V Zhimomi
Dimapur
Having been born in Nagaland, I always felt myself to be God’s special child as I was nurtured with values from our revered church, schools and tribal culture. The feeling of being different, blessed and above board than the rest and my vow to fight for the sovereignity was nursed all through my adolescence until I had my recent tryst with reality that made me look within and ask whether it’s our nation or of only a few self proclaimed freedom fighting groups. It’s a question that faces me and every right thinking Naga as a challenge of our identity and we need to ponder.
The issue of my generation is not of of lost faith or disrespecting and not honouring our forefathers who sacrificed their lives for a cause of the motherland but it’s about the present and the future of Nagaland; it’s present and next generation.
We need freedom from whom; I always wonder? Who’s governing us, who has annexed our land, who is our policy maker, where is the enemy that we are fighting to save our motherland, where really is the sinister, I wonder!
The truth is that today we are governed by multiple agencies – our tribal organizations for the cultural ethos and rituals, our elected government for planning our policies and development and above all by diktats from parallel government of various freedom fighter groups. In reality we need freedom to follow any faith, freedom to explore the world, freedom to work, freedom to become global citizens and above all freedom from any type of diktats, freedom from multiple taxes and freedom from corruption.
As a young person I feel peeved by the actions of our Nationalist groups and condemn them for their diktats and taxation policies which are harassment for respected people and challenging for economically not so well off segment of the society. Moreover, this taxation is coupled with a threat which further perplexes me about my identity of being a Naga or Non Naga. Moreover nationalism can’t be imposed and definitely not taxed. The funnier side of it is that my generation perceives this practice of extortion called as taxation in our land as “helping of unemployed brethren by the employed”.
It’s time to move on to new realm and new horizons for our youth to free ourselves from the cocoon of evil and sinister designs of external forces to decimate the Naga tribes and the state. The youth must take plunge and take reins of both Naga Nationalism and governance for real development of our land. The land does not belong to a few but to all people and tribes equally. It’s as much mine as yours and as much yours as mine and we must rise and fight for our rights against the evil in us, anathema of our society and the curse of corruption, illegal taxation & unlawful diktats to make our state truly sovereign, socialist and developed in all spheres. Amen!!
