In the Naga search for JustPeace, it is judicious to begin by asking fundamental questions that define the path in which the process towards understanding interplays with issues of natural justice. Invariably, the State finds itself at the center of any discourse that involves human desire for justice and peace.
Empirical truths indicate that the State monopolizes use of legitimate force, while exercising coercion to ensure its legitimacy. The propounded notion of ‘nation-state’ is a fallacy because the term denotes an assumption and creates the illusion that a State comprises of a single nation, however, natural law reveals that a State consist of many nations. In essence, one cannot actually recall a State that consists of only one nation. Many nations exist within a State, with or without the consent of the people, thereby revealing its hegemonizing and homogenizing character. These conditions invariably plant the seeds of State political violence.
Internal contradictions of the State are further uncovered within the dichotomy of its functions and structures. While its functions persuade the promises of its goodness for its citizens as beneficiaries, its structures ensure that they are never actually realized. After all, if a State were to fulfill all its functions and promises, it would no longer be relevant as the people could have an independent self-governing existence. This highlights how the roots of State structural violence germinate from within this ideology of exclusivity.
The casualty that unfolds from State political violence and structural violence falls on the people’s collective decision-making process. Since individual or group interests and needs cannot be identical, the issue of collective decision-making process is necessary if people want to co-exist together with mutual respect and understanding. Nonetheless, empirical truth reveals that the State has usurped people’s decision-making capacity, particularly that of indigenous peoples. In effect, it has obstructed a people, any people’s, ability to determine their own destiny. This divulges the moral problem of politics.
Empirical truth shows that a State defines itself as the ultimate authority to define its territorial domain, and to exercise its power within it, with no recourse to a higher authority. The ideology of arbitrary power brings the State into direct confrontation with indigenous people, the rightful owners to exercise their inalienable rights over their land and all resources. Imposition of the State on indigenous peoples renders its institution as unjust, and, therefore, unresponsive to the people’s needs.
While resolution with a State without addressing the question of justice is invalid because it contradicts the nature of truth, State consensus through elections does not guarantee truth or democracy either. Since the State usurps all the people’s rights, and assumes its role as the ultimate decision-maker, any agreement with the State without addressing the people’s rights will be an agreement of perpetual conflict. It is illogical to pronounce the State as the sole or central entity for resolving problems, because it is precisely through the State’s institutions, with its hidden structural violence driven by the arrogance of power, which first makes conflict unavoidable and ongoing.
Since the state of Nagaland was not the result of a political contract with the collective will of the people, but formed as a trajectory to divert the Naga political discourse, it will be prudent for Nagas to critically question and engage with the State system as it explores its path forward.
