Jonas Yanthan, Author of ‘Corruption of Christianity’
Naga way of peaceful life from time immemorial, without any ruler or kingship as such, under the wise guidance of elders who held the knowledge of our culture, belief system, customary practices and typical family land holding system sustained through discipline and hard work makes us unique people in the world today. We all know that the time immemorial customary practices and our land ownership system gave birth to the Naga freedom struggle. The subsequent Statehood, though short of our greater aspiration, was created in the true spirit of our customary practices in land ownership and way of life with its primary duty to foster and uphold that time immemorial rights. Today, we are enjoying greater freedom in regard to land holding system and everything that is indigenous to us than the rest of the people of India. We are free from any tax on land holding, personal wealth and even on salaries that government servants receive.
Naga customary rights and practices gave birth to the Constitutional Provision of Article 371 (A) hence it is primarily only a formal declaration in reiteration of our cherished time immemorial right to our customary practices, land and resources. Nagaland State Government was institutionalized to be the Legal Custodian and Caretaker of Nagas’ time immemorial rights and therefore, the State Government manned by temporal members and that too in the status of ‘Legal Guardian’ in no way has the right to declare itself land owner or has any power to nullify any customary practices of the Nagas. Legal or illegal, ‘Guardian’ is a guardian and as such can never take over the property of the legal heir i.e., the people. The State Government, therefore, using the Article 371 (A) to empower itself as land owner is not only illogical but also incoherent with its status. This incoherency and illogicality stems from the fact that the customary practices of the Nagas are ‘constitutionalized’ in the said Article while the State Government is only an instrument to protect the rights of the people. In other words, the age old Naga customs, practices and usages will always be superior to the State Government in the Naga context.
The contents and manner of the proposed ‘Regulation on oil 2012’ of the State Government to be introduced on Sept. 21 and passed on 22nd Sept.2012 is a total negation to Naga tradition since it claims to be a land owner. Isn’t this an abuse of Naga custom? This attitude of the government can be summarized in the event of the Bible where the Roman soldiers, before crucifying Jesus, stripped him of his clothes leaving him only the loin cloth (underpants in our present context) and after nailing him to a wooden cross took Jesus’ gown and cast lot to claim ownership of what belonged to Jesus. Or should we say that it is like intruding into somebody’s house strikes a deal with a buyer without consulting the owner and then on selling it takes his share for doing an uncalled for job just because there is maximum profit and then distributes the proceeds among the household owners according to his whims and fancy as to who should get how much.
For these reasons, Nagaland government’s claim of ownership of its people’s traditional land through a regulation or any other means is nothing but schizophrenia. The first count of schizophrenic approach of the State Government is legislating 33 % women reservation by using the authority of the Article 371 (A) and defeating its very legislation in the court of law by using the same Article saying that the reservation goes against the customary law and practices which the article guarantees. The second count is twisting the Article to claim ownership of land for reasons best known to them but isn’t this claim against the very Article as well? This illogicality of the State Government has precedence. We are aware that Nagaland Assembly had passed a similar Act on oil in 1985 and sent to the President of India for his assent but was not even given a hearing because the then President knew fully that in Nagaland land holding system lies completely with the people unlike in the other parts of the country and hence found that such a legislation would go against the people for which it was not assented to it. To avoid this embarrassment, the CSC has cleverly proposed for a regulation only since a regulation need not be sent to the President or the Parliament but isn’t this a foolery of the Nagas? Regulation is necessary but it should be based on the customary practices of the people. The duty of the government is to protect unscrupulous businessmen from exploiting the innocent Nagas but it seems that our own government is assuming the charge of an unscrupulous company instead of being the Caretaker of our rights for which they were elected.
In conclusion, it is left to the wisdom of the people of Nagaland to discern what is right and true to our heritage or should we allow such an erroneous regulation to be effected because of parochial tribal jealousies and lose our time tested customary practices that is so dear to all of us. In addition, let us remind ourselves that ‘government’ is temporal; it comes and goes. So many governments have come and gone and the people who are in the government today including us are all temporal but what will not go for a long time to come are Nagas, our customary practices and rights and therefore should we allow temporal and petty tribal considerations or issues to swallow us at the expense of the larger Naga unique customs and practices? Take it or leave it.
Contact: yanthanjonas@gmail.com
