Chinks in the Naga armour

 

This is a part of a series of articles that I hope will shed some light into the hazy future we look at. This compilation is no means a solution but a path towards a more sane discourse. I have chosen five subjects that I find close to my heart and will try to articulate how I feel about it.

The Naga National Movement:
I’d like to start with a subject I am very familiar with and in fact experienced it.

 

I was an ardent believer in the ideology of our movement for liberation. During the period I was actively involved I was incarcerated numerous times at the hands of the enemy. I was tortured and humiliated in each of these cases. All in all I was arrested three times and locked up in eight different jails in four states. Even the most intrepid traveller may not have gone to the places I have been. I have been shot at and also wounded. I could go on and on about the sufferings I have endured during my 15years of service to the nation until I had to resign for personal reasons. For me this was a small sacrifice to endure for the ideals I believed inland for which hundreds of my comrades gave their lives still holding the Rainbow flag.

But what I really want to discuss here is where we are going today. Has this generation lost all the will to sacrifice for something they believe is worth fighting for? Is this lethargy due o the myopic visions of our leaders who cannot see beyond the wrongs of yesteryears and the affairs of his or her own tribes. But whatever the reason one thing is certain our movement is at a crossroads. Our own people no longer have full faith in our leaders. In fact if we were to hold a plebiscite today I am certain more than half our people will opt to join the Indian mainstream, and not because they want to , but because they lack the statesmen like leaders we used to have.

We cannot keep an entire population in limbo by force of arms alone. I remember the same leaders before the ceasefire taught us that we were like fishes and the peoples were the water that sustained us. And so the peoples must be respected above all else or the movement will flounder. Before the ceasefire I remember going into villages half starving and asking for aid. The villagers would gather the best paddy and meat and feed us with gratitude and love in their eyes. I doubt this happens very rarely these days. Now when our boys go anywhere they are most likely to be looked at with contempt not because the spirit of freedom is dimming amongst the public but because of the direction this sacred cause is heading towards.

Nagas by blood are fiercely independent. Decades of war waged upon us by one of the mightiest armies in the world has hardly dented our yearning for a free and sovereign Nagalim. The only way we the Nagas can be defeated is from within. Though no longer an active national worker I have nevertheless bathed in the water of freedom and will never stop affecting my life forever. And thus I have to be a bit wary of the path my cherished movement is taking.

I request all my leaders to forget the past and look towards the future. This generation is ready to heed your call if the movement is headed in the right direction. Our generation lost the cream of its crop and this generation is ready to play its part. What they need is a state man like leadership to show them the correct path.

Again I ask all my leaders to introspect and lead the people as you did before. For the sake of the LIM I on behalf of all my comrades who have suffered along with you and lost their lives I beg all my National leaders to stop squabbling and lead us.