Robert A Silverstein
New York, USA
I intend here to address two articles, one by Kaka Iralu titled, “A response to Silverstein,” dated November 1, 2016 (a response to an earlier article by me), and Kevitho Kera's, titled, “Patriotism is it still burning?,” dated November 6, 2016.
It is first necessary to summarize the position I've taken in recent articles on the Naga nationalist issue. It is my contention that the government of India (GoI) not only will not grant the Naga people a sovereign nation, but it cannot do so. I've taken this position since the first article of mine published in Nagaland, in The Morung Express, on April 4, 2016. I also contend that, after negotiating with the NSCN(IM) for almost 20 years, if the GoI offers the Naga people something less than a fully sovereign nation, and the Naga people, through their leaders and activists, or on their own (for instance, in a plebiscite), reject that offer, that the GoI will lose patience with the Naga people and crush them militarily, finishing the job it started in the 1950s and '60s.
It should be noted that no activist who has responded to these contentions by me has ever denied that I am right. Instead, he or she simply rattles off all the reasons, historically, politically, religiously (God wants the Nagas to have a sovereign nation), and morally, that the Nagas deserve such a sovereign nation. My argument has always been, from that very first article last April 4th, that I am not addresing the merits of the Naga claim; in fact, I presume that the Naga claim is meritorious. I simply state that the GoI cannot grant the Nagas a sovereign nation no matter what the merits of the Naga claim.
Keeping in mind the above, I want to quote short segments from the two articles that I am addressing here. First, to Iralu, and a short detour. In an article by Iralu dated October 28, 2016, in its closing paragraph, he states, “Political suppression with economic gifts by India is what is destroying Nagaland today.... “[O]nly a totally unpatriotic man … would wallow in the enemy's gifts of seductions to subjugate him.” In an article by me dated October 31, 2016, responding to the October 28th article, I state, in part, referring to the benefits offered to the Naga people because of their status as a scheduled tribe, “Is it 'wallowing' to want your children to have a good education and a good job? Are all the individuals who accept these things 'totally unpatriotic'?”
Finally to Iralu's November 1st article, where he states, “In my own small way, I too have been offered many things but have consistently refused these offers because I do not want to betray my own people an 'wallow in the enemy's gifts.'” But the significant point about this last sentence is, Iralu is not talking about betraying his own LIVING people, because he already has accused them of being “unpatriotic” because they “wallow in the enemy's gifts of seductions ….” He is talking about all the DEAD Nagas who lost their lives in the 1950's and '60s, and since, fighting for the nationalist cause whose deaths would have been in vain if Iralu and others who think like him accept any arrangement with the GoI other than a sovereign Naga nation.
In other words, Iralu is putting the dead ahead of the living, even if to do so would lead to the slaughter of the living. Now to quote the relevant words of the Kera article. “Naga National workers [seemingly referring to those Nagas who accepted jobs as a benefit of being a member of a scheduled tribe] now have become lazy and fat, wallowing in Indian money.
“Nagas now drive luxury cars, lives [sic] in palatial bungalows, wear branded clothes and what not.... “With this false sense of Peace, security an stability India has corrupted us both materially and mentally.... We are seeing the rise of a generation who cares less about out birthright; to be free people. India and Myanmar is [sic] so happy that young Nagas now don't care about being a free Nation. India and Myanmar's goal of a divided Naga family can be seen.” Now let us be clear what Kera is really saying. He views all those who have accepted the benefits of being a scheduled tribe as “lazy and fat, wallowing in Indian money.” Moreover, they “drive luxury cars, lives [sic] in palatial bungalows, wear branded clothes, and what not.”
The first question we should ask Kera is, What group of people do you spend your time with? Because during my four previous trips to Nagaland since May 2015, I have gotten to know a number of families who received and are receiving their education, and have jobs, due to their status as a member of a scheduled tribe. And none of them, not a one, is “lazy and fat, wallowing in Indian money.” Nor are they driving “luxury cars,” nor are they living in “palatial bungalows.” They all live modestly and own, if they do own a car, a modest one. Perhaps Kera is spending time with those at the top of the food chain in Nagaland, that is, those who are corrupt and have power. But those are not the people I know nor are they the majority of the Nagas who have taken advantage of the benefits offered them as members of a scheduled tribe.
And now I want to get to my main point. And it is not that Iralu and Kera have contempt and feel disgust for the average Naga. Those things are obvious. The main point is that, with this attitude, shared by all activists who are obsessed with the demand for a sovereign Naga nation, we can see why the activists care more about the dead Naga heros of the past than about the “fat and lazy” Nagas of the present, and are willing to demand a sovereign nation, even in the face of the possible destruction of the Naga people by the GoI. After all, to the activists, the average Naga alive now is dispensable, not worthy of living in the face of their demand for a sovereign nation. Nationalism is a concept; the Nagas are a living people. The activists are at peace with sacrificing the Naga people for the concept of a nation. It's as simple as that.
But that does not end the conversation. Alexander Herzen, one of the great Russian revolutionary thinkers of the 19th century, had relevant things to say on the topic of sacrificing the living for a concept not yet in existence. First, I want to quote a world-famous political philosopher, Sir Isaiah Berlin, someone I was fortunate enough to have tutorials with at All Souls College, Oxford, in the fall of 1979. He had this to say about Herzen's views on this subject: Berlin said that Herzon “voiced a deep distrust (something most of his allies did not share) of all general formulae as such…and …of the great, official historical goals—progress, liberty, equality, NATIONAL UNITY, historic rights, human solidarity—principles and slogans in the name of which men had been, and doubtless would soon again be, violated and slaughtered, and their forms of life condemned and destroyed.” (My capitals.)
Gary Saul Morson, reviewing a book on Herzen in a recent issue of The New York Review of Books (November 24, 2016, at page 48) states, “Most famously, the skeptic [here referring to Herzen] anticipates the dangers of continually sacrificing present people for the sake of a utopian future [in our case, the illusion of a sovereign Naga nation] that may never come. After all, utopian thinkers [like Iralu and Kera] reason, no finite sacrifice is too great for an infinite payoff. The skeptic counters: we must recognize that EVERY MOMENT, LIKE EVERY CULTURE, AND EVERY PERSON, IS AN END IN ITSELF.” (My capitals.)
Finally, the words of Herzen himself. “If progress is the end, for whom are we working? Who is this Moloch [a Semitic god to whom children were sacrificed] who, as the toilers approach him, instead of rewarding them,only recedes, and as a consolation to the exhausted, doomed multitudes...can give back only the mocking answer that after their death all will be beautiful on earth? Do you truly wish to condemn all human beings alive today to the sad role of ...wretched galley slaves, up to their knees in mud, dragging a barge filled with some mysterious treasure and with the humble words 'progress in the future [in our case, a sovereign Naga nation in the future] inscribed on the bows?...This alone should serve as warning to people: an end that is infinitely remote is not an end, but, if you like, a trap; an end must be nearer—it ought to be, at the very least, the laborer's wage, or pleasure in the work done.”
Beware of the activists of Naga nationalism: their dream of a future sovereign Naga nation is in reality the graveyard of living Nagas.
