DIMAPUR, JULY 1 : With a 21-gun salute, the ‘National Socialist Council of Nagalim’ on Friday morning bid farewell to their departed leader Isak Chishi Swu during a “state funeral service” that was conducted at the outfit’s headquarters, Hebron Camp.
The sound of gunshots were then replaced, later in the afternoon, by the thumping growls of Royal Enfield as a pack of riders from the Nagaland Motorcycle Club escorted the convoy carrying the coffin carrying the mortal remains of the underground leader, out of Hebron Camp to his native village, Chishilimi, in Zunheboto district.
Prior to the start of the funeral service, as people slowly began to assemble, Friday morning was a far cry from the usual scenes that people have grown accustomed to at public events inside Hebron Camp. It was quiet, and extremely polite. Outside the camp, all the shops dotting the vicinity were closed.
One of the enduring images of the day was that of Th. Muivah, with whom Isak had commanded the NSCN (IM) since the faction’s inception, breaking down as he walked up to lay a wreath over his old comrade’s coffin.
As Muivah wept inconsolably in the arms of his wife, in front of the coffin, grown men in the audience–many from a generation hardened by guerrilla jungle warfare–were left teary-eyed.
“He is here in the coffin. For me it is too much to part, the pain is too much,” Muivah said in his address later in the program which was broadcasted live on TV. “For about 52 years, we have been together.”
He also spoke of Isak’s legacy. “Remember such historic achievement (New Delhi’s admission that the Naga issue was a political issue and not military) happened during the leadership of Mr. Isak Chishi Swu. Mr. Isak Chishi Swu, who is in the coffin here.
“He did well, he did well. There is no doubt about that. He did well,” Muivah told the audience.
Of the many tributes paid to the departed NSCN (IM) leader on Friday, a former college-mate and now founder-principal of Patkai Christian College, Rev Dr Tuisem A Shishak, delivered the most poignant one. Shishak said that he was the one who had asked Charlie Iralu (Phizo’s uncle) to arrange for Isak’s admission into a theological seminary in the United States.
“But after a while I received a letter from Isak, which may have been written from some jungle in Burma, informing me he cannot come to America. But it is things spiritual that bond me, Niketu (Iralu) and Isak, not politics,” Shishak said. It is this spirit, he said, that would be missed most with Isak’s passing.
“I believe that God gave brain to Muivah and His spirit to Isak. And they are two inseparable things, like two pieces of a pie. Now one piece of the pie is gone, and only half is left.
That is something to think about, something we should be concerned about. The brain alone is not enough. We need the spirit. These two things should not be separated for long, they should be put together and make one whole pie again,” Shishak said.
Swu, according to Shishak, was the spiritual link. “And for me that is important. I believe that it is time for us Nagas to search our hearts again.”
Another measure of Swu’s spiritual disposition was offered when his wife, Eustar Chishi Swu told the gathering that her husband “would name every single person known to him in the NSCN, from the general secretary to the leacy, in each of his prayers.”
Also, the faction’s “commander-in-chief of army”, Phungthing Shimrang, said that “the freedom that we enjoy in the future will forever be attributed to him (Isak)”.
Others who paid tribute on the day included the “vice-chairman” of NSCN (IM) Kholi Konyak, member of collective leadership VS Atem, convener of steering committee Qhevihe Chishi Swu, “kilo kilonser” Rh Raising, and representatives of the NFDB (R) and the NFDB (P) from Assam.
Soon after the “state funeral service”, cadres from the “Naga army” swiftly moved the coffin into a specially costumed vehicle to drive their former chairman out of Hebron Camp for one last time. And come July 2, a revolutionary’s journey shall have come full circle under a Sumi ‘morung’ at Chishilimi village where the mortal remains of the late leader would be rested.
