Kohima, August 4 (MExN): Following the ‘peaceful resolution’ of Angami Public Organization (APO) and Kohima Village Council (KVC) to the imbroglio created due to the vandalism of Naga Heritage building by some unidentified miscreants on May 27, 2023 morning, the Naga Students’ Federation (NSF) has reiterated state that the present imbroglio over the Naga Club Building is not about the ownership of land and its building.
NSF President, Kegwayhun Tep and General Secretary, Siipuni Ng Philo in a statement addressed to the APO President said that for the NSF, the Naga Club and its building is not a mere standing infrastructure to be looked upon from its material perspective. “The Naga Club building is a monument of Naga Nationalism and this spirit will always remain and the same will be passed on to posterity. The pioneers and their wisdom shall continue to shine in the lives of the Nagas who yearns to safeguard the uniqueness of Naga history and its struggle for independence. Solemnly, it is the bedrock of the Nagas’ struggle for Self Determination,” it stated.
However, it stated “NSF is saddened to put on record that the Naga Club building and the land, appear to some individuals, a structure for personal convenience so as to satisfy their vested interest without having an iota of knowledge and the nerve to adhere to the ethos that stands to symbolise how the pioneers of the Naga Club had envisioned through its formation, the uniqueness of Naga History and the underlying principles that must be treasured to take the Nagas to its rightful place.”
It claimed that NSF is the “sole custodian of the Naga Club building for decades” due to the fact that the spontaneous continuity of the Naga Club by its pioneers and their successors could not be maintained due to various circumstances “mostly conditioned by the turmoil unleashed by the occupational forces in their attempts to crash the Nagas’ revolutionary movement for Self Determination.”
History is proof to the fact that, except the NSF, no Naga social organization, including the Naga Club, could function to brave the storms during the period when the Indian army perpetrated unimaginable atrocities upon the Naga populace, it stated. “In such endeavor, the leaders of the NSF have undergone untold hardship, both physically and mentally, which have been proven and recorded for the generation of Nagas,” NSF added.
“For protecting the uniqueness of Naga History, NSF Leaders were humiliated, physically tortured and jailed but their spirits have never been crashed. Therefore, the principle stand of the NSF in proclaiming to have been this far, the sole guardian of the Naga Club Building is not without any historical base,” it stated further.
Citing the “historical facts and contention,” the NSF stated that “it will not be in a position to take any decision until the legitimacy of the Naga Club is laid to rest by involving all the Naga people sans any artificial borders.”
“The NSF repose its faith on the Angami Public Organisation and the Kohima Village Council, that it will not allow some individuals with vested interest to extirpate the history of Naga Nationalism as dearly upheld, till the last breath, by the Father of Naga Nation, A Z Phizo,” it reiterated.
