Kahuto Chishi Sumi
Akukau, Hevishe Village
I shared an image, on Facebook, of some Right Wing Hinduvta Goons destroying a statue of Lenin at Agartala in Tripura with the caption, “Height of Barbarism”. What surprised me were some people defending the act, giving reasons varying from the fact that Lenin was not an Indian so his statue had no place in India to statistics of the number of people killed by Communist Regimes across the world. What ill-informed fools! Statues of Mahatma Gandhi can be found in different countries, across the world; for he was the greatest voice against European Colonialism for subjugated people around the world, and the first to put into practise the Concept of Non-Violent Civil Disobedience propounded by Henry David Thoreau. Gandhi is one of the favoured few of history, those, whose thoughts and deeds supersede Nationality and Time.
Similarly, Lenin put into practise the Ideal propounded by Karl Marx of the Working Class breaking the shackles of their Capitalistic exploiters and shaping a Nation’s Destiny. An Ideal or Concept is good or bad depending on how Mankind uses it. Alfred Nobel invented dynamite with the vision that Humanity would use it for peaceful purposes; and died a disappointed man (albeit a rich one) when he saw how man used it for destructive purposes. When Einstein propounded his famous equation, energy=mass times the speed of light squared, he never imagined that his formula would be the basis of the invention of the nuclear bomb. So, before one goes around, mindlessly spouting Anti-Communist Propaganda, one has to examine what existed before the Communists came to power. Present day Russia was ruled by one of Europe’s most autocratic monarchies. The Tsars and Tsarinas of Russia, along with their Aristocracy held unquestioned sway over the lives of hundreds of millions of Russian serfs. They were oppressed, exploited and starved to death; and in the rest of Europe, workers of The Industrial Revolution were being exploited under inhumane conditions by the new Capitalist Class. So, just as the French Revolution showed the Monarchies of Europe the dangers of ignoring the voices of the People, the Bolshevik Revolution and the establishment of The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics showed Industrial Europe and the World the dangers of ignoring the voices of The Working Class. The Rights of Workers across the world was recognised because of Marx’s concepts and Lenin’s deeds.
So, some people spanning nationality and race achieve the Status of International Icons. We Nagas do not have any internationally acclaimed personalities or Icons, but we do have an acclaimed Icon in the form of Dr. T. Ao. For a People who suffer from a dearth of good role models, Dr. T. Ao and Mayangnokcha are Stars in the Dark Skies of Nagaland. I am all for honouring them in any way possible in as many ways as possible. But I whole-heartedly condemn the proposal by our newly formed State Government to rename the Indira Gandhi Stadium to Dr. T. Ao Stadium.
Mrs. Gandhi may have been responsible for many ills that befell the Nation of India, but that should not take away from the fact that she brought immense positive change to India. Are the stupid Legislators of our State Government aware of “The Green Revolution”? It is because of the Vision of Mrs. Indira Gandhi that the concept of India being a self-sufficient food producer was born. It is because of her efforts that India, from an importer of Food, became an exporter of food. Did you know that Millions of Indians starved to death in the years before The Green revolution? The Supplied Rice that you siphon off and sell to fill your pockets is all thanks to The Green Revolution of Mrs. Gandhi. If for nothing else, Mrs. Indira Gandhi is an Icon because she is the person responsible for the full stomachs of every poor or struggling family in India.
Honouring a person should not come at the price of dishonouring another. Dishonouring Mrs. Indira Gandhi by renaming the Indira Gandhi Stadium to Dr. T. Ao Stadium tarnishes and cheapens the honour bestowed on Dr. T. Ao. There are other Stadia across Nagaland which would welcome the August name of Dr. T. Ao. The Kohima Local Ground is one; the DDSC Ground in Dimapur is another that comes to mind. Renaming of Landmarks and Institutions bearing the Nehru-Gandhi name along with those bearing the names of Moghul/Moslem Rulers in India is a cheap trademark of the BJP/RSS Agenda. Nagaland should not become another arena for the Re-writing of History, according to the Hindutva School of Thought.
If I were an Ao, I would fight tooth and nail against this selling short of the Honour due to Dr. T. Ao. For, Honour gained by dishonouring another is no Honour at all, it is Infamy. Dr. T. Ao deserves to be honoured as an Icon on his own Merit, not remembered as a tool for the demolition of another Icon. GOD SAVE NAGALAND
