Today I’d like to ponder a bit about what it means to be ‘Naga’, or at least what that means to us. The word ‘Naga’ is as foreign to us as the words Angami, Sema, Hatigoria Kalyo Kengus, etc. but I guess what I’m looking for is the ‘essence’ of Nagas. We are still people whether we are defined or not, whether we have a name for ourselves indigenous or otherwise. One of my quests has been to find cultural affinity among the Naga people. From there I hope to find some objective answers or missing links that can connect what can be our identity. It doesn’t matter if we don’t have a name for ourselves, a collective national identity (prior to British, Indian occupation) or if we do not know where we even came from. I’m sure we’ll meet a lot of people and nations far more confused than us. My attention is drawn closer to the relations and inter-relations from village-level that we have established, between communities (now known as tribes) or our relation to the land more than anything else. This is an area that has lacked extensive introspection or study, I believe, and it is perhaps something that we ourselves can remedy. Anyway, it is an ongoing process for me and a very interesting one at that. I’ll probably fill you in of its end result when I get there.
What does it mean to be Naga?
Here again I find the word ‘Naga’ somewhat foreign; not indigenous to my mother tongue or with familiarity. However it has been an identity wrought upon us since the colonial days, which slowly evolved into a collective nomenclature and even made more concrete during the Indo-Naga conflict. Nowadays the word ‘Naga nationalism’ is synonymous to a collective Naga identity or a struggle of the ‘Naga’ people against occupation, and for freedom. Have we evolved? Have we stepped out from our villages, khels, clans to embrace a bigger identity? If we even go back about 2 centuries that idea of a collective identity was inexistent and therefore I believe we have acclimatized to a broader identity or even the world outside these hills. Yet I do not really wish to go into detail the evolving or assessment of the Naga identity, or Naga nationalism for that matter. I’d rather look into the essence of being Naga, what we interpret or how that identity has evolved within us (Maybe I will contemplate on Naga identity one day but I will leave that for another day). I think an answer lies there if we should dig a little deeper; especially in these confusing times where the outside world influence us in both positive or negative ways and strife among ourselves is a common phenomenon. So I’d like to write about that today, however, a small introduction seemed necessary as ‘Naga’ connote a loose term; although still our definition. A nomenclature and identity we carry with us.
On an internet blog a question was asked to me: ‘If you could change something about the Nagas, what would it be and why?’ and many thoughts came to me. I want to change factional killings and factions, I want to change tribalism, corruption, complacency, society’s point of view. But somewhere it struck me that the root-cause is not in these attributes that perhaps all these are coming from a deeper scar. My thoughts stayed, rather, on how we actually see ourselves. What/how do we see ourselves? Many times people have been asked; ‘why, why have the Nagas become like this?’ and I ardently feel that that answer lies somewhere between how we see ourselves and also the circumstances we have undergone, that these two are somehow interconnected too. Our interpretations of ourselves have evolved influencing society, our communities, our ideas, down to our families. I went to visit KRIPA some days back and although there were other people from other north-eastern states I felt a deeper connection to the desolation and frustration among the Naga inmates there. I could also feel my own sense of loss for that matter, of relatives lost to drug addiction or alcoholism, their struggle and our anguish in losing them. Somehow everything was more amplified and more real, our society’s decimation, in a place like KRIPA. Perhaps our interpretations of ourselves begin from the individual level, in families, communities, neighborhoods and lives.
The better parts of ourselves
What does it mean to be you or me? I know we are facing a lot of influences from outside: western influence, Korean influence, soon it could be Indonesian, Thai influence we never know. But I think some reflection needs to start with us too, and if things must let outside influences define and re-define our perceptions of ourselves as well.
To leave out the ‘Naga’ sense of humor in defining ‘Naga’ is perhaps presenting a very incomplete picture of Naga. In this way smaller details like our way of life- its simplicity, our integrity which is being threatened by corruption and the need for greed are also an essence if not the foundation of our identity. In that way the integrity of our forefathers and the fear of retribution if we failed to abide by them is still a lesson relevant for our present day and age, I believe. We have been called many names: ‘savage head-hunters’, ‘barbaric tribes’, secessionists, insurgents, extortionists, corrupted. But besides what are negative about Nagas, what is Positive about Nagas? Leave aside ‘Naga’ I want to talk about individual you. How do you see yourself, what are you, do you know your history? I talk to you, Youth, as I talk to you 70 year old grandfather/grandmother, 30 year old married woman and with three kids. How do you see yourself? Are you happy to be you? Have you ever wondered about that; your own uniqueness? Then from there define or re-define yourself from under a clan, khel, village, to your tribe, to your geographical area, to being ‘Naga’, to being a part of India even. It truly is ‘unique’, isn’t it?
