PEREN, JANUARY 13 (MExN): The Zeliang People’s Organisation (ZPO) Nagaland issued a press statement with regard to the holding of the 8th State Level Mimkut – Mini Hornbill Festival Ahthibung town, Peren from January 15-17.
The statement sought to clarify the ZPO’s stand on what it termed as a perceived move to fuse the holding of the Mimkut festival with the unveiling of the statue of a Kuki personality Lengjang Kuki, who was a signatory to the Naga Memorandum to the Simon Commission in 1929. The ZPO alleged that the two events coinciding points to an “intention to immortalise” Lengjang Kuki’s connection to the Naga Club.
The clarification, however needed here is about the perceptive fusion of the Mimkut festival with the erection and unveiling of the statue of Lengjang Kuki, an Interpreter under the British regime in Ahthibung town itself, and furthermore with the intention to immortalise and catalyst Lengjang Kuki connection to the Naga Club under the programme of the state Government of Nagaland which is but unsupportive of the ZPO.
It maintained that the event cannot be used as an instance to “assimilate” the two communities “just because of the instance Lengjang, inhabitant of Tening in Peren district happened to be a signatory of Naga memorandum to the Simon Commission dated the 10th January 1929.”
“This nature of scheming of things under the appearance of Mimkut festival therefore cannot be ever buttressed…” it stated.
The ZPO however maintained that it is supportive of the state government giving equal opportunity to all citizens. “… And in so much as the elaborately planned Mimkut, the festival of the Kuki people who are living in the ancestral land of the Zeliang people in Peren district is concerned, similarly requires extensive promotion in line with the initiative the Government of Nagaland has taken by introducing the ‘Mini Hornbill Festivals’ in all districts to ultimately culminate at the Hornbill Festival of Kisama, the Heritage village.”
