The pursuit for Naga unity is a discourse often framed in terms of political accords, administrative structures and collective good. Yet, beneath these necessary outlines lies a more profound and perhaps more challenging, question, what is the spiritual and emotional foundation upon which any sustainable unity must be built? Increasingly, there is a sense that the value of ‘love’ far from being a mere sentimental notion, which is best understood through the demanding practices of forgiveness and reconciliation. Without this deeper groundwork, unity risks being a fragile shell, vulnerable to the fractures of past criticisms.
The Naga experience is marked by a profound duality, village-level love and solidarity coexisting with the historical and political divisions that have hindered a broader collective identity. This love for one’s own clan, tribe, and status, is a source of great strength. However, the imperative to build an inclusive Naga identity asks us to extend that same ethic of care beyond familiar boundaries. The reconciliation is not between love and identity, but between the love we already practice and the larger identity, we aspire to achieve. It requires translating the protective, nurturing love into a transformation, reconciling love for the other Naga, the one across the river, across the political divide, across the page of history where hurt was written.
This is where forgiveness ceases to be a purely private virtue and becomes a public, civic necessity. The wounds of conflict, betrayal and violent division are not erased by mere political compromise.
They aggravate in memory, poisoning new generations with old hostility. A unity built on suppressed grievance is a unity in name only. True reconciliation, the conscious, wilful turning toward one another in acknowledgment of a shared, painful past and a determinedly shared future, is the only process that can forge bonds strong enough to hold. It is the practical enactment of ‘love’ in the civic sphere, a love that chooses understanding over vengeance, shared destiny over solitary triumph.
This understanding leads us to the most pressing question, what can be done? The task is not solely for leaders at negotiation tables, it is a responsibility distributed across every layer of the society.
For the individual, the attainable step is honest and courageous conversation. It means deliberately engaging with someone from a different Naga community, not in debate or dispute, but in shared storytelling. It is to ask, “What is your story?” and to listen, especially to the chapters of pain. It is the micro-work of building human bridges, one relationship at a time.
For the church, which holds immense moral influence, the step must move beyond prayers for unity to becoming a proactive arena for reconciliation. This can take the form of creating structured, facilitated ‘dialogue circles’ within and between congregations, where members from diverse backgrounds and even opposing political leanings can meet in a neutral, spiritual space to voice hurts and seek forgiveness, guided by the core Christian principle of grace.
For student unions and youth organisations, the action lies in intentional exchange and shared purpose. Unions can initiate events where members spend time in villages or towns of other Naga communities, not as tourists, but as learners and contributors, working together on community service. This builds unity not through abstract discussion, but through shared labour and lived experience.
For civil society organisations, the step is to become institutional architects of reconciliation. They can develop and promote a Naga narrative, a sustained multi-year effort to collect and publish shared histories, testimonies and aspirations from every corner of the Naga homeland. This creates a common creation of belonging that acknowledges complexity but emphasises interconnection.
The path to a genuine, inclusive Naga identity is strenuous. The love we speak of is not a passive feeling but an active, sometimes painful, choice to forgive, to reconcile, and to embrace a ‘we’ larger than we have ever known. It is the spiritual groundwork without which no structure of unity can long endure. Let us begin this work, not tomorrow, but today, in our hearts, our pews, our unions and our communities. Our future unity depends on the foundation we lay now.
