Dimapur, October 22 : Taking on the ‘political philosophy’ of NSCN-IM, Khekiye K Sema, IAS (retd), on Saturday alleged that the philosophy of the faction is influenced by Communism and Mao Tse-tung’s ‘The Red Book’. He insisted that the Nagas read the ‘Yehzabo’ which the group and other factions hold as their constitution for the Nagas and be aware of its contents.
Khekiye said this while speaking at the one-day seminar on social issues organised by the youth department of Chakhesang Baptist Church Dimapur on the topic “Addressing the current Naga Political scenario”.
According to him, ‘Yehzabo’ affirms that “once a political solution is reached by the Nagas, a one-party hierarchy will be established and all the private properties will be seized and nationalised”.
Taking a jibe at the NSCN-IM ‘Yehzabo’, the retired bureaucrat asked whether it would be acceptable if the faction decides how much property one deserves and if, at all, they nationalise the properties when they (NSCN-IM) cannot “regard their self-made constitution”.
Condemning Naga people’s ‘yes’ to the Framework Agreement without knowing its contents, he asked why the agreement has been kept secret to the common people and its contents confined within the group and Government of India. He also alleged that the NSCN-IM gathered a group of ‘yes’ people at a resort in Dimapur and kept themselves away from those who would question their motives and went to New Delhi claiming it has the Naga people’s mandate.
Questioning the NSCN-IM and other factions’ claim on people’s consent to pay tax, Khekiye stated that the people were not paying tax to the Naga political groups but rather to the ‘AK47’ that is pointed towards them.
However, appreciating the efforts of NSCN-IM for what he felt doing much more than the other NPGs and calling the Framework Agreement a ‘good thing to happen’, he at the same time questioned if the people were ready to compromise the democratic system and sacrifice all the struggles that the Nagas have gone through and lose individual freedom for communism.
Speaking on the topic “Clean Election”, NBCC Youth secretary Vikuo Rhi pinted out that when Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) took up the ‘Clean Election Campaign’ in Nagaland, many people had questioned the church’s involvement with election matters and asked the church to mind their own spiritual affairs. But he maintained that the church cannot sleep off nor shy away from social issues and added that election is a spiritual issue for the Christians.
Addressing the youths, he said: “As long as we are on this earth, we cannot avoid culture, social, politics, education and economics.”
Emphasising on the objective of the campaign, Rhi stated that through the ‘”Clean Election” campaign, the NBCC will be engaging in a spiritual fight for bringing about clean and fair elections. The church has no other interests or any hidden agenda to support or oppose any political party and their sole purpose is to fight for the truth, to stand for the truth and bring a positive change in the society, he said.
He also said in 2016, there was a decline of electorate in Nagaland as per the figure presented by the Chief Election Officer through the Systematic Voters’ Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) programme where names of 11, 40,037 bogus voters have been deleted from the electoral roll.
