Sanyü Iralu
Nine days have passed since we witnessed the madness of both August 31 and September 1. The contemptible vandalism of certain Angami properties on September 1 by a section of people from a particular community purportedly happened as a consequence of indifferent regard for human life belonging to that community. The intolerable stink is the tribalistic color that interpreted one wrong action as that perpetrated by a whole community. Never for a moment do I think those who senselessly took a life in Kohima get the sanction of even their own villagers, leave alone, all other Angamis who were branded as deserving of the resulting senseless vandalism. Did we not recently taste the unholy aftermath of such an interpretation in the adverse situations the North-East students and people in mainland India underwent untold misery just because some Muslims were mistreated in Assam?
I am most pained like most other Nagas to read of the initial, terrible viciousness unleashed by narrow, bigoted, selfish sections of a community that dark day. The backlash and spill-over from both sides was absolutely sickening! However, I would err if I also go the way of those who have labelled one wrong act of a group within a much larger community as belonging to the whole community. This is the wrong dimension of tribalism that we often see in Nagaland and one which we must denounce and rid our society of.
Very often we harp about tribalism in our Naga society. We forget that tribalism, or the tendency to be concerned more for one’s own tribe or community is not really an evil thing, as such. We all belong to different families and communities, and showing one’s allegiance to one’s own family or community is human and expected, and even necessary (we would be sub-human if we do not exhibit the God-given capacity to care for our own!). In fact, this is the best response, and very often, the most natural response whereby we take care of our own kith and kin through thick and thin. However, tribalism assumes the wrong color when we sideline others, overrule civilized decorum and sensitivity and ride roughshod over others’ feelings and sentiments to promote our own selfish interests as we clearly saw in the absurd mayhem that resulted. At the rate we are going in our crazed, mad selfishness, soon enough, we are going to lose all our dignity and self-respect, and in the process, destroy ourselves.
It is imperative that we wake up and behave sanely and Christianly in all situations so that our societal moral fabric does not get desensitized overtime. We must consider it our utmost Christian calling to question wrongdoing in our society, and pray that Christian sanity, sensitivity and understanding will rise again in this great land of ours.
