For close to 190 years at a stretch starting with the British colonial project and followed by their present political subjugation both within and without, the Nagas have not been able to freely express and exercise their self-determining capacities as peoples. For most of these 190 years the outcome has been war, militarization, oppression, domination, suffering, trauma and destruction that fragmented human lives.
Yet, in the midst of this, there are Naga stories of courage, resistance, dissent, forgiveness, healing, spirituality, the desire and will to become fully human, the ability to appreciate the gifts of life, laughter and the eagerness to seek peace at every given opportunity. Nandita Haksar, a lawyer in the Supreme Court of India, says anyone wanting to understand the Naga spirit should “read Asterix and Obelix, about the little Gaul village which defied the Roman Empire.”
However, the present Naga discourse on the past is disempowering and static. The tendency to dwell on selective memory and events with different interpretations and narrations has created a situation in which the past is being viewed through parochial lens. Consequently, Nagas are either glorifying the past or trying to run away from it. This has created conditions where Nagas are unable to critically learn from the experiences of their past.
As a result, Nagas are rarely talking about the future and because their discourse has become past-centric, they find themselves reliving the past. Indeed, Nagas have stopped dreaming and there is the danger that their past may also become their future. To avoid such a catastrophe, Nagas need to embrace not only what they like, but also what they don’t like. It involves embracing what they agree with, as well as, what they don’t agree with. Only when Nagas are able to embrace fully, then the healing can begin, and the pathway to a shared future becomes possible.
There is a pressing need for self awareness and self realization and it is this mindfulness that creates a praxis of reflection and action, which will empower the people to grow with confidence and strength. It implies not being reactionary, self-righteous or self-justifying to their challenges. Rather, the process of mindfulness along with the praxis of reflection and action needs to inform a foundation for developing critical thinking processes and analytical approaches and perspectives.
The critical thinking becomes necessary to constructively engage and dialogue by transcending the past so that it may lead to healing the burdens of history, reconciling with each other, decolonizing the minds, telling stories from Naga perspective for their own purposes so that it enables them to work towards a future, one in which all peoples are fully human.
Such critical thinking is crucial in identifying and taking the positive elements of Naga culture and traditional wisdom and applying it in the present day context. The Naga attitude and perspective towards the past should be liberating for the human spirit and not being chained to it. This requires developing a natural praxis based on the idea that the freedom of one is absolutely connected to and dependent on the freedom of the other; because when one is unfree, no one can claim to be free.
