Seventy-two years ago, on 22nd June 1944, the battle of Kohima came to an end. This battle has been voted 'Britain’s Greatest Battle' the British Army has ever participated in all course of its history on 20 April 2013 conducted by National Army Museum at London. In the early part of March 1944, under the code name U-Go operation, the Japanese 15th Army under Renya Mutaguchi, divided into three Divisions started the invasion of India marching in three directions across the Indo-Myanmar frontiers. Moving across the Naga Hills was the 31st Division of 15,000 troops under Lieut. Gen. Kotoku Sato. In this fierce battle of 64 days (4th April- 22nd June 1944), the Japanese were defeated and they withdrew back to where they came from. The Japanese 15th Army, 85,000-strong, eventually lost 53,000 dead and missing in this entire U-Go operation and the British sustained 16,564 casualties. During the Battle of Kohima alone, the British and Indian forces lost 4,064 men, dead, missing and wounded, and against this, the Japanese had lost 5,764 as battle casualties in the Kohima area and many of the 31st Division subsequently died of disease or starvation (Louis Allen, Burma- the Longest war, p.643).
For these colonial powers of the time it was all about victory and defeat far from their respective mother countries. But for the people amidst whom the battle was fought, it was a cathartic moment of historical reckoning having far reaching consequences. The Nagas, hitherto living in their traditional world with little or no contact with outside world save the Britishers and Christian missionaries, were abruptly awakened, to face the vagaries of modern world in a harsh way when the two empires fought one of its fiercest battles in its heartland. The passage of such large modern armies back and forth across their lands, and the hunger and disease wrought by fighting had traumatised traditional communities (Fergal Keane, Road of Bones, p.409) leaving them deeply affected mentally and physically. Tens of thousands of Nagas were mobilised across the hills in the form of labour corps, stretcher bearers, informers and soldiers. In the battle of Kohima along 600 Nagas participated. One way or the other the whole of the Naga Hills was affected.
The battle of Kohima and WW II in general, had serious implication in the polity of the Nagas which left them awakened with a new sense of identity consciousness. This war brought them into contact with people of different nationalities and therefore they now began to perceive themselves as a separate distinct entity. The enormous participation of Nagas in this war gave them experience and transformed their whole perception of things. They were able to grasp the fast changing political situation after the war and thus consolidated themselves to negotiate their future. The implication of the war can be gauged from how the people especially around Kohima who had experienced this war the most with the main battle fought at Kohima, pioneered to espouse the political future of the Nagas. Then Naga WW II veterans whether involved with the Japanese or Allied forces, got themselves involved in the fledging Naga nationalism in the later days signifying another direct impact of this war on the Nagas. Men like A.Z Phizo who was involved with the Japanese and the Indian National Army (INA) got much insight into the international politics during WW II and thus the NNC taking a drastic turn under his leadership may have lots to do with this event though not denying the influence of tradition of independent-mindedness of his native village autarchic tendencies against the colonial power that might have moulded his thinking. The large availability of weapons left behind by both the British and Japanese in Naga Hills district also produced far reaching implication as they were used by the later Naga army when direct armed confrontation with Indian Union exacerbated. The war brought new weapons into the hills; for the first time Nagas were using Tommy guns and stocks of Chinese rifles sold across the border from Burma (Keane, op.cit. p.409). Nationalism was stirred in the minds of the Nagas. But as a result of the war, isolation of the Nagas from the outside world was broken. Nagas experienced large scale arrival of people during the war and communication with the outside world greatly increased as a result of the military needs.
The British and the non-Nagas for this matter failed to grasp the changed disposition of the Nagas after the war. When Louis Mountbatten promised that British would never forget her debts to the Nagas, he never comprehended what political future really awaits the Nagas but was speaking in the bright glow of victory when nobody could have imagined a civil war in the hills (Keane, op.cit. p.443). In the immediate aftermath of the war, Charles Pawsey the then DC of the Naga Hills spoke with apparent confidence about returning to the old way of life. In June 1944 speaking to visitor, Pawsey said the presence of war and British and Indian troops on their territory is not likely to have any profound influence on the Nagas (keane p.409). The British who were still busy fighting a war could not contemplate what political future they envisaged for the hills and would leave the Nagas to make their way with India. The British books recorded about what the Nagas did in those epic days, but not what they thought. Infact, Naga Hills and Kohima was remembered as a place but not as a people.
Though the first exposure of some 2000 Nagas during WW I to France and the subsequent formation of Naga club 1918 and the presentation of memorandum to Simon commission in 1929 can be traced as beginning of identity consciousness, yet what happened in 1944, transformed the Nagas once and for all. The formation of NNC (only mandated organisation ever formed by the Naga people in all course of its history) on 2nd February 1946 and the events that followed like series of negotiations, declaration of independence (1947), plebiscite (1951), etc are historical facts that will always act as the pivot giving perennial lives to Naga nationalism. Hence, any future solution not based on this historical facts will only prove ephemeral nor final solution can appear until it comes through the only given mandated organisation of the Nagas. The phoenix will always rise back from the ashes in the ebbs and flow of time until solution comes through the given mandate if permanent solution is to be found. NNC took right decision at the right time. It was a moment of historical decision, what was once decided will be final and binding and no more change can be done again. It was not a matter of fear to antagonise the powerful neighbour (which was prevalent) but of doing the right thing no matter the imminent consequences. As expected reaction (from Indian union) was sharp and suppressive but the historical decision of NNC is a reality that cannot be erased anymore. The reason why Nagas took decision differently from other communities of NE as far joining Indian Union is concern is because it underwent a different experience in its experience with WW II.
The impact of the event on the Nagas has been all pervading and permanent.
Infact if WW II and battle of Kohima never occurred in the Naga hills, its doubtful if Naga nationalism would ever be there or even if it is there, the same magnitude might not be there and Nagas might just have accepted the Indian constitution like any other communities of the North east India.
Zhokusheyi Rhakho, PhD Phek Town.