Amid
the whirlwind of division, a sentinel of the Naga hills stands as our quiet
anchor, steadying our storm.
Like
an ancient banyan, with deep roots in ancestral soil, offering shelter when the
winds of division howl.
In
the hush that followed the unfolding of my reflections in “Declaration of Naga
General Amnesty: A Missed Golden Opportunity for Unification,” a solitary
missive gleamed before my eyes, and like incense, its breath ignited a quiet
storm of awakening deep within the sanctum of my mind.
Naga statesman and peace activist Niketu Iralu (Photo
used with permission)
No
subject line, only the luminous name, Niketu Iralu. Ninety years of shouldering
our people’s sorrows and hopes; former director of Asia Plateau; recipient of
the Bhupen Hazarika Integration Award; revered by Assamese scholars as “the
weaver of impossible harmonies.”He had chosen to speak.
What
followed was not critique, but a sacred stirring of conscience, raw reflections
shared as “points that trouble me.” Though he called them unpolished, they
radiated the hard-earned clarity of one who has walked the length and breadth
of our wounded history. With reverence and his gracious blessing, I present his
luminous words to the Naga people.
Each
phrase trembles with ancestral songs yet strikes like a midnight temple bell.
He began with a truth echoing through millennia, now piercing our present:
“What you are
doing is vitally important because, if I may say so, the sense I receive from
your writing is completely in keeping with ‘A life not examined is not worth
living.’ When a life goes unexamined, it loses its Creator’s meaning and
purpose and, as a matter of course, becomes self-destructive. The same dynamic
afflicts the struggles of peoples and nations, only on a far larger, more
catastrophic scale, because so many human beings are involved.”
Socrates’
imperative, rekindled by Uncle Niketu, offered a lifeline to a people teetering
on the brink of self-forgetting. Having witnessed the Naga ancestral homeland’s
journey from fierce sovereignty to shadowed complexities, he saw how that Arc
bends toward despair when hearts grow numb. The creeping erosion of communal bonds
spoke of poison blooming in neglected shrines. He understood the mortal peril of
unexamined wounds: the self-destruction of one soul writ large unravels
nations.
He then mapped
the posture for such examination:
“You have
examined yourself, our struggle, our history, and the histories of our
neighbours and the wider world. You remain humble. Because of your openness,
transparency, and steadfast commitment to what you believe is right, you
inspire trust. Deep down, human beings hunger for truth, the very bread and
water of life.”
Here
lies his antidote: radical humility, crystalline openness, unwavering
commitment. Not mere virtues, but sustenance for a people starved of
authenticity. In landscapes poisoned by hidden agendas, transparency becomes a
defiant beacon. Trust, born of integrity, is the only bedrock for rebuilding.
Like soil turned before seeds take root, society must be cultivated with
openness before reconciliation can bloom.
To frame our
journey, he invoked history’s lens:
“All of history
can be written in two small words: Challenge and Response. Each society
progresses only to the extent it meets its challenges.”
Summoning
the spirit of Toynbee’s panorama, he reminded us that history is not passive
drift but active engagement defined by our responses to adversity. Progress
demands courage and clarity forged in the fire of struggle. This unsparing lens
forces us to scrutinize our passage through 150 years of tumult, a call to
refuse the luxury of complacency.
Applying this
lens, he diagnosed our affliction:
“The quality of
our response to challenges, those that began with the arrival of British
imperialists and missionaries over the last 150 years, reveals the elephantine
problem inside the morung of our crisis, a problem we have not yet grasped for
the monstrous threat it truly is. For many Nagas in my area, until very
recently, anything beyond Dimapur was not considered our problem or important,
perhaps a bit of hyperbole, but not entirely false. Our response and resilience
are understandably inadequate, since our ‘modern’ history began so recently, a
fact true of many emerging ethnic and tribal communities around the world.”
His
assessment was stark. Colonialism’s seismic rupture exposed an elephantine
crisis in the communal heart, symbolised by the morung meant to nurture us.
That cradle of tradition now sheltered unnamed shadows. He named our myopia,
“dangerous vision confined to immediate horizons,” leaving history’s echoes
unexplored. Like patients ignoring a spreading illness, we blinded ourselves to
survival’s threats. Our vertiginous thrust into modernity birthed fragility
still obscured by an inward gaze.
He pierced our
discord with surgical grace:
“I believe that,
driven by unacknowledged personal ambitions among our leaders, we have
underestimated what we have already achieved together in the fierce struggle
waged by our fighters to defend our identity, as understood by us based on our
historical facts. Instead, we have blamed and undermined one another for what
we have not yet achieved, sovereignty and so forth. We must learn the meaning
and importance of resilience.”
He
exposed division’s engine: unacknowledged ambitions. This poison blinded us to
hard-won victories forged in the defense of identity. Collective amnesia breeds
destruction, blaming kin for absent sovereignty. Like siblings forgetting
shared lineage, we feuded over legacies instead of honoring blood. His call
transcends endurance, demanding celebration of the resilience we already
possess, building on solid ground rather than cursing rubble.
From critique
blossomed hope:
“We should thank
and appreciate one another, thank God for our beautiful land, so perilously
located in one of the most difficult parts of the world, and thank God for our
utterly fascinating peoples. We must build on what we have achieved together. We
are not more than what we are already; but, equally, we are not less than what
we have become together. With this shared clarity, confidence, and joy, we can
face the world.”
Resurrection
forged in gratitude and realism, a hymn of sacred defiance. He summoned
appreciation for kin, for perilous homelands, for our tapestry of peoples. Like
potters shaping clay, we mold destiny from what we hold. His declaration, “We
are not more than what we are already; but, equally, we are not less than what
we have become together,” became revolutionary self-acceptance. Embracing this
wholeness, infused with clarity and joy, set our footing to engage the world.
He distilled
this into an unyielding ethic:
“We must put
people before profit and power, because ultimately people are more important
than things and power, though things and power are also necessary for life on
earth. This is one of those fearfully and wonderfully delicate truths from our
souls and conscience: ‘If your motive is truth, you will be fit for power. If
your motive is power, you will distort the truth.’ (Kim Beazley, Australian MP
and Minister for Education, ‘Father of the Parliament.’)”
He
anchored us in human dignity’s primacy. Material needs matter, but legitimacy
flows only from service to people. A tree bears fruit only if its roots nourish
the earth. Beazley’s fearfully and wonderfully delicate truth served as our
litmus test: truth qualifies for power; the pursuit of power corrupts truth.
Stray from this, and rot consumes leadership’s heartwood.
He affirmed our
shared burden:
“The chickens of
the crisis in our just struggle have come home to roost. All of us have
contributed our share in producing the crisis we face today.”
The
proverb landed with inescapable weight. Consequences of collective choices now
stand before us. No faction is absolved. Like a tapestry unwinding, every
thread contributed to its unraveling. Not condemnation, but a sober reckoning
at dawn.
Facing this, he
revealed the path:
“We have an
incredibly complicated, sensitive crisis to resolve together. To do so, we must
recognise that we cannot ignore the cry of our conscience and soul. We must
realise that brain and mind, heart, conscience and soul form an indivisible
unity, like an egg.”
Resolution
demanded listening to the soul’s cry. His image of wholeness, intellect,
consciousness, emotion, moralcompass, essentialbeing, became an unbreakable
egg. Fracture this unity, and humanity shatters. A call to honor every
dimension of being, refusing cold calculation that drowns compassion.
His closing
humility resonated deepest:
“Because I find
it difficult to express these thoughts in a fully polished article, I am
passing them on as points that trouble me. Keep up your vital work.”
Disarming,
yet these were diamond truths, facets cut by ninety years of witness:
ceasefires shattered, betrayals endured, reconciliations fragile as mist. After
a lifetime extending “We are in the same boat, brother!” across hostile
divides, he offered piercing insights as “points that trouble me.” Humility of
a man weaving conscience into his being’s fabric, guiding every step on
rain-slicked paths.
The Deeper
Amnesty
His
message transcended my article. It unveiled a profound amnesty, not legal
forgiveness, but a people’s soul awakening. It compels fleeing questions: What
distortion did we become when hearing ceased? What did we do to ancestors’
dreams whispered into our soil? What future, worthy of sacrifice, can we forge
from fragments? Like a mirror cracked across generations, we must piece our
gaze whole.
His call demands
everything:
·Dismantle
grievance’s machinery, honor the quiet dignity of farmers, weavers, mothers
·Let
conscience interrogate every choice: Does this serve truth or hunger for power?
·Guard
humanity’s indivisible egg, let no ambition sunder its sacred whole
·True
forgiveness: acknowledging wounds and worth equally.
“With
shared clarity, confidence, and joy, we can face the world.”
A
vision of earned strength, dawn’s light breaking through tangled branches,
dependent on our courage to pierce darkness with honesty.
As
dawn spills, I see him. Not on a stage, but on a rain-glistened roadside, cloth
bag in hand, waiting for the village-bound bus. He carries unwavering belief in
our wholeness, even as our faith falters. His conviction is no nostalgia, but a
living seed, scattered in Dzukou’s valleys, embedded in Khonoma’s stones,
waiting for hearts brave enough to undertake the sacred work: examining self,
community, and path.
“Keep
up your vital work,” he signed off.
So
must we carry his compass of conscience, forged in humility’s fire, calibrated
by truth’s stars, oriented to spirit’s wholeness.
Inheriting
a legacy not of ease, but of examined purpose.
