My friend Kaka Iralu has replied to my article titled “Life versus truth and justice,” by stating principles which I agree with completely. The last three sentences of his article state, “The choice is tough but compromise is neither the answer nor the way out. Life indeed is precious, but life without freedom and liberty is slavery to evil and injustice. I will therefore, rather than choosing compromise and exploitation, choose liberty and freedom-whatever the cost. (My emphasis.) The topic I'm going to briefly address here is worth weeks of discussion in seminars and conferences. I have encouraged the publisher of The Morung Express, to have a public discussion on this and related topics after I get back to Kohima on February 5, 2017. Such a public discussion would be invaluable, not just as an academic exercise, but as something fundamental to the debate on the Naga demand for a sovereign nation.
Here is my side of the debate, in brief. Where Kaka is not just wrong, despite his strong principles which I agree with, but fatally wrong in where he and other activists are leading their people, is how you choose to define “freedom and liberty... slavery to evil and injustice.” (See his quote, above.) It is my contention, that from the very beginning of this debate, in 1947, that the Naga people have defined slavery and injustice in relation to their demand for a nation state. All of history following this view of events has led to everything to this day, including the atrocities of the Indian army.
When India was declared independent, there were approximately 550 princely states making up India. Muslims of Kashmir and Sikhs of Punjab never were at peace with India taking them over and the result has been chaos and bloodshed. Hyderabad and certain other princely states chose, after, or without, conquest by the Indian army, to accept the inevitable, and are now prosperous and, I would contend, relatively free. I say, “relatively,” because poverty, the criminal justice system, the caste system, and more, has caused substantial injustice for millions in India. But not a complete lack of “freedom and liberty,” nor “slavery to evil and injustice.” Things are imperfect, yes, as they are in many countries, including my own (the USA, with its racist criminal justice system and much more).
But I think Kaka has chosen to use terms in their starkest meanings, and therefore have turned those words into lies. If one ever studied any authoritarian or totalitarian nation, whether Nazi Germany, the USSR under Stalin, or many of the lesser dictatorships that have existed, and still exist, in Africa and elsewhere in the world, one should be clear that India is not them, not even close.
If you define your terms so broadly that it is self-serving, that your definitions bootstrap your argument, that is, by defining your terms in such a way that your conclusion is determined to come out the way you want it to, then that is intellectually dishonest and, in relation to public debate, demagoguery.
Here's the truth as I see it. The Naga people are in fact treated badly, but much more so by their fellow Nagas than by the Indian government! The Nagaland state government and bureaucracy is thoroughly corrupt, the NSCN-IM coerces “taxes” out of the people, the police are useless or worse, not protecting the average Naga from extortion by Naga gangs who use the label “nationalism” to justify their brutality.
It is in the best interest of the Naga people to focus on the facts on the ground, not on the principles which have been repeated so often by all activists in every article and book on the nationalist cause that the truth of their situation is no longer recognizable to themselves or to the people whom they choose to lead and guide.
For the moment, let the debate rest here. It should be picked up at length down the road, hopefully when I'm there in person when a panel can, in front of the general populace, argue for the truth as they perceive it to be.
Robert A. Silverstein
