To reform the Naga National Council (NNC) is good but it is necessary to know the genesis-- origin, conditions and state of its affairs--to reform any organisation.
To reform the Naga National Council (NNC) is good. It is necessary to know the genesis to reform the organisation. Nothing can be reformed without knowing the origin, conditions and state of its affairs. The origin of the NNC is as follows:
The last Deputy Commissioner Naga Hills District of British India Government Sir CR Pawsey, on the eve of Indian Independence in April 1946, constituted Naga Hills District Tribal Council (NHDTC), a notification to enable the Naga people to look after themselves. The Council’s first meeting was held at Wokha in a Class 6 school room.
The Lothas, thereafter, were the first to form Lotha Tribal Council with NchemoKinghen as their first President.
The second Tribal Council also met at Wokha on June 19, 1946 for the formation of Tribal Councils of all the Tribes of Naga Hills District. There is one Lotha who was present at that meeting and is still alive. He is LM Murry, a senior friend of this writer and a specialist surgeon trained from the UK.
In the no-nonsense meeting discussions of some less than 50 members, Kevichüsa Meruno, then in the government service, later conferred IAS and Commissioner of Transport Assam, informed the meeting that the Naga is a Nation; if their conference is designated as ‘Tribal Council’, it may not sound impressive and respectable to others in future. Therefore, he suggested it be designated Naga National Council (NNC), not ‘Naga Hills Tribal Council’. This was a great idea unimaginable to quite some present in the meeting, but other educated leaders like Mangyangnocha Ao explained it in detail in common Naga lingua-franca Assamese, now Nagamese. The Council whole heartedly and in great excitement approved the suggestion and Naga Hills District Tribal Council was morphed into NAGA NATONAL COUNCIL instantly and its monthly Magazine was renamed ‘The Naga Nation’ from the month of October 1946.
The Council informed the non-Naga residents leader Hari Prasad, a Nepali school teacher in Kohima and his colleagues to form ‘Non-Naga Sub-Council’ under the NNC and inform the Council, but no ‘Non-Naga Sub-Council’ was formed.
The Kacharis formerly had their Capital in Ghergoon (Dergaon?) near Jorhat but were routed by the Ahoms and shifted probably in the 14th Century to Dimapur on the bank of the Dhansiri River where they developed their capital, and King Chakrados and his Ranee dug two water tanks that exist till today. Later, during the time of the Muslim Rule of Bengal, one Kala Par a Brahmin-turned-Muslim warrior attacked and defeated the Senapati who ran away to Moyhung in North Cachar Hills, and most of his subjects scattered to various places of Assam and North Cachar but some still live in Dimapur in their former lands.
The Kukis migrated north from unexplored unknown areas of Burma since 1765 to Tangkhul and Lahupa areas of Manipur; they also penetrated into ‘Maloma’ (Puchuri) areas in the extreme Southeast of Naga Hills. Those were designated as ‘Old Kukis’ but by about the time of the First World War, “New Kukis”, pressed by superior races in the South migrated North to Manipur in thousands and began to press the indigenous people in what is known as “1917 Kuki Rebellion in Manipur”.
All the “New Kukis” who penetrated into Puchuri Areas were pushed back to Burma by the British India Government except three villages of ‘Old Kukis’ -- Kanjang, Akhen and another.
Some of the Kukis “Old and New” were by the understanding of the colonial Government in those days settled in the Zeliang Area (‘Erstwhile Zeliang-Kuki Area’) of Naga Hills and in adjoining N. Cachar as a buffer against the persistent incursions for Taxation and other spoils by the Angamis on the law abiding peaceful ‘Kacha Naga’ (meaning Cachari Naga).
The Senapati Govin Chunder of North Cachar also might have used some Kukis against the Senapati’s own native Opponents in his kingdom.
The NNC is more of an authentic Institution of the Nagas than an intellectual, literal body like the Council of Nicaea, Vatican or the Security Council of the UN. The NNC embodies an inherent inborn, innate and the spiritual substance of the Naga people; it is an institution of the Naga people than a literal council.
The Council represents the authentic desires, ingenuity and aspirations of the Naga culture in their native land. They are:
i) It was the NNC’s intractable stand by its President Aliba Imti and member Khelhoshe, who very strongly and fearlessly protested at the Indian Constitution Sub-Committee Meeting for the North East Chaired by Assam Premier Bordoloi and his partisan member’s blatant and offensive attempt (“Pausey and Adam sat silent”) to take out Dimapur from Naga Hills and included it in Assam.
ii) The land belongs to the People, not to any King, land lord or the government.
iii) The 9-Point June 1947 Agreement with Governor Sir Akbar Hydari.
iv) Its 14 August 1947 Statement of the rightful and peaceful position outside the Indian Constitution.
v) It indelibly witnesses their indelible right to free and open Plebiscite on 16 May 1952 for Self Rule.
vi) Capped with complete boycott of Independent India’s first and second election.
vii) The formation of the Naga National Council as the institution of the people.
That the NNC is an institution of the Naga people more than a literal Council is clearly visibly and discernable in the undecorated unembellished words of the Naga Petition to the Simon Commission long before the Council was formed during the pendency of the British India Government, before India’s Independence. On January 10, 1929, the simple uneducated interpreters (Dobashis) of Naga Hills presented a memorandum to Sir John Simon, leader of his 7-Member Commission *(John Simon Leader, Clement Atlee, Harry Levy, Edward Cadogan, Vernon Hartshorn, George Lane, Donal Howard) of the British Parliament on Reformation for the future of India.
The corruptions and misrule of the East India Company in India made embarrassing discomfitures in the British Parliament; it withdrew the Charter given to the Company a century ago in 1757 and took direct control of India in 1858 after the Indian Mutiny of 1857.
Then UK Government in November 1927 constituted an Indian Statutory Commission for Reformation of India, under the chairmanship of Sir John Simon of different parties in the UK. Gandhi and Indians totally rejected the Commission, and displayed public Placard written: “Go Back Simon” (composed by Yusuf Meherelly) because no Indians were included in the Commission.
The Commission visited all the people of the Province of Assam. And when they came to Kohima in January 1929, the Naga submitted a Memorandum signed by 20 members of the People: The members were interpreters and staff of the Deputy Commissioner of Naga Hills. The letter was written in the Letter Head of the Naga Club’s writing Pad because there was no other Peoples’ representative Body and the Nagas were informed they better submit the petition in the name of an organisation.
It was the first petition ever on behalf of the Naga to the British authorities in India of the aspiration of all the Naga people wherever they are.
The White Men in Kohima had a White Man’s Club where they gathered every evening after their office hours for recreation. They did not allow any others to enter their club.
The Naga Club was solely a social organisation: before and after the Memorandum. And consisting of Government Servants only, the Club did not engage in any political activities: Membership was on payment of Membership Fee of four Anna and one Ana, (one-fifth and one-sixteenth of a Rupee). The Naga Club was an adoption of the idea of the White Man’s Club.
The Naga Petition ran like this:
To
The Indian Statutory Commission,
Camp India.
MEMORANDUM OF THE NAGA HILLS. 10.1.1929
Sirs,
We the undersigned Nagas of the Naga Club at Kohima, who are the only persons at present who can voice for our people, have heard with great regret that our hills were included within the Reformed Scheme of India without our knowledge, but as the Administration of our Hills continued to be in the hands of the British Officers, we did not consider it necessary to raise any protest in the past. Now, we learnt that you have come to India as Representatives to the British Government to enquire into the system of working of Government and the growth of education, and we beg to submit below our view with the prayer that our Hills may be withdrawn from the Reformed Scheme and placed it outside the Reforms but directly under the British Government. We never asked for any reforms and we do not wish for any reforms.
Before the British Government conquered our country in 1879–1880, we were living in a state of intermittent warfare with the Assamese of the Assam Valley to North and West of our country and Manipuris to the South. They never conquered us, nor were we ever subjected to their rule. On the other hand we were always a terror to these people. Our country within the administered area consists of more than eight tribes, quite different from one another with quite different languages, which cannot be understood by each other, and there are more tribes outside the administered area, which are not known at the present. We have no unity among us and it is only the British Government that is holding us together now.
Our education at present is poor. The occupation of our country by the British Government being so recent as 1880, we had no chance or opportunity to improve in education and though we can boast of two or three graduates of an Indian University in our country, we have not got one yet who is able to represent all our different tribes or master our languages much less one to represent us in any council of a province. Moreover, our population of the plain numbering 102,000 is very small in comparison with the population of the plains districts in the province, and any Representation that may be allotted to us in the Council will be negligible and will have no weight whatever.
Our language is quite different from those of the plains and we have no social affinities with either Hindus or Muslims. We are being looked down upon by one for our ‘beef’ and the other for our ‘pork’ and both for our want in education which is not due to any fault of ours.
Our country is poor and it does not pay for its administration. Therefore, if it is continued to be placed under the reformed scheme, we are afraid that new and heavy taxes will have to be imposed on us and when we cannot pay them all our land will have to be sold and in the long run we shall have no share in the land of our birth and life will not be worth living then. Though our land at present is within the British territory, Government have always recognised our private rights in it, but if we are forced to enter the Council of the majority, unsymphatathic council may extinguish all these rights, the majority of whose member is sure to belong to other districts. We also have much fear the introduction of foreign laws and customs to supersede our own customary laws to which we now enjoy.
For the above reasons, we pray that the British Government will continue to safeguard our rights against all encroachment from other people who are more advanced than us by withdrawing our country from the Reformed Scheme and placing it directly under its own protection. If the British Government however, wants to throw us away, we pray that we should not be thrust to the mercy of the people who could never have conquered us themselves and to whom we are never subjected; but to leave us alone to determine for ourselves as in ancient times. We claim (Not only the members of the Naga Club) to represent all those tribes to which we belong: Angamis, Kacha Nagas, Semas, Lothas and Rengmas.
Signed by:
1. Neihu, Head Interpreter, Angami
2. Hisale, Peshkar, Angami
3. Nisier, Master, Angami
4. Khosa, Doctor, Angami
5. Gepo, Interpreter, Kacha Naga
6. Vipunyü, Potdar, Angami
7. Goyiepra, Treasurer, Angami
8. Rüzhükhrie, Master, Angami
9. Dikhrie, Sub-Overseer, Angami
10. Zapuzhülie, Master, Angami.
11. Zepulie, Interpreter, Angami
12. Katsümo, Interpreter, Angami
13. Nuolhoukielie, Clerk Angami
14. Luzevi, Interpreter, Sema
15. Apamo, Interpreter, Lotha
16. Resilo, Interpreter, Rengma
17. Lenjang, Interpreter, Kuki
18. Neikhriehu, Interpreter, Angami
19. Miakrao, Chaprasi, Angami
20. Levi, Clerk, Kacha Naga
A careful study of the Memorandum shows the authenticity, if simple, even childlike honesty of the composition. One finds the petition surprisingly absent of political jargons like: Sovereignty, Independent, Freedom, Territorial statements, People’s Rights, Human rights, Equality and System of Governance etc. All these good features of life are in the culture of the Naga people from very ancient times; the Nagas know them but did not write them because they lived on them normally from ancient times. Their Petition demanded only: “We did not asked for Reformation, leave us alone to determine for ourselves as in ancient times.”
The Nagas and the land this writer experienced: the people, the situation in the second quarter of the twentieth century, had no worries of the political gradations whether the people lived in a State or in a Nation: Every Naga lived in his own house, built himself in his own land, cultivated his own land himself; paid no tax to anyone, save sometimes of the family or its constituent clan share of collection to the Thino [Khel] or the village requirements, and lived according to their own familiar traditional culture of an Independent Village Republic without any outside interference. Every policy of the people or the Thino [Khel] or of the village germinated and originated from the clan: The land usually belonged in common to the clan and shared with its related kith and kin, families and the members in conscientious equality.
Women, except a widow, did not inherit the landed property in the village; rich and wealthy person, however, gave cultivation piece of land even to the daughters. The sense of sharing is intimately ingrained in the people, even the hunting dog has recognised part of the animal for its share; written records of property was not maintained but are in the know of every one in his own head and land neighbours in the field witness for them to the elders in times of necessity. Everything followed their unique cultural and traditional norms, not of other life.
Every tribe has its own cultural norms and traditions of the common principle of equality and respect of life of each other and a sense of self-respect or shame for a dishonourable behaviour or talk. Man and woman are not equal, but the latter is held universally in respect and to dishonour a woman is an anathema decidedly a disgraceful act of a man.
British chroniclers have described the Naga life as: “Every man follows the dictates of his own will, a form of the purest democracy which it is very difficult indeed to conceive as existing even for a single day; and yet that is does exist here is an undeniable fact. I have often seen a village split up into two hostile camps, one clan at deadly feud with another, whilst a third lives between them in a state of neutrality, and at perfect peace with both.” [John Butler: J.A.S., 1875, Vol. XLIV. NO. 4]
In 1915, after fighting for two decades for the Rights of the Indians in South Africa, lawyer Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi returned to India to fight for India’s political rights. And in 1924, for the first time, Gandhi demanded a Constitution of India “made by Indians themselves without intervention from the outside.”
Like Mahatma Gandhi, the Naga National Council took the principle of ‘Non-Violence, except of self-defence,’ as endorsed by Nelson Mandela of South Africa later.
The NNC began working in tandem with Sir Pawsey’s Administration and allowed the Council to collect money on M.F.P., [Minor Forest Produce] and Municipal Collections.
After Indian Independence, in March 1953, a mammoth Naga crowd gathered at the Football Ground at Kohima to hear India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, accompanied by his friend UNu of Burma, speak to the Nagas. Bare footed in a woollen half-pants, I stood in the crowd at the north end of the ground near the goal posts. Much after Jasokie told me: “A little before the public meeting, while Nehru and his friend were having refreshment at the DC’ Bungalow; TheyiechüthieSakhrie” (NNC General Secretary) “and myself, (Joint Secretary Publicity & Information Jasokie Zinyü) MegortoLiegise and a few other elder members of the NNC, tried to present a letter to Nehru, but were not allowed.” They came ahead to the entrance of the football ground to hand over the letter to the prime minister then and there. But the DC and his SDO were already there and asked to see the Letter. He was shown the Letter; he read it and remarked: “Very good English” but said it would not be given to the prime minister.
The refusal to even accept the Naga Letter injured the self-respect of the Nagas so bad that one of the NNC workers, Lhomthi Sema, spontaneously shouted loudly in Assamese: “If he would not hear us: then we also will not hear him”. Then a murmur developed in the crowd and people in the packed crowd started to utter: “If he would not listen to us, we also will not listen to him. Come, let us go away. Quick…Quick,” and in a few moments the level football ground was completely empty except about a hundred women and children of the families of the Assam Rifles in the enclosed south end slope outside of the field!
That day, 30 March 1953, from the afternoon, the Assam Rifle began to rigorously search to apprehend the NNC functionaries at Kohima. “Expecting it ahead earlier, we went to Thepfulo-o house in Jotsoma and the soldiers did not find us at Kohima,” said Jasokie much later. The NNC leaders, for the first time in the movement, went underground. Thus the difficulty between the Nagas and India was seeded. And India’s foremost humour cartoonist of newspapers and magazines R.K. Laxman remarked in the Assam Tribune: “N wanted to Meet Mr N but the two Ns failed to meet each other!”
Then Nehru sent Indian Army on the Nagas; the Indian Army’s nightmarish deeds on the Nagas are better kept out of this composition, but one day, when soon indeed India becomes a real democratic World Power, it may have to answer a few embarrassing questions the Naga may raise to it.
Yet it was not India nor Indian Army alone that splintered the monolithic NNC; it was the same NNC themselves, some later activists that burrowed out of the NNC of 1946 that entered into 9-Point Agreement with Sir Akbar Hydari, Governor Assam on behalf of India, that set the Naga Plebiscite mandate of the Naga, that declared themselves outside the Indian Constitution on 14 August 1947, that joined Nagaland Baptist Church Peace Mission Rev. Michael Scot of UK and Indian Sarvadaya Leader Narayanan sponsored the Cease Fire Agreement of 6 September 1964 that brought a semblance of peace to Nagaland State that we today could walk about late at night in Kohima city without fear even without Army’s secret unknown Pass Word.
Thepfulhouvi Solo. IFS [RR-68]