W Shapwon
Joint Secretary, Naga Nationl Council
Today, the Nagas joyously celebrate 75thNagaland Independence Day as the Naga National Council (NNC) safeguarded the sovereignty of Nagaland by declaring Independence in 1947 at the right time when the world was changing after post World War the second. To date, at no point in time did the NNC betray the Naga nation, despite the ups and downs of the political situation faced during the past 75 years. Only with this unwavering stand of the NNC, today the young and old Nagas alike have a chance to celebrate the 75thIndependence Day. However, do the young generation of Nagas today, think seriously about why the Nagas are failing to achieve our national goal in these 75 years? What is the problem that we are facing today?
Indeed, our forefathers had built a nation for us and built solidarity of the nation before India and Burma became independent nations and up to 1960 we have no problem among the Nagas even if Infia invaded Nagaland in October 1955. But the problem we are facing today is that some of the educated Nagas have attempted to destroy the nation which was built by our forefathers by accepting a puppet state of India in June 1960, and even now, the so-called NSCN-IM is demanding shared sovereign, constitution, flag from India once again, and the other groups stand for a solution of the economic package alone. All these acts are destroying the solidarity of Nagaland andindependent nation built by our forefathers. If the treacherous acts did not occur, we might have achieved our cherished goal long before.
Today, it is a bounden duty of educated young Naga generation to shoulder a gigantic task of the nation in this civilized and developing world. So, they should analyze and scrutinize the mistakes of the past and present leaders, and weaknesses of the elderly (NNC/FGN) leaders even if they are unwaveringly defending the sovereignty of the Naga nation because without knowing our weaknesses we cannot move forward. Do not blame and criticize the others without taking the right steps by upholding the national principle enunciated in the Plebiscite of May 1951, because it was a solemn pledge and final solution of the Naga people for their futhure. Furthermore, we have to work based on our national history and we are a nation but not secession or demanding any political status from India. History is our strength, without it, we will be unable to attain our goal. This is already proven by Muivah and Isak in the running historybecause they have no history and finnaly ended up for political negotiation with the Government of India on demanding a political status.Our national history is the records of the NNC and without the NNC, we have no history.
