Aheli Moitra
On January 26 this year, Rani Gaidinliu’s 104th birthday came and went without much ado. The Governor of Nagaland, PB Acharya, and his wife, Kavita Acharya, paid tribute to her by lighting a lamp in front of her framed image at the Raj Bhavan in Kohima. The event was photographed and released to the local press by the Governor’s Public Relations Officer. No other news appeared in Nagaland’s newspapers with regard to this momentous day. Born in 1915, Rani Gaidinliu died in 1993.
Her life and legacy have always remained controversial. In the tussle between lines that constitute the Naga as different from the Indian, or the Baptist Christian Naga as different from an animist Naga and Heraka Naga, Rani Gaidinliu presented the grey areas.
Every year, in the month of January/February, the Heraka people undertake a strenuous pilgrimage to Bhubon Cave, located in Assam’s Cachar district, understood to be the place where the first Heraka reformers (Jadonang and Gaidinliu) received instructions from God Tingwang. Through the pilgrimage, the community comes together, reflects on their individual and communal journey as followers of a movement, seeking the way forward.
Arkotong Longkumer, in his book ‘The Poetry of Resistance: The Heraka Movement of Northeast India’ (2016), describes Heraka as “a religious reform movement derived from the ancestral practice known as Paupaise.” With a reformed outlook towards indigenous ways of life, Heraka made the promise of “better health” and “improved economic status,” projecting a “golden age” for its followers, connecting “the notion of a land of plenty and freedom for all with popular Zeme folk heroes and important landscapes.”
The scholar zeroes in on some of the debates that have defined the tension between Christian Nagas and Heraka Nagas. “Rani Gaidinliu was also of the view that the Naga movement… was imperialistic in its own way because it alienated many of her people due to its overt Christian message, coupled with the gospel of struggle for a Christian homeland. For her, freedom should be for all Nagas and proselytizing in any form must be discouraged… In the Heraka view, she stood for all that was glorious about Naga culture, while the elite embracing of Christianity constituted a violent rejection of all past religious beliefs and practices.” (Longkumer, 2016:147)
This created a rift between the Christians and Heraka, drawing the latter towards ‘Hindu’ groups by way of solidarity to ensure their day-to-day survival. This survival becomes pressing as the Heraka people see themselves in the throes of poverty, reeling under the lack of education, healthcare and development. Though many Naga Christians also remain in similar circumstances, the provision of a Church and Biblical teaching at the grassroots has added a semblance of development and modern organization to them. Despite its initial tendencies to keep away from traditional and ‘satanic’ cultures, Naga Christianity has embraced indigenous ways of life with its food systems, agriculture, festivals, artifacts, prophecies, weaves and beads.
The question remains if Naga Christians are willing to broaden their horizon to include all Nagas—Christian, Heraka, Paupaise, agnostic—as ingrained entities of the Naga nation. After all, AZ Phizo hid in the same caves in 1956 that Rani Gaidinliu hid in 1932, both attempting to escape their oppressors to keep up their movements for the self determination of their people. Many Naga people in the region may have been witness to both incidents, their loyalties pledged to both. While this instance does not encompass the entire shared experience of all Naga people, can a shared future emerge from a reconciliatory understanding of each others’ shared history and struggles?
Thoughts can be mailed to moitramail@yahoo.com
