KOHIMA, SEPTEMBER 12 (MExN): The Naga Hoho on Thursday expressed optimism that the consultative meeting to deliberate on the Naga political issue convened by the Government of Nagaland will facilitate to bring the Indo-Naga political talks to the forefront again after being relegated to the back-burner for quite some time.
In a press release, the Naga Hoho hoped that the various Naga tribal hohos and civil society organisations participating in the said meeting will bear in mind that any settlement that is not mutually agreed, inclusive and honorable from the Naga peoples’ standpoint will only bring more discord and conflict within the Naga family.
The failure on the part of the Government of India (GoI) to bring about a final settlement to the Indo-Naga conflict has created a serious rift because of the conflict of interest within the Naga people. The unnaturally protracted political talks has created a schism between the idealist and the existential, the older and the younger generation along with the usual East-West-North-South divide, it stated.
This schism is unraveling the fabric of the Naga family thread by thread and threatens to lay us morally and politically threadbare unless we realize that there are far better ways to address our differences than by being blinded by self-righteousness and self-interest and weakening the unity of the people, the Naga Hoho went on to state.
As long as we, the Nagas, fail to present a united front with a strong message to our political adversaries, the GoI will only be too pleased to maintain the current political status-quo in one guise or another, continuing to leave us to languish in a political limbo. Much as we might dislike admitting, the onus for the settlement of the political talks lies with us, the Nagas as much as it lies with the GoI, it said.
Opposes Gau Mahasaba event
Meanwhile, the Naga Hoho took strong exception to the planned “Gau Mahasaba” at Kohima on September 28 as part of a nationwide “Gau Dhwaj Sthapana Bharat Yatra” by a certain Hindu organization. In this context, it lauded the Cabinet decision of the Government of Nagaland to deny permission to hold the said Yatra.
In the Naga custom and tradition, a cow is a livestock that is reared to provide us with meat and milk and assist us in our field works. For the Nagas, cows will be continued to be reared to provide us with the same provisions.
“The organization planning the Yatra are well aware of the fact that there will be opposition to the Yatra in other regions too, not just Nagas, where cows are used as livestock. Such blatant disregard for the rights, traditions, customs and religion of other people may be seen as an effort to incite unrest and conflict along religious and communal lines or as an effort to impose religious and cultural practices of the majority upon the minority and must be condemned by every discerning citizen of India, and not just the affected community,” it stated.
