One of the common observations of the Naga people as indigenous people is that they were governed by institutions based on traditional democratic values and expressions shaped by consensus decision making, community well-being and honorable co-existence. These underlying principles of public affairs did not operate in a vacuum as they were interconnected with the cultural ethos and praxis of the Naga way of life. Once these aspects were negated and overwhelmed by colonial institutions and knowledge, the Naga democratic polity was stripped of its true meaning and reduced to symbols and rituals that were dehumanizing.
One of the consequences of a colonized dehumanized Naga democratic polity is how today’s Nagas engage or disengage with public affairs. Currently, Naga society has become dispassionate, apolitical, and conforming which makes them vulnerable to the inherent tensions between reactive emotions and feelings with facts. And, ironically, facts become displaced and distorted when reactive emotions are aroused causing unhealthy retorts. The processes of discernment and building understanding are no longer the means towards settling differences. As a result, the current public discourse in Naga polity is not based on facts but on emotions and reactive feelings driven by the intention to undermine, discredit and destroy the other person. Unfortunately, this creates conditions where the public becomes blind to the facts as well as the truth. The Naga discourse is in danger of being in a state of emocracy where negative feelings triumph over facts. Indeed, human history informs us that people’s attentions are more inclined to be influenced by fear, self-interest and hate than compassion, respect, generosity, kindness, or empathy.
Ece Temelkuran, author of How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship, reminds us that populist leaders “aspire to represent those who do not care about politics.” She points out that “populists only exist within an ignorant society” and “politicians work towards polarization of the society, in order to establish an intellectual atmosphere in which, if you criticize them, you are anti-democrat.” Ece asserts that such a society “not only ignores the truth but actually does not even want to know it” and is one of the reasons why the use of facts does not work against a populist’ narrative. This, she adds, “is very dangerous.”
Fundamentally, truth is based on facts, not something that is imagined, invented, or speculated. Therefore, “to abandon facts,” Timothy Snyder says, “is to abandon freedom.” Writing on Tyranny, Timothy encapsulates the point that “if nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is a spectacle.” Sadly, these conditions perpetuate a coercive culture of impunity and complicity where there is no accountability at all.
One of the core tenets in peacebuilding, as well as in journalism, is to reduce the distance between suspicion and facts – find the connection, catalyze a critical public consciousness. As Paulo Freire asserted that, human beings are the active agents of social transformation through conscientization. Emancipatory transformation takes place through the ways in which individuals and communities develop a critical understanding of their social reality through reflection and action. Public dialogue is a vital part of this emancipatory process which becomes a larger public conversation shaping the discourse around issues of public affairs that can be healthy, dynamic, and vibrant.
Undoubtedly, Nagas are in dire need for a discourse on public affairs as defined by facts and truth and not by emocracy. This is essentially a moral, philosophical, and political question that requires an ethical, indigenous, philosophical, and political response where the truth is not split in victor’s truth and victim’s truth. The question is, can the Naga people reverse this trend so that we can be guided by a praxis of reflection and action which is led by our inner truth?
