The World and Time in Reverse: The March Back to the Primitive

“Civil strife therefore became a fact of political life…. Men assumed the right to reverse the usual values in the application of words and actions. Reckless audacity came to be thought of as comradely courage, while far-sighted hesitation became well-disguised cowardice; moderation was a front for unmanliness…. Wild aggression was a mark of manhood, while careful planning for one’s future security was a glib excuse for evasion. The troublemaker was always to be trusted, the one who opposed him was to be suspected.

“… the ties of family became less close than those of party since party members had no inhibitions about any venture. Their associations did not exist to promote welfare in accordance with established laws but to subvert the law for selfish advantage.

“At the root of all this was the desire for power, based on personal greed and ambition, and the consequent fanaticism of those competing for control.” (My emphasis. Thucydides: The War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians. Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 212-213.)

The above words were written over 2,400 years ago by the first historian in the Western world. And they describe precisely what is happening today in Nagaland.

The “Media Cell, NTAC, Kohima,” states:

First, “You [TR Zeliang] may not know but we that the ULB election is completely a state affair. Knowingly or ignorantly, you had been trying to mislead the people by saying that your government was only trying to fulfil a constitutional obligation.

“Your fear ‘that the fate and content of Article 371 (A) was on the verge of being decided by the Supreme Court ….that Article 243T had superseded Article 371 (A)’ is very unfounded and at its best a glaring exhibition of your total ignorance of the constitutional provision itself. No wonder, your low mental aptitude even as Chief Minister of the Nagaland has landed the society into this state of affairs.”

It is fair to say here, that the arrogance and certainty of the NTAC makes its incorrectness even more embarrassing that it would have been if it was not so insulting to the Chief Minister. If the NTAC is going to not just attack the positions of the Chief Minister, but his mental capacities as well, one would think that it would confirm with someone who knows the law that it is correct, because in this case, the NTAC is wrong.

I will spare the NTAC any personal attack, and simply say that 243T implicates sections 14 and 15, respectively, of the Indian Constitution, which state that, “The state will not deny to any person equality before the law or equal protection of the laws within the territories of India,” and “(1) The state shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.” (My emphasis.) The fact that 243T is attempting to remedy perceived discrimination against women on political bodies, that could very well put aspects of 371 (A) in conflict with sections 14 and 15 of the Indian Constitution, sections under the heading of “FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS.” Such fundamental rights, it is fair to say, could easily supersede aspects of 371 (A).

Therefore, the Media Cell of the NTAC is simply wrong, and the Chief Minister is correct in this case.

Second, the NTAC states that the government, by passing a law that it felt compelled to pass under the Indian Constitution, caused “the people to rise against the government.” Actually, this statement is a classic example of Thucydides’ “Men assum[ing] the right to reverse the usual values in the application of words and actions.” The NTAC, the JCC, or any other group or individual could have easily done what the NMA did: it could have taken its theory of why 371 (A) was “completely a state affair,” to the courts and found out whether it was right by seeing if the courts would adopt the NTAC’s position.

But the NTAC, the JCC, and their followers chose not to take the legal route, and took the law in their own hands, and therefore it is they who “caus[ed] the people to rise up against the government,” not the other way around. The fact that the NTAC, the JCC, and their followers keep repeating the mantra that the government is at fault for all the property damage and blood spilled concerning this issue does not make it the truth. In fact, the more it’s repeated the more one feels that the repetition is caused by the fear that, one day soon, the people will wake up and find that they, under the leadership of these organizations, are at fault for everything that has happened.

Now the JCC has expanded the blame from the state government to others. It states, “The Governor is reminded that the situation is spiraling out of control with the passage of time and the failure of the Governor to act on it, will result in serious catastrophe for which the Governor and the Chief Minister will be held solely responsible.” (My emphasis.)

So if I am reading the above statement correctly, the JCC is threatening “serious catastrophe” if it does not get what it wants, even though their very actions, from the first bandh to this minute, have all been illegal, and it is the actions of the JCC and the NTAC, and their followers alone, who are legally responsible for all that has happened or will happen. That these groups will keep babbling about moral obligations on the part of the Chief Minister to resign, and the moral betrayal by the Chief Minister to respect the agreement of January 30th, the principle is the same: if the Chief Minister is guilty of anything related to these whole series of events, the remedy has always been, and still is, in the courts, using the legal system.

But that has not happened, and will continue not to happen, because the JCC and its followers know that in a court of law they might lose, despite the assurances NTAC that 371 (A) is “completely a state affair.” Fear of losing must, logically, be the only reason that the groups did not use the courts or, we must presume, they certainly would have utilized them and thus avoided all the intimidation and violence that they have used to attempt to accomplish their goals.

Lastly, the AYO Media Cell has this absurdity in print today: “The government today is acting like Hitler Nazi Germany era employing all subversive measures and propaganda to the extent of unleashing murderous state sponsored terror.” Huh? Was it the government that threatened “serious catastrophe” or was that the JCC’s Media Cell in today’s papers? As a Jew with some familiarity with six million of my fellow Jews who were exterminated by the Nazis and their followers in many countries, I can say that the analogy of the Nazi regime with the present government of Nagaland is a rather poor one, and if any tactics are analogous to the Nazis it’s the tactics of the JCC, the NTAC, and their followers to threaten “serious catastrophe,” and then to add, that if that happens it will be the fault not of those causing it, but of the government and the Governor.

The way this whole issue of women’s reservation on ULBs has been handled is nothing but a trip back to a primitive past, where force controlled, not the rule of law. It is this sort of conduct, as much as other reasons related to India itself, which makes clear how unprepared the people of Nagaland are to be a separate and sovereign nation in the world, a world that is run, or attempts to be run, by the rule of law, both nationally and internationally. The people of Nagaland are marching backward into their past, as tribal communities in which each were laws unto themselves. Backward into a primitive history that makes them unworthy of even being recognized as a state within India, let alone a nation among civilized nations.

Robert A. Silverstein
rsilverstein@nycap.rr.com