Our forefathers hunted heads with spears and machetes,
trophies of their bravery and the wars they fought. The sight alone chills
us—the gruesome relics of an ancient way of life, proof of victories won
through bloodshed. We tell ourselves we have moved beyond such savagery, that
civilisation has refined us, that we are better than the warriors of old.
But are we truly past it?
Today, we Nagas still hunt heads. The battlefield has
shifted from the forests to courtrooms, village councils, church committees,
and social media. Our weapons are no longer sharpened blades but sharpened
words—pens, papers, whispers in dark corners, the click of a keyboard. We no
longer sever flesh, but we slice through dignity. We do not raise machetes, yet
we wield our influence, our connections, and our collective silence to execute
reputations, careers, and souls.
We demand apologies not as gestures of reconciliation but as
trophies of conquest. We do not seek truth; we seek submission. We force men
and women to kneel—not before justice, but before egos, before the faceless
mob, before the self-proclaimed gatekeepers of righteousness. A head is claimed
with every forced signature, every reluctant confession, every tear-filled plea
for forgiveness. Alive, yet lifeless.
Dare to ask a question—just one question—to an organisation,
a group, a community, and suddenly, your very existence is put on trial.
"Who are you?" they ask, as if truth requires a title. "What
authority do you have?" as if conscience needs permission. And before you
can breathe, the verdict is passed: You are not above any organization,
community, or tribe. You have overstepped. You must be humbled. The price? A
letter—an apology, carved not from regret but from coercion, a ritual
humiliation to appease the gods of human pride.
The courtroom, where justice should be served, has become a
theatre where verdicts are predetermined, and power dictates truth. The village
council, meant to uphold fairness, now bends to those with deeper pockets and
louder voices. Even the church, once a refuge for the broken, now demands
written apologies as the price of redemption—proof of a soul's surrender rather
than its renewal.
And when all else fails, we take to social media, where
assassinations require no weapons—only a well-crafted post, a vague status
laced with accusations, a flurry of comments from those eager to draw blood
without consequence. Screens become the new battlegrounds where lives are
destroyed in real time, where one post can bury a person deeper than any grave.
And so, we must ask: Have we evolved, or have we simply
perfected cruelty? Our forefathers, brutal as they were, at least granted their
enemies the mercy of an ending. But we? We leave them breathing, yet
broken—souls cut down without bleeding, living testaments to a conquest that
never ends.
