Rev Dr Phuveyi Dozo
Naga United Village
Uniqueness of the Land
The pre-Christian religion of the Nagas was a Judeo-Animism. The ancestors of the Nagas were arguably believed to be a people who became Jews during Queen of Xerxes, Esther (8:17) eventually who were deported, migrated or waved to their present homeland through Mongolia and China. Practicing a religion and culture closely similar to that of the Jews (practices common in Torah), they accepted the Gospel, the message of Messiah, beginning from 1872.
Hence, from time immemorial, monotheistic faith, the faith of Abraham, became the faith of the Nagas with the Bible as their spiritual heritage. Majority of the population of the land became adherents of biblical faith with church buildings in conspicuous points in every village to worship God. It is a clean faith as it points towards an uncontested single God who is both transcendent and immanent. The followers follow a non-violent path of peace. It is a vertical faith with believing heart.
Preserving Identity
‘A secular country’ does mean ‘suppressing and destroying the identity and uniqueness of a people.’ Rather a secular nation has freedom and provision for a people to choose and protect its distinctiveness. Nagas have fundamental right to be free from external socio-religious ideological indoctrination. Protecting our faith in God and preserving our unique culture has nothing to do with the issue of secularism while living in peaceful coexistence with others. It is high time for people to raise their voice to protest against elements that will eventually harm and detrimentally diminish our distinct values. The following measures relate to necessity of preserving and promoting the distinct values of the people:
1. A Land of Bible
A land of church buildings means ‘Bible.’ The boys and girls of the soil have fundamental right to know the foundation of their faith. In so doing, categorically, our youth will differentiate the biblical truth from hypothetical doctrines such as BigBang, evolution and relativistic ideology against spiritual truth. Furthermore, education with biblical insight will generate maturity in civic exercise of sanctity of election and good and evil sense of liquor effect. Building relationship with the Creator will mitigate the intensity of social evils by promoting honesty, loyalty and maturity. Therefore, it is high time for Nagaland to introduce Bible literatures into education system in schools as grass-root foundation of the magnitude of the ladder of our destiny.
2. A Land of Yoga Alternative
Nagas have their cultural fashion based on ethic oriented exercises of dance, yelling and lyrics for every occasion, wrestling, and incantation modes, traditional chanting, and praying gestures which are equally yoga alternatives. The practice of Yoga is honestly a gesture of Hindu fundamentalism and is educationally and culturally irrelevant to the souls of the land. In view of such an unwelcomed and un-secular fashion, mandatory enforcement and imposition of Yoga may be exempted for Christian students and youth in the land. Exclusion of Yoga in schools for Christian children will not be a loss to academic and physical fortune. Or, yoga may be relevantly contextualized under an appropriately indigenized model like Discipline Day, Cultural Day, Prayer and Fasting Day based on the Bible.
3. A Land of Natural Sanctity
Value of natural sanctity is still in existence. Nagaland must have a code or a yardstick for unscrupulous influx of infiltration in the absence of entry restriction. Having a basis, Nagas have right to declare a charter for outsiders flowing to Nagaland to comply with. Continuing the present rate of unrestrained entry of outsiders will thoroughly destroy the beauty of the land in a couple of decades from now. Sharing resources with others is different from pollution by massive infiltration. Clean natural eco-environments such as hills and mountains, rivers, bridge milieus and meadows, and exotic and scenic beauties must be free from defilement and desecration with scary images of religious idols and statues, and representations of religious deities, and even building prayer centers and houses at the expense of panoramic scenery. It is a crime to destroy the peaks, tops and roofs of our mountains and hills. The wealth of Nagaland is its natural intactness.
4. A Land of Liquor Prohibition
The Bible has a message for people involved in deliberate violation against human morality and value. The Act of Total Liquor Prohibition becomes an opportunity to thrive income for bootleggers. But the Bible says that swine never know what is right (Matt 7:6), he who blinds others shall be thrown into water with millstone in his neck hung (Luke 17:2), and doing against good is committing sin (James 4:17). Regrettably, spurious synthesis kills many gifted people. Why should a land of Christians mock God and tempt people to go against what is beautiful, healthy and right? Regret will be irreparably too late to repair the generation.
A land of uncontrolled flow of alcohol is like a Dead Sea which is unfit for fish and aquatic animals to live. God wants a healthy posterity and souls yet to be born (Psalms 22:30,31). Free flow of liquor into Nagaland is legally and psychologically prevented by the Act of prohibition. Our early leaders prayed to God. And God orchestrated and superintended Nagaland government to enact Prohibition in response. We cannot theologize the act of God as the same God operates today. Tragedy comes when the foundation of the ladder is removed. Lifting the prohibition under the pretext of modern relevance may bring generational disaster and high nightmare of side affect. Is it not better to save our teeming generation than perishable income from killing liquor?
5. A Land of Aspiration
From time immemorial, Nagas were a people free from a ruling dynasty, monarchical or feudal system, and an external control. Each village is a democratic sovereignty. Therefore, ‘freedom’ is the inherited blood of every Naga. Alongside, a structural solution, the Nagas need a textile aspiration of psycho-spiritual freedom by a strong faith in God, socio-psychological integrity by honesty and loyalty, economic self-sufficiency by hard working, and national uniqueness by a united heart with a strong principle.
Furthermore, the aspiration of Nagas goes far beyond a geo-ethnocentric boundary with a territorial solution we talk about at present. The world is a common place and the Nagas must be able to live anywhere on the surface of the world, but only if they are willing to work hard and honestly live in peace with others and in competent professions. Who can stop Nagas from going to West, East, North, and South? Aspiration means ‘application of values and qualities of Nagas’ for the world to trust and welcome us.
What the Psalmist said (33:12) is true when said,
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people He has chosen as His own inheritance.”
God bless Nagaland!
.JPG)
