In a recently held international webinar on “Living in the Present: Nagas in the 21st Century” organised by the Naga Scholars Association, Dr. Wati Aier delivered a powerful and moving keynote address in the valedictory session. He called upon the community of young Naga intellectuals to rethink the ideas of unity and reconciliation. He got me. I have been inspired to share my thoughts, perhaps not a fitting response but one with hope to set the tone for others to undertake this “collective journey” of Naga nation building.
An interesting feature of the Naga people is that till the early period of the colonial era, none of the present Naga groups had any ethno-tribal identity, like the Changs or the Chakhesangs. Identity of a group would hardly go beyond the village boundary. My paternal grandfather lived and died without knowing that he was a Chakhesang (Chakhesang tribe was formed and recognised only in 1946). Probably his father was not even aware of his Naga identity. He belonged to 19th century. By identity, I am referring to a socio-political group which involves some kind of head-count or membership. In this sense, even clan identity does not constitute a group identity though it certainly went beyond the boundaries of villages and tribes.
Though our predecessors have passed on to us various narratives of their common origin in relation to ancestry, settlement and dispersion, it appears that our ancestors were driven more with the desire to diversify than to unify. For instance, Makhel is believed to be the place of early settlement and subsequent dispersion of many Naga tribes; likewise, Makuiluangdi is believed to be the common place of early settlement for the four Naga groups of Zeliangrong community, namely, the Zeme, the Liangmai, the Rongnmei and the Inpui Nagas. However, such beliefs did not keep the Naga groups together in the past. On the contrary, there was clear evidence of people venturing out, like conquerors, from the larger groups to find new settlements and new names for themselves. As a matter of fact, this has been the trend until recent times among some Naga tribes. Some Naga villages in Dimapur district are hardly 100 years; I am sure some are more recent and are yet to be recognised by the government.
The above observations suggest that freedom and name must have been amongst the highest ideals of Naga life. The ideals of honour, justice and equality, among various groups/villages were such that even amidst deep conflicts and rivalries, no group would force the other to surrender or submit. (In my research thus far, I am yet to find an equivalent term for “surrender” in any of the Naga languages). In order to pursue these ideals, it appears that our ancestors took their commonalities for granted and created new cultures to maintain their distinct identity and independence.
The identity cum independence of a group was accomplished by a process of othering wherein the self excludes itself from the others; for instance, a new village would be formed by excluding itself from the parent village. (Of course, there were other reasons as well such as when the entire population or most of the population migrate to a new settlement in search of a better life). This characteristic clearly stands out even in the case of Nagas’ struggle for independence – It is one of self-exclusion to assert the identity and independence of the Nagas.
A Jewish-born French philosopher by the name Immanuel Levinas argues that the metaphysical discourses in the whole of western philosophical tradition were characterised by this logic: “Essentialising the self by reducing the other to the self”. It means interpreting and changing others into the language of the self; for instance, requiring women to fit within the categories of women as conceptualised by men in a patriarchal society. Self-realisation– realising one’s potentials and dreams – is considered as the highest pursuit of life and so the self seek to use things and other humans for its realisation.
In the process, the self becomes consciously or unconsciously a rampaging and ravaging force that exploits and inflicts violence upon the others. Therefore, he points out that the very conceptualisation of the self is violent in nature. He remarks, “The face of self is the face of violence.” According to him, the self commits violence on the others when the life of the others is disturbed or altered in such a way that they cannot find the power of self-expression or the freedom to shape their own identity and destiny.
Exposing the violent nature of philosophy involving the self, Levinas then goes on to say that the self does not and cannot begin with itself. It neither decides its original existence nor its name. The fact of one’s existence comes through the action or decision of others. As such, we owe everything that we have and are from the others. Therefore, he redefines the notion of the self as follows: “To be a “self” is to be responsible before having done anything”.
Naga identity cannot be separated from Naga nationalism. Had there been no Naga struggle for independence, Nagas would remain in the cage of colonial zoo with different labels to mark and separate our tribal identities. But lo and behold, there was Naga struggle! We are a nation today because of our collective historical actions to assert our identity and our freedom. We did not passively receive the construction of our Naga identity by others but we reinterpreted ourselves and claimed our identity as a people through our collective historical actions; yes, through the process of freedom struggle, we gave meaning and purpose to our existence as a nation. Dr. Visier Sanyü, President of Overseas Naga Association and member of FNR, in his recent video talk produced by FNR under “Many Voices: One Shared Future” (Episode III) asked a profound rhetorical question – “What has made us who we are?” First, he attributed it to our conversion to Christianity and then to our national movement. He observes, “Our national movement started very early in order to preserve our identity [and] our nation but in the end [and] in the process, it is the national movement that has given us an identity.” During our national movement, or what he calls, the “underground journey”, he explains that something has changed us, something made us who we are; it is like crossing the Red Sea. (Nagas have gone underground because our houses, including the granaries, in the villages were all burnt down. We have to scavenge for food in the jungle for our survival. Just to cite an instance, out of the 62 Chakhesang villages then, 60 villages were burnt down and one village – Porba- was burnt down 14 times).
Metaphorically speaking, the underground journey was a religious conversion that gave spiritual content to our Naga identity as a nation. It was a conversion of the heart – there was a crystal clear formation of identity, like a cut and polished diamond, in terms of who we want to be and who we do not want to be. We have been born again; we have been born into a new Naga family and our sense of belongingness has crossed the boundaries of our villages, including clans and tribes.
Shifting gears and moving on into the contemporary Naga society, we have become not only a nation but a nation of tribes. What is unfortunate about our contemporary state of affairs is that instead of writing our collective history as a Naga nation, we are indulging ourselves in the writing of our particular tribal and sectarian political histories. Within the larger collective Naga Self, we have started the process of othering. We are excluding ourselves on tribal and political lines with a modern twist – self exclusion for self realisation (which in reality is self-aggrandisement) as opposed to the kind of self-exclusion practiced by our ancestors once upon a time. We exclude ourselves on tribal and political lines today to become the kind of self that Levinas condemned – the violent self.
Identity has become synonymous with politics and vice-versa. We use our tribal identity as a political tool to pursue our sectarian and individual interests. With it, we have reduced our national politics into power politics of domination; with it, we are causing violence on the others, stealing the rights and dreams of others; with it, we are making our society more violent and oppressive. It has become the pen with which we draw all kinds of dividing lines in our society today. It is causing us to become increasingly insensitive to the questions of justice in our society.
Why should we continue to give a bad name to our tribal identities? If we really love our tribal identity and are proud of it, why don’t we change the violent character of our tribal identity? Why don’t we use it to build our nation? Are there no creative thinkers and leaders among us to re-interpret and re-invent our tribal identities? The current form in which our tribal identity vis-à-vis tribalism is taking shape, we can only expect more walls and more divisions and more violence. We need to infuse a new meaning into it in much the same way we picked up our Naga identity constructed by others, infused new meanings into it through our collective historical actions and transformed it to build our Naga nation.
It does not require a master argument to show that the same logic – the binary logic of the self and the others – applies to the Naga National Groups (NPGs). Each group has become the violent self. History cannot be undone. The divided house is a reality today. However, we can reinterpret ourselves to write our collective history once again. How long can we remain exclusive and divided for the glorification of the self in the name of nationalism? How do we expect to enter and build a new era (hopelessly imagining a post Indo-Naga solution era) with the violent self?
We must take note that our history writing is not over yet. We could only cross the Red Sea. We are still wondering in the wilderness; there is the Jericho Wall and many other obstacles awaiting us. We should not forget our history and the dream that shaped our history and gave us our Naga identity. We must remember that had it not been for the “underground journey” endured by our predecessors, others would still be writing their history of victory over us. We should learn to fit into our historical narrative and find our roles to play creatively and pass on the legacy to the next generation of history makers and nation builders.
Towards such a proposition, I repeat the words of Levinas for inspiration and direction: “To be a “self” is to be responsible before having done anything”. Before doing anything, we got our identity (self) the moment we are born into this world. Our identity is a gift. And we will have to pass on this gift of the identity to the generations after us. Irrespective of the conditions in which we got the gift, we have the power to change the content and form of our gift to others. We can use the gift of identity to achieve noble things for the self and for the others as well. There is power in gifting. Let’s celebrate our tribal identity with the others. Let’s redefine the self as NPGs and become responsible to the fate of the others. The Naga identity is a gift to us from our predecessors, from those who endured the ‘underground journey’. Let’s use it to transform the task of building our Naga nation. Kuknalim!
Dr. Venusa Tinyi
Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy
University of Hyderabad
(Currently a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla)
E-mail: tinythought@gmail.com
Note: This is an extract of the paper (with minor modifications) I presented in the same webinar mentioned above. I am thankful to the NSA and to Rev. Dr. Wati Aier for giving me the occasion to share my thoughts.