To play martial censorship as a freedom fighter’s birthright just because one does not subscribe to an opinion is a signature of historicized criminality. Again, more dangerously, to willfully use a language that thinly weaves personal litany and physical threat is a matter of serious proportion – that such arrogance needs to be contained, that such arrogance needs to be challenged – one that can no longer be sexily camouflaged time and again as ‘national interest’.
To therefore challenge NSCN-IM on the freedom of expression is no longer a post-industrial idea of playing martyrdom. To therefore file a private litigation of protest against NSCN-IM through a simple discourse is not necessarily a whimper that always has to be a ‘national issue’. To therefore condemn a parochial attitude of censorship (with evil in mind) is also a defence, not necessarily for ideas, but for individual freedom, that has nothing to do with national issue or personal opinions per se. To therefore re-treat the public space, the historico-political process, from now on, is also to know that the survival of political reason will depend only on how the conduct of debate is placed, moderated, rather than controlled.
To own a gun is nothing new. To threaten people with monstrous but temporal perceptions of violence is nothing new. To own a gun and threaten people because of one’s allegiance to an idea is a war of subjudiced attrition – one cannot just threaten to kill a person and get away, any longer, swearing in the name of gods and goddesses of Naga nationalism and history. To organize counter-militia is also nothing new, if not impossible. But most dangerous of all – to organize a counter-idea with guns as deterrent ideology! Many Nagas have shut themselves up because they are tired of bloody (in adjectives) killings in the name of the nation. It is not that Congress-JLF is fox-trotting because it likes to dance – it is just tired… Just because one has an idea, which does not conform to one’s justification of owning a gun, is not an excuse that such gun-less ideas are imperceptible, warranting potential threats. Just because one has a gun does not give one the right to deprive license of thoughts with a pen (but without a gun). The digital space on Naga politics is spewed with more virulent venom by faceless bloggers, compared to a mini-thought of Mr. Solo’s perhaps vast knowledge and solutions in process…
To kill an idea by killing the author is quick and fast, lascivious enough for public memory to not forget but convert it into a fragmentary juicy-gossip, fluid enough to transcend the individual and quick enough to lubricate community emotions. Thoughts and rebuttals encrypted in digital language – for instant translation, is part of a small but wider web world now. To kill an idea by semiotic killing of an author, Mr. Thepfulhouvi Solo, has, at the least and also most, proved, in deed, that Nagas (or, whatever it may be), has come of age, and, that gun-slinging intellectualism or nationalism, has come of post-age, too, to either reconnect threat tactics as real or remain as a chimera of annoyed barking-dogs of self-appointed Naga nationalists, in indefinite ceasefire and loving it (ROFL!)! An aberration like this is shameless, petty, and cheap – but to put an icing of fear and familiar death threat warning rings a bell either of nastiness wallowing in frustration or a step beyond to accomplish such freedom fighting egoism will only serves as a prelude to an imminent coming of an idea to an end. Perhaps the ever-pen-friendly Mr. Mulatonu can press for a venomous rejoinder!
