The Nagas blinked…Post-2018 elections…trends and future dynamics

February 25, 2018 1046 Views No Comment

By Dr. Chubatola Aier

Almost all my life so far, I have listened, seen, felt and waited for the Naga Solution. I have gone through the phase of unstinted patriotism, truly believing that Nagaland is a land “where it feels like heaven, a land made just for you and me.” I have listened to stories from my parents, how in our childhood, they had to forsake our home in the village and flee for safety because both the Nagas and the Indian army had a warrant out for my father.

In 1997, when I submitted my thesis on the ethnographic study of the language situation in Nagaland, my Rajput supervisor remarked that the homeland description is too romantic. In 2007, when with me as Watsu Mungdang President, a delegation of us met with some Assam Rifles officers on their request, you can imagine the raised eyebrows, and even a touch of ostracism. Hobnobbing with the Indian Army? Respectable Naga women do not do that …..

Now it was 2017, and we heard a strong cry, “Solution Not Election!” and also the soft insidious alternative, “Election for Solution.” The tension in the air was palpable. Now our movement is more closer to the Hundred Years War, and the decades of rowing with a leg each in two boats is taking its toll. The pristine clarity of 1929 has become heavily diffused. But there is no doubt in the Naga mind and heart that we need a closure. Would the Framework Agreement finally be the real McCoy for the “honourable Naga solution”?

Moving into 2018, would this be the year when we reach a tipping point? Will Naga solidarity finally converge on a common vision and bring all those ages of military operations, factional fratricide, pleas, promises, and rhetoric to a journey’s end worth all the torture, destruction and sacrifices? I believe we had that moment before us –– shall the Nagas call stronger for a Solution or for an Election? Will the Nagas raise a unified banner!?!! – This critical moment loomed before us, stared us in the face –

And the Nagas blinked.

With this I believe we are moving into a change in dynamics of the Naga ecology and this is why the elections of 2018 and its aftermath are going to be crucial to the shape of our future. With such a momentous blink I do not think our rhetoric and actions are going to remain the same. We cannot afford not to re-evalute either.

In that breathless moment, this little lady who was once so proud to be a Naga also blinked. And in that split second, a vision of the future flashed by. I am not a politician or an economist so I could not see much into those critical areas of a nation’s destiny. But I could see three trends clearly.

–– It may not take fifty years or so to see a good number of the Naga languages extinct and Nagamese installed as the official language of Nagaland.

–– The Naga race of the future will not have the same distinctiveness as we are now.

–– That Nagaland will no longer be a Christian dominant state.

I am a realist and an optimist. I perceive the trends that I cannot withstand; but I will go down fighting.

As we gear up for the polls now, I can only fervently pray to God for mercy and compassion upon us. The leaders in the fray who promise change and development, but have only taken Nagaland literally down the drain in the last twenty years, would they be awakened to an understanding that they hold to ransom a whole a nation for all ages?

That they grow fat today stripping to skin and bones the future? That their lack of vision and action has deadened progressiveness? Will we compromise our faith for a political gambit? We say “Amen” to the call for election of “God fearing” leaders. May we be so blest.

As for the electorate who rail against corruption and the ruin of Nagaland, those who prowl now like wolves, baying for a strip of dead meat, who corner the politicians with unholy demands or else… Let us not coerce ourselves to the road of perdition, let us move out of the “stone age” mentality where elections in Nagaland is concerned. Let us remember that elections are meant to be free and fair, just let each play their game well. Smartphones, marbles and catapults in the same hands just do not gel.

Finally, even if we do not have a Solution, let us live and do to be proud Nagas once again. And I hope and pray that a God given moment may soon arrive which the Nagas shall face with oneness of mind and spirit and not have to look down again.

Dr. Chubatola Aier is the founding Principal, C-Edge College, Dimapur, Nagaland. An accomplished scholar, writer and academician, she has more than 25 years of teaching and administrative experience in higher education.