Khekiye K.Sema IAS (Rtd)
I have heard just about enough of a wide range of unsavory comments being passed by less informed people against the 16 Point agreement signed by our first generation leaders with the GOI which eventually resulted in the formation of the State of Nagaland. The point of conflict is obvious and debates can go on forever in support of or against it. But the ground reality result should have the final sway to the argument.
Granted, from the stand point of those directly involve in the Naga National Movement, it is understandable that this agreement was perceived as a setback to their effort for sovereignty. There is no arguing that it made their task much more challenging. However, it is about time that the Nagas learn to truthfully, sensitively and realistically assess the positive or the negative aspect of a given subject and formulate an unbiased opinion without being blinded by overzealous patriotism. We are not living in a dream world. At the end of the day all efforts of mankind simply boils down to improving the quality and the dignity of existence and we ought to have the decency to count the blessings we have received along the way. Towards this end, our leaders, both in the over ground and the underground, have had to tackle tough choices and make life impacting decisions popular or unpopular. It is therefore important to cultivate a balanced attitude in our understanding and deal with the subject fair mindedly. The in-depth circumstance wherein the 16 point agreement was deemed necessary to define the immediate destiny of the Nagas needs to be understood. Our leaders did not make such a momentous decision casually for self aggrandizement as some self proclaimed patriots accuse. They recognized the all round hardships being faced by our people and knew it was destined for them to shoulder this responsibility with fortitude. They left the long term ramification of Naga Independence to be determined by the National workers while picking up the short term thorny responsibility of easing the immediate burden of our people. They each had their works cut out for them. I can hardly see a reason to default them on this.
I am proud of my Late father Khelhose Sema, who was also a signatory of this agreement. His core belief was to “let the final fate of the Nagas be determined by the end result of the struggle for freedom but in the mean time the Nagas cannot and must not be left behind in our loin cloth while the world around us is moving ahead”. He was a visionary and a realist. He acknowledged the fact that freedom struggle was a legitimate right of the Nagas but was well aware that such a stupendous task was not going to end in a day. They had no choice but to act. In a capsule this sums up the magnitude of the burden that their generation was called upon to bear even at the cost of their lives or being branded as traitors by those directly involved in the National movement. This was no casual self serving decision by any standard. Any fair minded Naga ought to be able to perceive their good intention in preferring a down to earth pragmatic approach where it concerned the immediate well being of our people. Did their action bring the freedom struggle to a grinding halt? You know the answer to that. However difficult the road, leaders like my father sincerely believed that the Nagas deserved every opportunity we could get to upgrade ourselves in all spheres including academic pursuits in order to ably stand on our own feet when the time came for us to take care of our own. Such momentous decision in their time has had a direct positive bearing to what we are today. It is always easier for the spectators to direct a game from outside the playing field as we are prone to doing but for those directly involved in the game, the pressure is entirely different. Let us therefore take closer look and get into the minds of those responsible for the signing of this agreement and see where the unbiased sense leads us to.
What was the actual plight of the Nagas at this stage of our existence in the 50’s? Nagas had already been left out of 3 consecutive five year plan period. Fifteen years is a very long time. While the country was slowly moving forward in various fields of development we were still at war with India. Violation and abuse of human rights by the Indian Army was at its extremities. Our villages and granaries were being torched by the Indian Army to cut off the food chain to the insurgents. Our women were being raped by the horney Indian Army. Our men folks shot for being able bodied. The Indian Army concentration camps called “grouping” were scattered across entire Nagaland where several villages would be herded together like sheep into enclosures unfit even for animal habitation. Many a Naga family lived like animals in makeshift shelters in the jungles just to escape from the Indian Army concentration camps… I and my own family members being one among many. In all of these chaotic surroundings, the only necessary infrastructure that the GOI focused upon was to create inter-district connectivity, not so much for the welfare of the people which was secondary for them, but to serve a more sinister objective of easy Indian troop movement to suppress the insurgency. Beyond this there was hardly anything in Nagaland that would merit mention in terms of development. Our bigger townships like Mokokchung, Zunheboto, Tuensang, Wokha etc were more like overpopulated villages with rudimentary living conditions. Our rural youth had to walk miles and miles of jungle footpath in search of education. Educated Nagas were still a very scarce commodity. The few graduates in the market were unwilling to join the government service for fear of being branded as traitors and targeted. It was a time when they had to literally be induced to take up govt. assignment. (Mr. Unemployment was travelling elsewhere and had still not reached Nagaland then but now that he has tasted Naga hospitality, he has no intention of leaving). There were many others who were forced at gun point to join the National movement. It was a very volatile pressure cooker atmosphere all round. The tough question that our leaders had to wrestle with under a very stormy weather of uncertainty was whether to let the war go on to its final conclusion, even if it took a hundred years, and MEANWHILE DO NOTHING or march with the advancing tide and not be left behind in our primitive state. Our leaders were faced with an extremely difficult choice which could also cost them their lives. Each of them were true Nagas sincerely concerned with the greater well being of their people for which unpopular decisions had to be made. It took a great deal of courage. Unfortunately some, like Dr.Imkongliba, did finally pay with their lives. They were no less patriotic for the greater good of the Nagas as those directly involved in the struggle for freedom in their varied ways. Neither of the two opposing political thoughts therefore, deserves to be so callously condemned without evaluating the sacrifices made and the end result emanating from their actions. Our over ground leaders placed due priority to march with the tide pragmatically while the underground leaders persisted in their struggle for the ultimate rights of the Nagas. It was more like a division of labour between them. Remember that the GOI did not close the Naga chapter with the signing of the 16 point agreement. Due to sustained pressure of the National workers, India finally conceded to the unique history of the Nagas and is now conducting a negotiated settlement. This should sufficiently validate both the adopted approaches as a relevant needed strategy in the right direction. The Nagas have attained a reasonably acceptable intellectual status and advancement in various fields and side by side our final destiny is being negotiated. To my mind both the outcome is as inalienable as the other.
Now, consider these facts on a real time basis. The 16 point agreement established a distinct entity and identity of the Nagas’ existence among the community of States in India. Yes, we could continue harping that it does not measure up to the greater ideal of a complete sovereignty. Be that as it may, lest we are unmindful, remember that even as a State under the Indian Constitution we were clearly apart from the rest of the States in the country for the simple fact that Nagaland was the only State placed under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, GOI (not the Home Affairs), with a special status dispensation of Article 371A. This agreement also envisaged another important issue of integration of all the Nagas under one administrative umbrella. To my mind this was a very far sighted comprehensive agreement that we the Nagas have not had the will to see it through to its logical conclusion even now. The Members of the Legislative Assembly have made feeble noise for integration on several occasions without a follow up action of course. But on the one hand we unmindfully condemn the 16 point agreement which enshrines integration of all the Nagas under the same roof as an important issue and yet on the other vote for those who uphold the same. For goodness sake who are we people? Does this not sound like having a right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing? That aside, if the GOI lacks the will or the courage to make good the agreement, the Govt. of Nagaland should take a legal course of action and let the Supreme Court legally define the agreement for the GOI. India is honor bound to fulfill its’ legal obligation.
I can’t help remembering what I read in a book called “Bury my heart at the wounded knee” about an American Red Indian Chief who said: “The white men made us many promises. They never kept any but one. They promised to take our land and they took it”. This captures the sentiment of the Nagas to a T. India has signed many land mark agreements with the Nagas. They have yet to honorably fulfill any of those commitments in toto. Their only aspiration is to subjugate the Nagas and they are doing everything possible under the sun to sustain this. Now, take a self introspection of ourselves as a people dreaming of sovereignty within our kitchen walls. When all the other affected neighboring States made vehement public display against integration, the Nagas responded with a deafening silence and a complete lack of reaction. Further, we allowed the status of our State to slip from that of a foreign entity to that of a run of the mill home subject. Not a single Naga or NGOs raised a voice against this when our status as a State was altered for all times. Article 371 A affords the Nagas a latitude of independence whereby the Act of Indian Parliament would not apply to Nagaland unless it was ratified by the Nagaland Assembly. Let alone implementing it, we have still not recognized this empowerment after all these years. As a result the draconian laws such as the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSP) have been super imposed on us and accepted lying down. It has still not impacted on the mind of the Nagas despite the fact that it is in total violation of our basic human rights. We have ourselves to blame for our inability to stand on our own feet with a clear vision…and yet we keep on expounding sovereignty while not being able to protect what we already had and have. With an attitude such as this we are headed to a nowhere land.
I have spoken of an extremely difficult choice that our first generation leaders had to make. For greater appreciation and understanding of the consequences of indecision and inaction, let us just assume that our leaders did not have the courage to do what they did and remained ‘patriotic’ as the rest of the Nagas. What then, in your honest opinion, would the present status of the Nagas be like? Take a step at a time with me. Carefully absorb the fact that way back in 1947, Nagas had no independent economic base of our own then or now. The Naga wealth was still defined more on the ancestral yardstick of livestock and food grain reserves available in the rural granaries and not the liquid asset. Even that was all torched by the Indian Army. Barter system was still a way of life in many pockets of Nagaland. That in a nut shell explains the overall status of the Nagas. Now, consider this very carefully. Without the 16 point agreement the State of Nagaland would not have existed. We would have still remained as Naga Hills & Tuensang Area (NHTA) under Govt. of Assam, India, as we were. Understand that the Nagas are still negotiating a political settlement which makes us an undefined entity until the final solution is arrived at. Necessarily no separate fund specifically for Naga Hills & Tuengsang Area would have existed for an all round development. We would have been wrestling with Assam for our share. Development efforts would have been stunted in a war zone as our first generation bureaucrats would testify. Under a full fledged war conditions that we had experienced in the 50’s, academic pursuits was highly restricted to only those who could afford and dared while the rest of our able bodied rural youth had less or no choice but to join the underground movement. Diversified developments that enhanced the overall quality of life that we now enjoy would not have seen the light of day, though some highly patriotic intellectuals spit on it as an Indian development with patriotic contempt even as they dwell in its comforts. The privilege of public and private transport convenience would only be a pipe dream without roads. Like the ancestors, our villagers would have been walking the jungle footpaths to attend to their routine needs. Health care network facilities would not have be sufficient to cater to the needs of our people which would have invariably impacted in the overall population statistic. Educational Institutions would not have been sufficient enough to cater to the rural need. The list can go on and on. The point being made is that nothing tangible would have resulted in a war zone. Such was the picture of harsh reality that our first generation leaders perceived and they could not live with it. Therefore, seeing the desperate and disadvantageous life being lead by our people, they showed the courage to deal with it despite the odds being stacked against each one of them. Even as we harvest the benefits of their daring decision we now turn around and thank them by blowing a highly patriotic trumpet. If the puritanical standard of patriotism is being put on such a harsh judgmental scale as to so nonchalantly write off our first generation leaders as traitors who salvaged our today, Nagas should fervently pray that the Almighty blesses us with more such ‘traitors’. The common man out there needs the honest services of their kind more than ever rather than self proclaimed patriots of no consequence. As for the self professed hyper patriots of today, they should perhaps test their patriotic fever by calling spade a spade and abstain from using the Indian Rupee and anything Indian as a starter. After all is it not way below their patriotic dignity?
Sitting within the confines of our drawing room we can today afford to comfortably point our fingers at all those pragmatic leaders as traitors. Know that some of them have paid with their lives to bring about quality transformation into our fold. They do not deserve our condemnation even if we are not man enough to thank them. Hypocritical patriotism does not serve anyone’s purpose.
So ask ourselves, can we honestly discard all the comforts and conveniences and opt for a loin cloth?
.JPG)
