
Niketu Iralu
Historic Mao Gate is the epicentre of the present crisis. Multiple, inter-related pressure fault lines originating from different locations, known, unknown, and suspected, have combined and erupted. It has blown Mao Gate to centre stage of our history once more. Let the world take note, this Gate predates Watergate and all the other gates ever since.
Like a volcano beneath us the crisis has exploded again and caused widespread misery and loss of lives once more. Th. Muivah, Ibobi Singh and Chidambaram have been branded the main culprits. But as we know, in the life of every crisis the point is soon reached when it is futile to keep on blaming only the most-easy-to-identify few because there is much more to a crisis than the “misdeeds” of the few who end up acting instantly because they have to. It quickly becomes clear that we need to go to the origins of the crisis and try to resolve it adequately if the crisis is not to destroy us. This is stating the obvious but often not thought of. As to all that have been said at Mao Gate, Senapati, Ukhrul, Imphal and Kohima, would not Christ have said again “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”? What is the crisis? And what should be our response to it? These seem to be the two questions we should understand and address correctly.
Does not the crisis in its totality represent the responses by Nagas, Meiteis, Kukis, and others to the rapidly changing common situation we all face today? We have no choice but to respond to the changes impacting us. That is the law of life for growth. But our responses are turning out to be too destructive to us and those we oppose. We have to ask why? Can we deny our responses have been guided mainly by what we want to get whatever the costs on others, and fuelled by our prejudices and resentments? We insist to respond thus is normal in politics? Our slogans may differ but the doctrine of life we have followed is the same. It is not getting us to something better. Speaking of the global crisis of meaning and purpose of life, Milovan Djalas, the Jugoslav Marxist theoretician, observed in the second half of the 20th century, “We are living today in tomorrow’s world with yesterday’s ideas”. Is this not the reason why our responses too have become so bankrupt politically and spiritually and destructive in every way? Can we pause to realize that our common inadequacy and poverty of spirit is our common crisis? And that if we will learn to help one another to win together, imaginative, constructive politics will be born that will produce surprising solutions that will match the demands of the 21st century?
Muivah cannot be blamed for wanting to go to his village. But everyone knows his reason for wanting to go to Somdel is not as simple as the desire of a mere native returning to his birthplace. He is not Thomas Gray’s ploughman simply plodding homeward his weary way. Muivah on his part can’t be all that indignant toward Ibobi. One is pretty sure he is not, although the situation demands him to be. If he were in the latter’s place he too would surely have done the same thing. After all, in politics leaders are condemned to address their respective galleries they have nurtured in order to keep ‘politics’ going. And Ibobi too cannot go on addressing his naturally ever alert gallery acting as if the things the Nagas feel will fade away if he repeatedly ignores them and adopts measures he knows are not sustainable.
This is not to trivialize the issues and the strongly held positions all sides take on them. But deep down all of us know we can’t go on politicking the way we have done. Politicians address the issues that shape society. The pressing issues are the raw material they work with. They remain politicians if they speak only to the emotions of their galleries. They become statesmen the moment they start to speak to the consciences and souls of their people and give “principle-centred” leadership that solves problems and takes society forward. Nagas, Meiteis, Kukis, and all in the NE are on the same ship taking us into the future. It would be fair to say the passengers were put on the ship without their full knowledge or consent. So at the start of the voyage the travelers seemed unbothered. Indeed most were still asleep and snoring, as it were, as the ship pulled away. The sea too was calm and balmy. But some resisted being put on the ship from the start. They were outraged and adamant citing their history to defend their position. When they started to vigorously assert that they could not travel on the same ship they were called “underground hostiles” and treated as such. Becoming aware of what was going on those hitherto passive also started to reinterpret their histories and in no time the ship became chaotic with protests ending in violence and bloodshed.
The journey has taken us far out to sea. Engrossed in their conflicts, the crew and the passengers have neglected the ship. The battered ship is no longer safe. Will we be painting our cabins or fighting to be supreme on a sinking ship? Or will we save the ship together so that the voyage will continue? “Statesmanship is to do today what events will compel you to do tomorrow”. The confusion, using rubber and steel bullets to communicate, the tragic deaths, the blockades and counter blockades have once more shown our responses are inadequate coming as they are from yesterday’s ideas, fears and hates.
According to Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s tough Chief of Staff, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. It is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before!” We have a serious crisis all right. So have not Nagas, Meiteis, Kukis, and so on, reached the crucial stage where we are meant to start to sit down for heart to heart discussions as neighbours can and should to explore what will be right, just and best, for all concerned? No real damage will be done to the real interests of any group if the discussions are not solution-driven but motivated by a sincere desire to first understand the fears, difficulties, resentments, needs, hopes and longings in all of us that have played havoc with us because we have not listened to one another sufficiently to understand.
The crisis has emerged from all of us neighbours who have been placed so close to one another. Is it a grim, hopeless fate because our selfishness has to change if we are to survive and succeed together, or an exciting, inescapable challenge for change and growth we must rise to? It depends on what we think of the relentless realities impacting us and what our response to them should be. This is easily stated but it is formidably difficult to develop the thinking and living the challenge demands of us. An attempt to do this reveals that we judge others by their despicable actions, ourselves by our high ideals. But others do the same with us. This is our common stalemate and starting point.
The Naga Reconciliation Process, as it was called, was launched jointly in Kohima by the Nagaland Christian Forum and Naga Hoho on December 20, 2001. The Pledge was jointly read out by the leaders of the 38 Naga tribes present from all parts of the Naga homeland. It included the following –
“We are prepared to go beyond seeing only where others have hurt us and to see where we too may have provoked them to hurt us, so that forgiving and being forgiven will become possible.”
The Pledge recognized provocations to be the origins of human conflicts and therefore the starting point for breaking the chain of hate and revenge which happens when those who have provoked others accept ownership of their role and lead the way in breaking the deadly logjam. A vision is given to those who’ll dare.
It called for putting oneself in the shoes of the other person as taught by the Native Americans:
Walk a mile in another man’s moccasins,
Walk awhile in another man’s shoes,
Before you leave him condemned forever,
Put on his boots, there’s nothing to lose;
Live a day with another man’s family,
Live a day by another man’s side,
Years of hurt can end and a foe become a friend,
As you find that he’s just the same as you inside.
Walking on this seldom travelled road promises to take us beyond recriminations to solutions. It has become clear the old roads have failed us. The new road beckons.