The ‘text’ often becomes the misconstrued representation of the ‘real’ through the ‘imaging’ of the Nagas
Dr. Asangba Tzüdir Nagaland once again gears up for the much hyped hornbill festival but the stage is set at the backdrop of couple of ‘economic’ considerations. Firstly, the disclosure through RTI on the huge losses incurred during the years 2010-2014 stood at Rs. 11 crore, 87 lakhs and 99 thousand. Secondly, the financial crunch because of the current ‘demonetization’ process is a huge setback for the festival. But, the show will start and for ten days the festival will cover up the sickness of the state as if ‘all is well.’ For this year’s edition, along with the regulars, some new events are added to bring variety and generate interest while catering to the ‘tastes, entertainment and adventure’ of various sections of people including the much sought after tourists. The festival is being held with the primary objective of displaying Naga culture and being branded as the ‘festival of festivals,’ it has become a prominent space not just for witnessing the various forms of cultural display but even to see the waves and emerging trends of culture and lifestyle of the Nagas. In fact, this is a space that provokes and begs one the question - what is Naga Culture? To suit the changing times and tastes in ‘promoting’ our culture, the events that revolves around the festival comes with a blend of tradition and the so called “westoxified” modern.’ Within this blending, a new understanding of ‘Naga Culture’ emerges through the way we the Nagas ‘present and portray’ ourselves to the world. And, over the years this festival has opened the window to the commercially escapist world of Naga culture which is tilted towards ‘deceptive style’ and opportunistic capitalism where there is ‘commodification’ including humans. When the festival is so opened to commercialisation and commodification of our culture, often, the Naga cultural ‘narrative’gets fitted into the hornbill narrative and thereby produces a ‘misrepresented real’ through the material display so do thecaptured pictorial images for pleasurable consumption of the ‘others’ wherein we happily and ignorantly continue to reinforce the various stereotyped labeling on the Nagas while ignoring the unique value system in our culture. Over the years it has attracted many tourists both domestic and international and what largely remains to be seen is that, the festival has so much of promise and potential to make it a global event in the form of large scale participation from other culturally vibrant countries and thereby create meaningful discourses on knowledge and cultural exchange programmes. This calls for an urgent necessity to resurrect our sense of sights and sensibility and the way we portray ourselves to the world. Sometimes we make a mockery of ourselves and fail to disseminate the ‘right’ knowledge of our cultural values beyond symbolism and materialism. The challenge that remains is promoting the value based knowledge about our culture and tradition. There is an underlying danger in how we representthe ‘text’ within the blending and the context within which the ‘text’ is propagated and reinterpreted. The ‘text’ often becomes the misconstrued representation of the ‘real’ through the ‘imaging’ of the Nagas. The content of the festival should portray the uniqueness of our cultural values rather than getting trapped in the tension between tradition and modern. Somehow, hornbill festival fails to address the rich traditional value system embedded in our culture, which makes our culture unique.The aspects that makes our culture unique are viable resources that needs to be engaged in the context of Naga unity in order to heal the fragmented Nagas divided on various sinister lines. In culmination of the festival, the lighting of the bon fire followed by the unity dance draws glimpses of hope for the Nagas who are in desperate need of peace and unity. But the sad reality is that, ‘far’ away from Kisama the real Naga people continue to struggle within their own bracketed zones. It is this gap that Hornbill has failed to address. In perspective, there is an urgent necessity to unlearn and relearn about our tradition and culture if the objective and claim of the festival is aimed at “reviving, protecting and sustaining” the values and richness of the unique Naga culture and traditions.” Therein lies the credibility of the Hornbill festival beyond the ten days entertainment.(Dr. Asangba Tzüdir is Editor with heritage publishing House. He contributes a weekly guest editorial to The Morung Express. Feedback and comments can be mailed to asangtz@gmail.com)