When the British Parliament’s Statutory Commission headed by John Simon came to Kohima in 1929 in the course of its extensive survey “to ascertain the wishes of the Indian people for reform measures”, a very small area of Naga Homeland had also been illegally and purportedly made a part of the British Empire as a District of Assam by the then British India without the consent of the Nagas.
As such, the memorandum of the Naga Club (NC) submitted to the Commission revealed the extent to which the shock and trauma of being antonyms of legality and purported subjugation for the first time by a foreign power outside their isolated Homeland had by then started to make the Nagas to seriously think about their sovereignty, dignity, land and identity inherited from their forefathers. The signatories of the British Simon Commission were leaders of Naga tribes, who clearly clarified in their statement reaffirming the stand of sovereignty taken long ago by their forefathers for and on behalf of all Nagas.
The memorandum clearly stated Britain did not have the right to leave the Nagas and their Homeland as part of New India in the event of the Empire’s departure from South Asia in the future. The memorandum stated that the Nagas were to be left alone to decide their own future according to their own choice. They were exercising their unquestionable fundamental right their history had given them.
On August 14, 1947, Naga National Council declared independence of the Nagas as being an independent nation, consistent fully with the position Naga Club had declared eighteen years earlier in 1929. The subsequent all-out struggle waged by all Naga tribes, starting with the Naga voluntary Plebiscite in 1951 reaffirming their stand, the boycott of the first two Indian General Elections, and the enormous price Nagas have paid up to this day for their declared aspirations, have shown the Nagas believed their position was fully justified, valid and legitimate legally, morally and from all other considerations.
Naga Club’s position today on the long standing crisis over an honourable, acceptable and workable solution:
1. As the British illegally and purportedly did as aforesaid, India has erroneously prevailed over the Nagas by use of her superior military might and continued to govern over the Nagas rejecting their unique historical, legal and political position stated above.
2. In declaring themselves as a people and a sovereign nation they were claiming what the facts of their history fully entitled them if they chose to claim it. And they had claimed it as their right till date since time immemorial.
3. The Nagas declared their claim long before the British arrival, whose illegal trespass of their land they had fought for half a century, culminated in a friendship agreement on 27th. March in 1880 without a treaty, therefore the question of invasion by the British does not arise. The Naga struggle today is not secessionist. No intention of ill-will to harm India motivated the Nagas. They harbour no sense of guilt that they have done anything illegal or morally wrong against any of their neighbours because of the stand they have taken to defend their sovereignty, dignity, land, identity and history as understood by them. The claim of their sovereignty status made by the Nagas was on the basis of the indisputable facts of their history.
4. The Naga aspiration for Sovereignty is a focus both Naga and India of today understand more than they ever have had understood in history. But India with her own dilemma is sustaining the refutation. This ostensibly extreme difficulty of India to discuss the sovereignty issue with the Nagas is solely for the unquestionably facts of their history. The just principle to “leave us alone” fired up by Naga Club before the birth of Independent India can never be compromised nor can Nagas fling off its untainted aspiration because it is too difficult for the present New India to discuss the Naga Sovereignty today. In the context of present settlement with any negotiator that can be transitional at best and perhaps as the present India herself is no competent, Naga Sovereignty should not be assuaged but leave it uncontaminated and untouched to wait for the day in the future when India will be ready to discuss for settlement with the Nagas that will be honourable and acceptable to both sides.
5. Naga Club was not more than what it was when it got started. But what it had become in a hundred years played its unique part in shaping the modern history of the Naga people. History is always taken forward by the new generations. Naga Club is still not more than what it is. But it is not less than what it is. The Naga Club shall never ever act contrary to what has been laid down or forbidden by our forefathers at all cost for the welfare of Nagas as a whole.
Just a decade after its formation Naga Club created indelible and indisputable history that would decisively shape the future of the Nagas. The first formally organised Naga public body in the District Capital at the time submitted the historic Naga Memorandum to the Simon Commission from the British Parliament that visited Kohima in 1929. On behalf of all Nagas, as the signatories made clear, the Memorandum categorically declared no one else but the Nagas alone had the right to decide their own future. “Leave us alone” they declared, Britain had no right to leave them to be part of any of their neighbours with whom they had had no prior connection. They were exercising their right reaffirming their history entitled them. But with the submission of the Naga Memorandum it became associated for all time with the story of the launching of the struggle by the Nagas for their aspirations, the beginning of their modern history.
