Laxmi Murthy
“Yeh kya hai, huh? Computer, huh? HUH?” says the jawan disbelievingly, unwilling to let us through yet another checkpoint at the border of Manipur and Nagaland. Having driven from Imphal on the succession of pot holes strung together that goes by the grand name of National Highway 39, our hopes of reaching Kohima by dusk are thwarted by the blockades and innumerable checkpoints that sprang up after the kidnapping of Paul Leo that very day, April 17. (Paul, then the chief of the United Naga Council, and one of the founder members of the NPMHR in Delhi, was released three days later by the Kuki National Front (MC)). A swirling fog, and a thick inky darkness are fast enveloping the jeep, making the poor visibility dip further. Having spent all day driving through Ukhrul, Paul Leo’s home district, tense because of the abduction, I just want to talk ourselves out of this hurdle and get away.
But Kumar, who could scarcely resist an opportunity to educate, turns on his laptop with a flourish, waits for it to boot (took a while, back in 2001), and voila! The jawan is suitably impressed, and hurries in to consult with his boss, but stumbling on a stone, the laptop flies out of his hand. Kumar makes a daring leap into thin air, rescues his baby, and then turns his ire on the security arm of the Indian state. No one can mess with Kumar’s laptop! Soon, the superior safely tucked inside the sentry post with his hot rum toddy, has been convinced that this flat innocuous slab is not a thinly disguised lethal weapon.
How wrong he was. After having picked up the gun in his youth, found it ineffective, and also paying the price for that brand of rebellion, Kumar turned his formidable energy towards spotlighting marginalisation and injustice and challenging the Indian state. And this he did through rigorous research that was intellectually sound, but also steeped in a deep sense of empathy for the oppressed. But his was no sentimental gushing or cheer leadering. He was always ready to challenge, and confront contradictions within movements, engaging Naga colleagues in vigorous debates about self determination, federalism, or minority identities. Working closely with him on the report Four Years of the Ceasefire Agreement between the Government of India and The National Socialist Council of Nagalim: Promises and Pitfalls, travelling on back breaking roads to far-flung villages with rudimentary lodging arrangements, I was privileged to get to know a different side to this formidable thinker. A taciturn, scholarly individual with little time or inclination for human relations: that was a common mis-perception about Kumar. What I discovered (as many of his friends already knew) was a Kumar who responded in kind to the Nagas gentle humour, with a witticism for every discomfort or hugely disturbing incident. It was also a Kumar who would go to great lengths (much to my embarrassment) to ensure that I could eat vegetarian food at least once a day (a remarkable feat in the remoter parts of Manipur and Nagaland), himself consuming vast quantities of pork, so as not to offend our hospitable hosts. As we stumbled into roadside lodges, it was he who would insist that I take the only bed or room that was available. We argued about old world chivalry, but I always lost.
Kumar’s work on Nagaland is an opportunity to re-visit the debates about nationhood and nation building, about the nature of the Indian state and the philosophy and practice of separatism, self-determination and autonomy. He also insisted on thinking through, with Naga friends, the practicalities of the demand for a greater Nagaland: “What will be the status of minorities in Nagalim?” “How will the protection of the rights and identity of all ethnic groups be achieved”. Once engaged in the issue, Kumar spent the next years analysing every available document on the Naga struggle, a mission bordering on the obsessive. He tried to track down (unsuccessfully) any documentary evidence of the oft-quoted Naga insistence that Gandhi told them they should declare independence if they felt that was the right thing to do. Alongside, studying models in central Europe, and the former Soviet republics “Balkanisation” was not only a term for him, but a mission to discover links, to understand what went wrong, how bloody wars were fought, and mass killings and rape justified in the name of emergent nationhood. His work still provides a basis to pull the current impasse out of the rut of red tape and government negotiations, and internecine strife, and be true to the optimism that the Nagas have reposed in the process. Kumar’s compassion was the basis of his work...work that was premised on respect and understanding of the Nagas. He empathised whole heartedly with the deep disconnect experienced by the Naga people from the Indian state, and deep mistrust of the security forces, and was therefore always ready to make allowances for the sometimes strong reactions of those we met. The Nagas have lost not only one of the few empathetic intellectuals and co-travellers from mainland India, but also a friend. So have many of us.
This eulogy was read out during the memorial meeting for Ram Narayan Kumar on 31 August, 2009, Delhi
