I really don’t relish the practice of having a duel in a public Newspaper over personal matters as the common man wants to read about important public issues rather than the opinions of two duelers in public space. But since you have challenged me twice through the public media, I am constrained to give this second rejoinder for the sake of the public who might have read your allegations against me. First of all, I do not know who you are. Also in the western culture, there may be many Robert A. Silversteins. I did search for your identity through the internet, but it seems what I found was another person with exactly your same name. (As for the source of my information - a factor upon which you are bringing all the charges against me-go to Google and type out “Who is Robert A. Silverstein?”) The following are some facts pertaining to your allegations against me.
1. Our conviction of Naga nationhood and Naga nationalism is not based on some modern or post modern Philosopher’s idea of what a nation should be. In other words it is not based on Isaiah Berlin’s ideas of history and what a nation should consist of, in accordance to his idea. It is also not based on the Cambridge educated Nehru and his idea of a conglomeration of nations coexisting as one nation under an umbrella called “Unity in Diversity”. On the contrary, our conviction of our nationhood is based on the solid facts of our historically inhabiting our lands for centuries as a distinct nation. Yes, like all other nations in the world, our Naga nation also evolved from families to clans to tribes and on to a nation and ultimately a nation state on August 14, 1947. Throughout all our history, ours was a unique political system where every village was a sovereign democratic Republic with its own private land ownership system and its own democratic laws to govern the village republic. And in that sense, our villages were our worlds in the same sense that an Englishman called himself a Londoner and a German called himself a Berliner in yesterday’s European history of villages. And just like the Europeans, we also sometimes fought among ourselves, but in times of foreign aggression into our Naga lands, we always rallied together and fought back. If you have read my book, you should have come across all these details of our concrete history which is not based on Kaka’s “unconfirmed opinions”.
2. With regard to our letter of Information to the UN about our declaration of Independence, I am simply stating a fact and not the contents of the UN’s reply because I never read it. The actual letter of acknowledgement, I believe, will be in my grandfather A.Z. Phizo’s documents which unfortunately have been taken away by an Englishman and kept in Scotland. (Here again I have to explain to you that Phizo is my grandfather because he was my father’s real maternal uncle. But in our culture we do not have a term called Grand uncle, hence grandfather Phizo.) As for sending of the telegram to the UN headquarters in New York, it was sent by my paternal uncle, late Vichazelhou Iralu, with the fees for the telegram paid by John Viswedel of Viswema village. All these details of hoisting our flag on 14th August 1947 were told to me verbally by my late elderly maternal uncle, Vilekho Peseyie of Jotsoma village. He was personally there throughout the ceremony. As for more details of our independence declaration, see “The Naga Chronicle” compiled by V.K. Nuh, p.115. As for confirmation of other stories in my book, go to the villages of Nagaland that I have mentioned in my book and ask them whether the details are true or not.
3. As for your allegation that in my writings, I am “thus encouraging the reader to feel strongly negative feelings towards Indians that the latter may not deserve today,” allow me to say that some Indians are still doing to us what their predecessors did to us yesterday in the 1950’s. For example on March 5, 1995, an Indian Army convoy, mistaking the tyre burst of one of their own vehicles to be an ambush by the Naga army, stated firing and bombarding Kohima town. This orgy of violence resulted in the death of 7 innocent civilians and serious injuries to another 32 civilians. All these heinous acts are committed under the protection of The Armed Forces Special Powers Act of 1958 which have been in operation from 1958 to the present.
But whatever they may still be doing to us even today, allow me to state that I myself was seriously beaten twice by my own fellow Nagas when I tried to save the lives of two civilian Indians who were nearly beaten to death over some flimsy reasons. As for my book, I personally went to Delhi and presented copies of my book to the Prime Minister, President, Home Minister, Defense Minister, Minister of Planning and also the Director of the Intelligence Bureau of the Government of India on 15th October 2000. I had also presented copies of the book to all the surviving Prime Ministers and Presidents of India besides many Indian Military Officers.
Finally, if you want to carry on the duel after this, than write to me privately or come to my house publicly and ask your questions to my face so that we do not waste public time any further.
My email address is kakairalu@rediffmail.com. With all good wishes, Kaka D. Iralu
