Jonah Achumi
People realize the real value of a person only after they’re gone. One’s true worth transpires or surfaces only after they become a memory. For a great leader like Assu Isak Chishi Swu who believed in relationships greater than the problems, losing him is not only a loss for a particular tribe or faction but for the whole Naga people. It is an end of an era in the history of the Naga Movement.
Assu Isak Chishi Swu’s dead came as a jolt to the collective conscience and emotion of our people and has send shockwaves throughout the Nagas living around the world. Assu Isak’s life and his passing away mark an important historic phase of the Naga National Movement. The greatest inherent factor of the great leader is not only the personality but humility. Assu Isak was denied what he deserved by many of his adversaries while he was alive but those who denied him that too wept along on his demise. Hate them or love them, but we cannot ignore that he along with Th. Muivah took the Naga Cause to newer heights on the world stage and international recognition.
As humans, they too surely had their own shortcomings and mistakes but the enormous sacrifices they made for the Nagas is remarkable and noteworthy which can never be denied. His departure leaves an irreplaceable vacuum as he left us during this crucial juncture when his presence was so much needed than before as he had been throughout his life. Maybe many felt his presence never mattered and thought it never made any difference but today we are proved wrong by his absence. Like salt we fail to notice its presence but become completely aware of its absence only when it is not there.
Today his absence causes more than mere heartaches, pain and sadness but of a great emptiness and a very huge void not only among the Sumis but to every Nagas beyond Nagaland. Everyone has grieved immensely and expressed the deepest sorrow over the demise of this great leader Assu Isak Chishi Swu. A noblest soul, a God’s servant, a freedom fighter to the fullest, a truest patriot, a visionary leader, an inimitable man of principles, Late Assu Isak Chishi Swu has left a irreplaceable vacuum with his extremely rare and exceptional qualities of a soldier, missionary, guide, philosopher and an astute statesman. In losing him Nagas has lost one of its greatest sons of the soil. He will always remain as one of the greatest source of inspiration to many and an exceptional leader among the Nagas who was the rarest among the rarest. He was a man who placed God above everything. For him the Nation came before anything even before his own family and his own community.
Now after he has left, the rise of unpredictability increases in these rapidly changing dynamics of times and continuous upheavals of our long running Naga Movement. Great achievements require great sacrifices and Assu Isak without any doubt was one such person. Assu Isak’s death has made us realize Nagas need more of emotional unity and social integration and we need to be more calculative and wiser in our decision makings while navigating through the choppy and murky waters of divisions and hatred within us. Our worries have only seemed to exacerbated by the uncertainties of turmoil and seem more difficult in charting a way through this hard road of a long drawn conflict with the passing away of this great legend. He gave his all and stayed completely focused on what mission he started out till the end of his life’s journey. True leaders take responsibility instead of always blaming others and he was one of them. He was one strong personality to stand alone when the time demanded. He was his own self to stand apart when situations compelled. To lead people you need to walk behind them was thus exhibited by this man.
Great leadership isn’t shaped in the absence of opposition but in the presence of it and he proved it. Great leaders draw us to them with their universal humility and he was truly one of them. They derive clarity of vision inspite of the chaos and amidst extreme difficult circumstances or through turbulent phases and the test of times. Assu’s life was completely different from the multitude of today’s many questionable leaders who without any clear political and ideological vision, where amassing of personal wealth and glory has become a priority much to the channelizing in the growth of anger and resentment from the common masses. His enemies shed their tears and expressed their sorrow alike how his friends did at his passing away.
The people who hated him and despised his ideology and policies while he was alive grieved along too with those who loved him and started missing him from the moment the news spread that he was no more. Assu Isak was a devout, God-fearing humble soul never complained about the silent attempts to discard and deny him the status of fatherly figure and an icon of the Naga Movement all his life but all that were due to him came as he left this world. Even his adversaries became forlorn, gloomy and sorrowful when they learnt that this great son of the soil was no more. Such things are rare, very rare. He relied on God as his source of strength and guide in the complexities and dilemmas he battled. Now how many more Assu Isak do we have? Or will we ever have? Maybe we will never. Nagas need to pragmatically think over it and must thoroughly introspect and retrospect. The realization of how Assu Isak’s presence mattered a lot came a little too late to the Nagas only after he was gone.
The worst thing we Nagas can do to ourselves and against the dream of this great man is destroy ourselves with our narrow nationalism. The video clip of him strolling around the lawn in a wheel chair and singing ‘Sailing for Home’ made me shed tears and it sure did to many who have watched it. His failing health in the ever growing challenging situations for over a year did not even bother to awake our conscience. The sad consequence of losing such a great outstanding leader as Assu Isak after battling for his life for quiet sometime makes us now to ponder if only we should have given him his due share of credit while he was alive too like we did after he passed away.
Men make history and not the other way round. Throughout the ages, where there is no leader, society stands still. Progress occurs only when courageous and skillful leaders seize the opportunity to make things for the better. The Naga Nation today is certainly not what our great leader like Assu Isak Chishi Swu must have dreamt of. The picture that emerged from the long bloody conflict of nearly six decades maybe potentially great but now completely in state of disarray and chaos. Nagas now suffer from a fatty degeneration of conscience and dissolution of our moral values. The soul of great leaders like him will rest in complete peace only if we relearn and live the values to which they stood for.
Farewell Assu. You have lived well. Today our land has become a land of story-tellers, story-tellers of your great heroic deeds. You are a true legend. You are a true hero. Legends never die. Heroes live forever. You have left behind a great legacy of true patriotism that will be forever engraved in our minds and hearts.
