It is a grand one! This ground-swell movement was well seeded and planned – a dignified, magnificent, world-class movement of the highest ranks!
It has been a long time now, but we are still on the move in our journey of common hope for all Nagas and their ancestral homelands. Some leaders are active in Myanmar (Burma), some in India, and some are recovering from their sick-beds. We pay tribute to all our leaders and freedom fighters, past and present, for their contributions and sacrifices in their own ways and in their own times.
Meanwhile, in the long-drawn process, some leaders have and continue to work and sacrifice for the day-to-day welfare of common citizens to enable the movement to continue. These are all supplementary roles, timely and appropriately carried out.Many people have been wounded, maimed, or killed, either by others or by our own people due to unfortunate misunderstandings. But the journey continues. When a single individual life cannot be perfect or be totally clean, how can we expect an entire nation’s life to be? Today we need forgiveness and healing to take place, for which we need God’s grace. We are still on our way and our hope grows with time.
The recent Framework Agreement is another milestone, and I hope it will take us forward for those on this side of the border. I pray it will also enable those on the other side to use their wisdom to keep our movement alive and ever hopeful. We all know we have to write many chapters and each chapter counts for the whole book. I hope every agreement adds something good so that it will be an impetus towards a satiable and satisfying end or final or conclusion, which will involve more than one country to solve and may require international recognition or approval. Till then, let us all continue to be contributors and catalysts, understanding each other’s limitations or potentials. Future generations will definitely rise up to shoulder the responsibility of writing the final chapters. Today’s leaders must train and build up better and superior leaders from younger generations.
We need time. We also need space. May God’s truth and grace help and enable us all to look at the big picture from a divine and eternal point of view. Prayers continue ceaselessly and we have the attention of our Lord who is on the Throne. He will respond in His own way and in His own time.
My limited and conditioned personal mindset and view is that, when all Nagas and all their lands are taken into consideration by the world and our neighbouring states and countries, we shall be surprised to find that God’s purpose and plan was and is greater and full of grandeur and splendour for His Kingdom, and not only for the smaller kingdom of all the Nagas and their lands. Maybe that day, NNC, led by a new and better team, will wake up and recover to perform the finale or write the concluding chapter, reminding everyone of the introduction of the book, the index, the various chapters of rain and sunshine (from which the rainbow springs) written by different groups in different places. May they, on that day, loudly proclaim, “Praise the Lord!” and also “A big and heartfelt ‘Thank you!’” to all the people who have participated and contributed towards the building of the Naga Kingdom to propagate the Kingdom of God to the people of the whole world. “Nagaland for Christ” at last!
