By Jonah Achumi
Today in these turbulent times Nagas need to truly reflect and analyze where we have gone wrong. Is it only our leaders who are in the wrong side? Or is it we the people as a whole? Though the opening weeks of this year had been a tumultuous one, or say even a chaotic one, the turmoil was announced by the distant drums of the ULB elections and the storm clouds over the women reservation issue and the Nagaland Municipal Act. The issue has now changed direction with the unfortunate death of two young lives and in the sporadic turn of events.
Here the Nagas, emotionally charged up and standing up in unity to confront the issue at hand today is one victory of Nagas coming together after a very long time since the Plebiscite of 1951. The sense of purpose and shaping those enduring pillars for our tomorrow set by our fathers felt threatened which came to reach this present scenario. But with the currents, undercurrents and crosscurrents taking its own shapes and sizes it is now getting very difficult to analyze this present scenario which remains very tense and uncertain. Hoping it will reach a logical conclusion for the best for all.
While there is general sense of being let down by the elected, there is also a sense of reassurance of hope that something definite will emerge from this crisis. The bond of unity among the Nagas has been displayed to the fullest during this recent social upheaval. Never has the government been as disturbed as it is today. Our elected leaders too should reflect seriously on their own deeds that made them face this crisis. Every government has a right to make their decisions because of evolving circumstances but not heeding the voice of the people could result in their own gloom and doom as it is the people who put them where they sit today and if they don’t listen the people has every right to ask them to come down .These could range from polls to public pressure to court verdicts or just a plain reality check. The failings of any government is clear when each petty and peevish desires to personalize every debate or differences; an arrogant and unshakeable belief in its own virtues and a bizarre disdain for people’s voice and intellectual expertise from its own people. In a complex democracy like ours, no government, no individual, no politician or political party, howsoever mighty can claim to be the repository of all wisdom. Nor can claim the sole right to make, break or alter any law. That right remains with the people as they are put into their chairs by the people and the people’s voice need to be heard at any cost. Decisions guided by dishonest ulterior motivations will result only in contradictions as is being faced today which must be avoided in future at all cost by our elected legislators. The Oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.
The 15 minutes assembly session with the devil-may-care attitude of our elected leaders when the state had so many burning issues to be addressed with prompt and all seriousness ended with only informing their salaries and perks. The water-cannoning on teachers’ for demanding their salaries, the arrest of ACAUT leaders during the fuel adulteration agitation, the bullish suppression using brute police force during a peaceful rally against the PDS Rice scam, the imposing of Cr.144pc on every democratic and peaceful public rally called seemed that the state was becoming more of like a military junta rule by some iron-fisted military leaders and all these incidents were gathering storm in the eye of the public. There had been a long clamour and the people’s heart, mind and the soul of the people who elected them were all watching silently with anger building up inside only to be blown into a volcanic form of eruption on the government’s gigantic adamancy over the ULB elections with locking of horns with tribal hohos and civil societies . The govt.’s lack of clarity and mishandling on the Municipal Act was one sure of all this from the very beginning. The party that came to power 15 years back is no longer the people’s favourite anymore. The issuing of threats by the party against anyone or everyone and confronting every known tribal hohos and civil societies shows it has lost friends and only creating more enemies when it should be trying to win more sympathy from every quarter. From village republics to legislative assemblies the inner strength of our people to live together inspite of our internal differences and imbalances has remained. In the end, the silent majority has many important narratives to tell, perhaps not only to change the future but to remember the past.
Although, absolute and immediate solutions seems to be elusive at the moment, what remains and what emerges from this upheaval facilitates the memories, experience and contemplation of these moments only is what everybody is anticipating. No fool can miss to see the sarcasm in the voice of the people who have rejected all the aftermath apologies and late remedial measures that came a too little too late. While an uneasy stillness has engulfed the whole state the uneasy baggage between truth and perception seems to be only getting more. Where do we go after this? The failure to elect the right people for the right governance is the proof of our gullibility and the price we pay for our own follies after every election which everyone of us has to take the share of blame.
I remember a line said by a well known preacher in a non-denominational church that in a land where there is disobedience, conflict, confusion and division thrives and prosper in plenty. And isn’t that true? Notwithstanding how much those propaganda machines seem to be churning overtime with their Goebbelsian truths the people just refuse to buy them. The rotten debris of corruption with its stench all around, the greed, high handedness and arrogance of those in power trampling the people’s voice has resulted in all these. But we never seem to be learning from old lessons. The scurrying of the ruling tickets for the unheld ULB elections after so much of spewing venoms and cursing the very party are some grim reminders how we are ready to compromise our integrity and principles just to grab some power. Rehearsed outbursts and old habits don’t need rocket scientists to discern this since old habits die hard or most of the time they don’t. The protectionism of our cultural and traditional rights over adapting to the changing times and constitutional obligations had a good clash this time. The govt. should have known that all decisions and resolutions were useless until and unless they garnered support and consent from the tribal hohos in such a sensitive and delicate issue. Though the Article 371A remains unconquered, will the sanctity and fight for it always remain or would it be under threat again in near future? Just because we have been elevated to a position to legislate some laws, don’t tamper it as history will never forget nor forgive you. Historical perspective about our Naga Identity is one major factor we must always retain in any political or social arena. Public resentment on the hurriedly imposed ULB election only seems to be a natural offspring from the debris of the scams that were accumulated over the past few months. We might have stumbled and fell at times in the past, struggled to cope with distortions and even started to crack under the weight of our own limitations many a times during the short run of rapidly changing situations. The village republic system always has made every Nagas take pride for being an integral part of our decision making. It came under fire and was nearly jeopardized and became a cauldron of insistent emotions and demands. But sometimes we become so persuading of our beliefs and self-evident virtues that we fail to see political turns and twists that sets in.
Like Newtonian laws, politics doesn’t change without the new outside forces being applied. There is sure value in prior looking ahead in the windscreen to analyze as things as major roadblocks and bends are clearly visible in advance before things take an unprecedented turns. But somewhat like during the renovation of a house, one must live through several quarters of dirt, noise and mess before the new and the better structure becomes visible.
Tribe had always been an enigma to others and a potential point to play divisive politics to their whims. The reasons were obvious as every Nagas no matter whom or what holds their utmost loyalty to their own tribes except for some probable Judas Iscariots who are found in any race.
Shakespeare’s greatest plays were his tragedies. In each one, he demonstrated how humans beings fail to rise above their human frailties, including their human impulses. It would be a real tragedy if we Nagas fail to see those writings in the walls by the present 371A in the name of development, progress or modernity. It was not only deterrence but redemption. The unfolding and inescapable reality lately was a signs of things to come and more to come in future. It is an understandable fact that the pace of societal change has far accelerated beyond our capacity of Naga adaptability of social mores and psyche. We are no longer in a world where a community can cocoon themselves and survive alone; nor can our domestics interests prevail forever over the realities of progress and emerging concerns. But compromising our timeless traditions of self governance and deep rooted cultural hegemony became threatened when the ULB elections with land and building tax, women reservation came rushing along with it .
In a land where people’s voice is a cheap and useless, political decisions and proceedings are sacrificed at the altar of cheap rhetoric; things are unlikely to improve until there is a mob driven catastrophe which is very disheartening. Only then will the eyes of our leadership open. Very often we under estimate the voice of the masses and takes pleasure in overriding them for our vested gains. It will be illuminating if we start realizing our problems and start finding solutions based on people’s will rather than on few leaders who wants to gain political mileage from it. However the challenges remain .In a nutshell, the silent majority who has watched all these have now come together. The Naga pride bestowed by Art.371A was nearly lost by the madness of some over-zealous feminists. The sins of omission and commission of the past will always haunt and cast their shadows over the present scenario. Why should some of our state legal mandarins hobnobbing with the government always harp on the Centre’s decision over us? History, in its convoluted logic, will remind us that without the peripheries perhaps there is no Centre. To come to the government’s apathy and adamant attitude it was clearly indifferent which allowed all these problems like a festering wound to ooze out its pus all over the flesh of the land.
Despite all these, today the church remains the Last Bastion to salvage our sanity and a much needed healing in our sick land. Therefore it should be the initiator of much needed solutions in times such as this. Let it find a way when even there seems not to be. Searching for moral saviors in this stubborn set of conflicts and troubled hours is never futile but is worth trying which will pay off rich dividends. In such trying times, the church remains only the most potent, influential body and has the capacity to hand the white flag to all the different groups in these warring moments. It must always stand for a negotiated settlement to all disputes and welcome any accord that will reduce violence and conflicts of interests. Let us all regard it lest we may become some sort of an Atheist Republic.
The challenges we face today requires a coordinated, concerted and combined efforts which of course again requires us to remember what we were, what we are and what we will be. Let us be strong enough to stand alone, be ourselves to stand apart, but let us be wise enough to stand together when time comes.
