Former MP Khyomo Lotha exhorting the gathering during the
programme.
KOHIMA — Social activist and elder statesman
of the Naga community, Niketu Iralu, on Monday reminded the current members of
Naga Club that their primary responsibility is to maintain the facts of
history.
Iralu was scheduled to speak at the Naga Club general body
meeting in Kohima, but his message was read out instead after he took ill.
He pointed out that as human beings, Nagas are as old as any
others in the world, and for the past centuries, like many other numerically
small tribes and communities, Nagas have lived mostly unnoticed and unheard by
others in the wider world.
“All our history was oral history, totally without any
written record of events about our people. Oral history is also extremely
important as the rich, accumulated, cultural, spiritual, and mystical part of
our history, as it is with all other peoples. But its value for the proper
understanding of the growth of the Nagas down the centuries of history is very
limited,” he shared.
Iralu cited how, due to the geographical location of the
mountainous, mostly sub-tropical region of the Asian heartland that finally
became Naga homeland, Nagas stayed isolated from the changing world up to the
first decades of the 19th century.
But later the American Baptist missionaries also reached the
state, and the changing world started to impact the Nagas, he said.
He shared that the foreigners started writing accounts of
their encounters of defiant conflicts of resistance that went on for over 50
years, and that is when the modern written history began.
“We are beginning to understand more and more the importance
and significance of the Naga Club establishing the political history for the
Nagas by the way things happened, which we can say today were to our
advantage,” he maintained.
Then, he went on to remind the Naga Club members of their
responsibility.
“History is yesterday. It gives today what it should do
today to make tomorrow a better future. If the facts of the history of
yesterday are manipulated, the future is ultimately destroyed. This is what the
Naga Club should be known for and respected by the Nagas,” he asserted.
Kuolachalie Seyie, president of Naga Club, presented a brief
history of the club and shared how the forefathers needed to set up Naga Club
as a political and social platform for the unity.
He also reminded the members to adhere to the belief that no
difference or dispute should be allowed.
The new office bearers of the Naga Club for the tenure
2024-27 are Kuolachalie Seyie as president; K John Lohe, Vandanshan Lotha, Visa
Meru, Hotokhu Chishi, and Talitoba Ao as vice presidents; KN Mhonthung Lotha as
general secretary; K Gwanilo Himb and Raithu Newmai as secretaries; Hoshito
Assumi as treasurer; Seyiekuolie Kesiezie as finance secretary; Ariyi Nienu,
Pheluopfhelie Kesiezie, Khyomo Lotha, Niketu Iralu, Dr. Vinito L Chishi, and
Kewezu Mero as advisors; Rev. Hotokhu P Zhimomi Sumi as chaplain; and Vizovotuo
Nagi as property secretary.
