Political convictions are very diverse and seem increasingly anger-ridden. The rhetoric used to challenge another view has become inseparable from the rhetoric used to attack another person. Consciously or otherwise the media generates feelings of affection or disaffection about people and intellectual debate has been sacrificed at the altar of personalities. The temperature and delirium of our politics has become abnormal because the principle is the missing factor. The suppressed truths of our mistakes have weakened all of us. Our politics has now reduced to a fierce confrontation of hidden agendas. We create fears and greed to resolutely hide our own agendas and attack others for hiding theirs. We seem to think that if the hidden agendas of other factions are exposed to the public, as if Naga problems will be solved. There is a thin line of difference between the legitimate pride of self acceptance and an illegitimate self-exaltation that fosters superiority and alienation. It is in this context that our attention is drawn to the second mood of contemporary society, that pluralization and a search for community as Naga and the evil it begets when it is misunderstood. An opinion is merely preference in a continuum of options. A person may prefer one color to another or one style to another. A conviction, on the other hand, is rooted in the conscience and cannot be changed. In a pluralistic culture, an opinion should not be given the same passion as the weight of conviction. And every conviction held must be done with the clear and required principle. Pluralization is defined as the existence and availability of a number of world-views, each vying for the allegiance of individuals, with no single world-view dominant. We need to evolve the mind that has to make a popular appraisal of what the world believes and then respond culturally to such varying description of reality. It is imperative that Nagas learn to differentiate between opinion and conviction. Every nation needs a challenging aim to struggle for or the people perish. Aspirations, and struggle for them, are both vitally important for the full growth of any people. We Nagas have valiantly struggled for our aims and beliefs, and we have achieved much. It is profoundly moving experience to see all that is happening here today. What we see represents our deeply-felt and desperate attempt to be a people and to match a claim our elders and leaders have made for their people. We are here to open our hearts to one another so that together we may succeed. After many ups and downs, our attachment to our aspirations to become a people and a nation has become a powerful reality, whatever the factional differences may be for the moment. Our struggle has developed out of the sacrifices of all tribes.
When men have learnt not to be frustrated because their wishes are not immediately fulfilled and not to be bitter because the world has proved tougher and more complex than they dreamed then they may be in a mood to value the truth very highly. They honestly seek to find and assert the truth-the kind of truth that does not pretend to be final or authoritative, but to fit the facts as they actually exist. We are talking about the solution or settlement that should be honorable and acceptable for all. When it is honorable then acceptability shall not be a problem. Thus, we have to define, what is honorable? This honorable should be based on truth. Truth is an agreement between the situation and its interpretation and judgment over the interpretation with love is truth. Here the word love is the will to act to nurture the spiritual growth of oneself and others. Truth is the transformation of ‘what can you do for me to what can I do for you’. What is honourable is the unity of all the factions and consult the Naga people for a certain decision for all the Nagas. The restoration of our struggle will be possible only if we all agree to go beyond the present fruitless debate on ‘who is right? And accept a deeper search for ‘What is right? If what is right is your aim and commitment. This is so because God draws the battle line, not the people. Understanding the true meaning of our aspirations and how we are to struggle for them. Can our aspirations be achieved by a few national workers’ sacrificing everything and the rest of us living as we like, waiting for freedom to be brought to us like a picnic which we will enjoy? Has this not been the weakness of our understanding of the meaning of our aspirations so that our struggle has lost its appeal? The big mistakes are made by those who attempt to do big things. Those of us who think we make no mistakes, and so can easily talk about others’ mistakes as I do, perhaps do not dare to do anything. Often the biggest mistakes are forgiven if there is total transparency. Our stoutly defended or hidden mistakes are the log-jam blocking the free flow of the river of understanding, trust, compassion and forgiveness.
Let us examine with what power we are trying to achieve Sovereignty. There are three types of power:
1. Violence
2. Wealth
3. Knowledge of right and wrong.
1. Violence. The most basic form of power is violence, or physical form of power. Might is right is their watchword and it is close to the law of jungle. The basic promise is “do as I tell you and you won’t get hurt. Those who gain the power of violence do so by controlling the mechanisms of physical domination, from armies and police forces to the ownership of specific weapons.
At this level, followers follow out of fear, they are afraid of what might happen to them if they don’t do what they are asked to do. This may be called Coercive Power. The leader in this case has created a fear in the follower that either something bad is going to happen to them or something good will be taken from them if they do not comply. So out of fear of potentially adverse consequences they acquiesce and get along by going along or giving ‘lip service loyalty’ at least initially. But their commitment is superficial and their energies can quickly turn to sabotage and destructive when no one is looking or when thread is no more present.
2. Wealth: Money is a more flexible form of power than violence as it can be exchanged for pretty much anything you want, from goods to services of all kind. A second level of responding suggests that followers follow because of the benefits that come to them if they do. This may be called utility power because the power in the relationship is based on the useful exchange of goods and services. The followers have something the leader wants (time, money, energy, personal resources, interest, talent, support and so on), and the leader has something they want (information, money, promotion, inclusion, security, opportunity and the like). These followers operate with the belief that the leader can and will do something for them if they maintain their part of the bargain by doing something for the leader.
3. Knowledge: Knowledge is the ultimate form of power and can be used to acquire both wealth and violence, if apply in the right way. ‘Knowledge is Power’. Knowledge is the third level of responding, which is different in kind and degree from the other two. It is based on the power some people have with others because others tend to believe in them and in what they are trying to accomplish. They do not try to control others but they have self control. For which they are honoured. They are trusted. They are respected. And they are followed because others want to follow them, want to do what the leaders want. This is not blind faith, mindless obedience or robotic servitude; this is knowledgeable wholehearted, uninhibited commitment, this is Legitimate Power. It is an appeal for our leaders to examine themselves with what power we achieve Peace Accord with government of India and with what power they are dealing with our own people. If they had used the wrong power let them ask forgiveness.
Everyone has experienced this type of power at sometime in their lives, as a follower, in their relationship with parent, teacher, employer, family member or friend who has profoundly and significantly affected their life. Each of these types of power has a different foundation and each leads to different result.
The longer we continue to make the wrong decisions, the more our heart hardens. The more often we make the right decisions the more our heart softens or better perhaps comes alive. With each step along the wrong road it becomes increasingly difficult for them to admit that they are on the wrong road. Evil is dangerous. It will contaminate or otherwise destroy a person who remains too long in its presence. The central defect of the evil is not sin or corruption but the refusal to acknowledge.
Perhaps the best measure of a person’s greatness is the capacity for suffering. To grow, we must learn to discern between that which is self-destructive and that which is self-constructive. Carl Jung wrote, “Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering”. But the substitute can become more painful than the legitimate suffering it was designed to avoid. The neurosis itself ultimately becomes the biggest problem. True to form, many will then attempt to avoid this pain and this problem, in turn, building layer upon layer of neurosis. Fortunately, however some possess the courage to face their neurosis and begin- usually with the help of psychotherapy- to learn how to experience legitimate suffering. In any case, when we avoid the legitimate suffering that results from dealing with problems, we also avoid the growth that problems demand from us. It is for this reason that in chronic mental illness we stop growing, we become stuck. And without growth, without healing the human spirit begins to shrivel.
If we talk about our historical principle, we should live and fight with historical moral and spiritual principle. History proves that the loosening of moral bonds is often the first stage of the disintegration of a civil society as civil societies are built based on moral values. Trying to create a nation without common social values and moral standards is like trying to communicate without a language. A nation’s survival depends upon the ability of its individuals to communicate and to work together in order to accomplish that which cannot b e achieved by a person or group working alone.
Beyond the law of the land, there is a law of humanity which is above the law of the land. If the law of the land is against the welfare of the people, we need to replace that law of the land with a law of humanity. Gandhi said, ‘Cooperation is our duty only as long as government protects our honour. Non-cooperation is an equal duty when the govt. instead of protecting us, rob us of our honour. Now let us do some serious soul-searching and reconstruct a broken Naga with factional leaders at the forefront. As we engage in a war of our own, searching for an identity, the fires of internal conflict that burn within the heart which generates a cloud of cynicism. The world is watching. The winds of political change is the need of the hour which required to redefine the standard of right and wrong. Politics is nothing but the contest of egos. Anyway the expressions that we have are nothing but the mark of liberty. Respect freedom and integrity of every human being. To meet the challenges and solve our problems we need to accept a certain obligation that we live for each other.
Medongoi Rhakho, Research Scholar Department of Economics Nagaland University
