Charles Chasie
The acceptance speech of Charles Chasie for Governor’s Award in the Field of Literature, August 15, 2019.
Madam chair person, Honourable Governor of Nagaland, Honourable Chief Minister of Nagaland, Esteemed leaders of our State and friends,
First of all thank you to all who have made it possible for me to receive this great honour today. It is a nice to feel appreciated. I am most grateful and it makes me feel humble. But, if I am honest, I find I am assailed by other feelings as well, some quite undefined. There is too a sense of responsibility, even a sense of foreboding.
Taking advantage of such an august gathering I would like to share a few thoughts. As we all know, Naga society is passing through a very crucial juncture when our people are hoping and praying once more for a resolution of the long standing Naga Political Issue. In the past too, our people have come through such stages of hope only to have their hopes and prayers belied. If the past is any guide, it would seem that whenever this Naga Political Issue was on the threshold of solution something happens to vitiate it. It has happened too many times starting with the visit of Nehru and Unu to Kohima in 1953 at the very initial stage. One prays this will not happen again this time. But there is no gainsaying that there are a lot of uncertainty, apprehension and fear among our people.
People like me are not politicians and we leave that field to those who know how to play it. But there are worrying trends in our society which concerns all of us and will require the collective efforts of every one of us.
(i) Naga peoplehood lies is tatters. There are so many people and groups shouting Naga Nationalism, even claiming exclusive rights to representing Naga people. But the fact that so many groups are claiming exclusive rights put paid to that very claim as our people remain as divided as ever. In the 1920s, the building of Naga peoplehood started and if we go back to the Naga Memorandum to the Simon Commission as the starting point, then we are only 90 years old this year. Juxtapose this reality against Indian, Burmese and Chinese civilizations, our neighbours, and we get an idea of where we stand. Naga Nationalism, even the Christian religion in its own way, initially accelerated the building of our peoplehood but soon moved by political compulsions, the vehicle of peoplehood was left by the wayside and the proverbial cart went before the horse! This neglect has come back to haunt us today when we want a solution to our Political Issue. We should hope for the best.
(ii) In so many decades of conflict and violence, our society has become thoroughly militarised. Solution or no solution of the Naga Political Issue, this militarisation of society may continue to haunt us for a long time. It is not difficult to imagine so many informal warlords with private armies at their disposal. Greed, ambition and fear, under present circumstances, will ensure the continuation of this militarization. One of the main consequences of this disease is the Fatigue Syndrome we see everywhere. This is not a normal society one aspires to at the end of the day.
(iii) A people or a society, even an individual, they say, either has a sense of Sin or a Sense of Drift! The absence of this sense of Sin or what is Sacred has led to the destruction of much of the structures and values of our society with little or nothing replacing them. The result is that ours has become a society that is no longer fully functional. In fact ours has become a dysfunctional society.
(iv), Finally, to top it all, and this is not so much our people’s fault, Nagas find themselves situated in the middle of one of Asia’s most difficult ethnic regions and the playground of great powers. Our people too is completely enveloped by very highly developed cultural societies. The pushes and pulls of these cultural influences further aggravate the sense of instability and drift.
In such a situation and under such circumstances, what tools will Nagas need to survive? What meaningful roles can they play? Albert Maori Kiki, former Deputy Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea talked about his people having to live 10,000 years in a lifetime. Naga experience is something like that! And, we are in desperate need of evolving a society that actually works! To do this is the responsibility of all of us and will require every single one of us. We have to fight the fatigue syndrome and we have to unlock the positive energies of our people. It is clear that political solution or no, Naga society is going to require first class thinking and much clarity in order to survive and thrive.
Much of the energies of Naga thinkers and intellectual capacity of our people are presently locked within the confines of academia. This is a great loss. The Churches too must come out from the confines of thinking only for their flocks and doctrinal differences. Rational discussions and debates must become the norm for settling issues, not dharnas and protests and shows of physical or political strengths. Confrontations only lead to lose-lose situations. Nagas should know that by now.
Positive energies will begin to flow in society when enough of us start to ask what is God asking of our people today? We will begin to see the fruits when we learn the difficult art of working together and when things actually change for the better on the ground. Then we won’t feel the need to preach so much anymore but we will all begin to be enveloped by a feel-good factor, the first sign of a healthy society.
I will end with a quote that is often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt : “Small minds discuss people; Average minds discuss events; Great minds discuss ideas and Revolutionary minds make ideas happen”.
Thank you all once again.
