Kaka D. Iralu
He was a recipient of the President’s Award Medal in 1982. He was also awarded the Long Service certificate in March 1996. The Naga Army Certificate was awarded to him in January 1991 and the National Certificate in August 1997. He was finally awarded the Military Cross in March 2006 for his gallantry in both war as well as in peace time. He was born in 1935 and throughout all his youth and old age; he faithfully served the Naga nation until he breathed his last in Kohima on April 8, 2016. He bore the Naga army serial number 10634.
I am sure many denizens of Kohima town had seen him, but most of them would not have known that he was a Lieutenant Colonel of the Naga Army. This was because, like many of his compatriots, he too was reduced to a rag picker who sold his collections to support himself in the twilight of his distinguished military career. But on every national day, he would always be there with all his medals and rank displayed in his proud uniform.
He came from a proud military family of Chaonamai village in the Sub-Region of Lepaona, Shepoumaramth Region. And though he had met a lot of tragedies in his life, he continued to serve the nation. On Oct 4, 1990, his own elder brother Hiipinii, who was a member of the Central Executive Council of the N.N.C. was beaten to death by the NSCN IM at his own village. His younger brother Lieutenant Veinii was again shot to death by the IM in Dimapur on Aug.17, 1997. His nephew Sgt. Major Kennedy was again beaten to death by the IM on Sept.27, 2013 at Zhaiphao village. He too was beaten into a pulp by the same NSCN IM on March 6, 1991 while he was serving as Commander of the A Company, 11 Battalion, 4th Brigade, Naga Army. Hospitalized for over a month, he never fully recovered from that ordeal and became slightly mentally imbalanced after that beating.
But in spite of these tragedies, he carried on his duties as a Naga army personnel. For those who knew him, he was known for his defiant act of carrying the Naga national flag and running all over Kohima town on most Naga Independence Day of 14th August. He was again and again caught by both the Indian army as well as the Nagaland Police. In one of his arrests and imprisonment at the Central Jail in Kohima, after two days of incarceration, when the Police released him, he refused to leave unless his uniform and Flag were returned to him. Though the Police had opened his cell and he was pulled out, he wrestled himself free and went back into the cell. He was so adamant and stubborn that the Police had to finally drag him out of his cell and also the police gate and close the gate from inside. In another arrest, as he was being taken to jail, he jumped from the police vehicle and disappeared below the road! His flag hoisting on Naga Independence Day in other places was also equally heroic. At times in our protracted struggle, when all Nagas were scared to even posses the national flag, he would secretly wrap it around his waist and in the dead of the night hoist the flag in villages, including even near Indian Army camps.
When we made a documentary film about his flag exploits in 2009, we had instructed him that the flag he would carry across Kohima town should be handed over to the Police when they come. But when that scene was being filmed at the BOC junction, he refused to hand over his flag and stated to kick the Policemen when they tried to grab the flag from him. As a result, the film ended in a better note than was originally planned! When this documentary film was screened in an international film festival in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu in 2012, the audience was so moved by his devotion to the Naga national flag that among 371 films shown from all over the world, his film was the only one screened twice. Nagas did not give him any recognition on his death, but at least, an international audience gave him a round of ovation on that day.
Today, that proud flag bearer of our nation is no more but in his life time; he never surrendered our national flag to either the Indian Government or its puppet Nagaland State Government. My own life has been enriched for having known this old Naga patriot from the older generation. He was an un-educated Naga soldier but his patriotism was not confined to the parameters of his village or region alone. He was a Naga patriot who thought that the whole of Nagaland was his village and his country.
Lieutenant Colonel N.G. Reihii was our National Flag Bearer and he never surrendered our flag to the enemy in his lifetime. Rest in Peace, uncle Reihii for one day your sacrifices for the nation will surely bear fruit.
