Longrangty Longchar
Dimapur | May 11
As the 22nd General Conference of the Naga Students’ Federation concluded today at Afusu, Punanamei, a former NSF leader who engineered the reformation of the Federation way back in the seventies, today lamented the disunity among the various units.
Speaking to The Morung Express at his residence here at Pudumphukri this evening, K Ahovi Zhimomi walked down memory lane and recollected how a small group of like-minded students reorganized the NSF in the early seventies, 1971-72, when the Federation became defunct.
Zhimomi said the NSF was formed in the late fifties, but became defunct in the early sixties. So during 1971-72, when he was the acting President of the Naga Students Union, Shillong, he dispatched letters to Fazl Ali College in Mokokchung, Kohima Arts College, Guwahati and Barakpani querying, ‘whether we (the students) would like to reorganize Naga Students Federation.’
Thereafter, on getting positive response, Zhimomi chaired a small meeting of nine students, (he showed a black and white photograph where a very young Dimapur DC, KN Ngullie, is also seen). After having a meeting inside one Akai Mao’s room, they decided to dispatch their friends Shikato and Jonathan to go to Kohima. That was how the NSF was reorganized. Zhimomi said that he was the Assembly Affairs Secretary in 1972-73, during the second assembly session in Mokokchung where the Angh of Chui was the chief guest.
Having said that, Zhimomi, neatly dressed and with some grey hairs and wrinkles, bespectacled but with intelligent eyes, recollected that during that time when they reorganized the federation, there was no southern or northern Nagas like today, “Nagas are one, with that motto we formed it (the NSF)” he strongly asserted.
“Aji khali, inika northern, southern deka-do, mon harem nai” he said, seeing such kind of Northern or Southern Nagas makes our heart listless. Zhimomi was mentioning about the division in the NSF especially the Eastern Naga Students Federation which is not a part of the NSF.
“If NSF as a whole approaches the central or state government, they (the central or the state government) will honour it” said Zhimomi.
Zhimomi held that past misunderstandings and self interest should be kept aside for the sake of unity.
“Nagas should leave aside all our past grievances and this division among the Nagas is because of self-selfishness,” he said and stressed that the NSF, Naga Hoho, NMA should be solid as it is, and approach the Naga political problem.
However, when asked what the NSF should first look into, the former NSF leader said that the NSF as a student body should mostly try to change the society in a correct way, implying that they should focus on social issues first.
“Changes in society depends on students and student community, then on doctors, social leaders and others and not politicians,” he said, “Politicians are just for showing the way, without doing much.”
Zhimomi also stressed on the need to focus on economic fronts and said, “He who stands on his own feet is the strongest.”
He also strongly believed that the Federation should lend its support to the government regardless of the party in power and not take up protest for political mileage.
Further more the former NSF leader said that the students federation is ‘slowly, slowly diminishing’, though he did not say whether in its importance or its influence.
The former NSF leader, K Ahovi Zhimomi, has been a contractor, a Sumi Hoho leader and also the former Zunheboto DCC president for the past 11 years. He now lives at Pudum Pukhri in Dimapur with his family.
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