Mayura Rao
During the pre-independence era, the densely forested and mountainous north-eastern States of India consisted of several tribal ethnicities like Ahoms, Bodos, Kukis, Nagas, Mizos, Meitis, Chakmas, Garos, Kaisis, Maras, Reangs, Ao, Angami, Sema, Lotha, Tangkhul, Konyak, Rengma and Mao, who often warred amongst each other.
The British made good of this situation and brought in evangelical missionaries taking a large number of gullible masses into the Church’s fold, enabling them with a mindset that they were racially and socio-politically different from the generic Indians, and secluded them from the political and social happenings brewing in other parts of India.
Insurgency is a potent tool that can overthrow an existing system through a calculated crackdown of social, cultural and ethnic diversities. It is used to achieve military and political goals against nations or authorities, more so in weaker nations. And rebel movements can be churned out with the slightest fanning of religious, linguistic or ethnic divide that can corrode the national unity and integrity when given a political outlook.
To contain the erring factions, the British bestowed special powers to its armed forces, which not only kept the tribes disconnected from the Quit India movement but also aided the British to loot and take the fierce and feisty tribes as slaves. The presence of the military also helped to keep a check on the Burmese and Chinese.
The British had plans of making the north-eastern hills a crown colony as a nest of imperialism. Hence, they ruled the hills by installing their political pawns acting as regent officers liaising between the British and the local chiefs. However, after the partition of India, the rulers of the north-eastern States acceded to align with India.
But soon, prodigies of communist ideologies with foreign funds, arms, ammunition and massive propaganda, began their invigorated vitriolic demand for a separate sovereign state. This led to the growth of insurgency.
Insurgency is a potent tool that can overthrow an existing system through a calculated crackdown of social, cultural and ethnic diversities. It is used to achieve military and political goals against nations or authorities, more so in weaker nations. And rebel movements can be churned out with the slightest fanning of religious, linguistic or ethnic divide that can corrode the national unity and integrity when given a political outlook.
Hence it is imperative for today’s liberal minded masses to understand the socio-political scenarios that led to the emergence of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act and the significance of it being relevant even today for national security.
The Mizos and the Nagas were a conservative Indo-Mongoloid tribe who could not integrate with the plainsmen owing to language barriers and often thought of themselves as a separate race bound by fears of loss of identity crisis.
The British who befriended and brewed a separatist mindset in them, came up with a script for their indigenous tribal languages and translated the Gospel to them, thereby craftily converting them to Christianity. Thus, the feisty tribes who had ransacked the British troops initially, were now tamed and enslaved to the British, as they were mostly taught by missionary schools.
As per an Inspire magazine report, Mizoram exports one lakh missionaries to the outside world and the Church proudly boasts that they export the Gospel. The Naga Club, started by the British in 1918, led to the formation of Naga National Council around 1945s. The NNC that was purportedly started for solidarity of Nagas and their political upliftment went on to become a representative body of Nagas that demanded a separate sovereign state, although it did not include large factions of other hill men who preferred a separate identity but within the framework of Indian constitution.
The extremist NNC came to be headed by one Angami Zapu Phizo, who was instrumental in instigating and unifying various tribes in revolting for a separate nation of Nagas. Moderates like T Sakhrie who was the secretary in NNC who demanded an autonomous Naga region within Indian Union was murdered at Phizo’s behest.
Until the eve of independence, Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi kept assuring the Nagas of independence. This setting of wrong expectations and mishandling of the situation without any lucid talks of truth irked the rigid Nagas greatly. The NNC was unhappy with this and declared independence, boycotted the Indian general elections and led a parallel Government, calling for referendum. Phizo arranged for plebiscite and when Nehru went for talks in Kohima, he was humiliated, after which action against the NNC was intensified by applying the AFSPA on these disturbed areas of the Naga hills. Police posts were set up and the Army was deployed to take stock of the conflicting situation. The Nagas formed a federal Government, hoisted their own flag, activists formed their own home guards.
As per an Inspire magazine report, Mizoram exports one lakh missionaries to the outside world and the Church proudly boasts that they export the Gospel. The Naga Club, started by the British in 1918, led to the formation of Naga National Council around 1945s. The NNC that was purportedly started for solidarity of Nagas and their political upliftment went on to become a representative body of Nagas that demanded a separate sovereign state, although it did not include large factions of other hill men who preferred a separate identity but within the framework of Indian constitution.
Phizo, who had been arrested for illegal entry in Burma in 1952, later escaped in 1956 via east Pakistan to England and remained there till his death, gaining propaganda from the British and their Indian propagandist counterparts forming newer rebellion movements that kept the Naga movement in the limelight.
By 1963, Nehru succumbed to the insurgent pressures and carved out a new state of Nagaland that had an area of six square miles and a mere population of 3.5 lakhs; the NNC was declared unlawful. But the underground activists continued with their rebellion, so the Indian Government in 1975 came up with the Shillong Accord, as per which the NNC leaders agreed to resolve the Naga problem within the framework of the Indian constitution. But some rebelling factions who sided with Phizo refused to do so and continued their underground rebellion.
The Naga movement that sounded from Kohima, still echoes in other parts of he North-East, clandestinely spreading its virulent wings across the seven sisters. The recent attacks on Adivasis and the brutal attacks on the Indian Army personnel are prevailing proof of the illegal activity still thriving there. Hence, it is becoming upon the Government to secure our borders and keep the AFSPA intact until the missionary-promoted militias controlled.
The propaganda has always been about Nagas, the Church, the Manipuris, Irom Sharmila, and their purported sufferings at the hands of the Amy, but Manipur or Mohendrapura as referred to in the Mahabharata Katha of Dharani Samhita, the place where Arjuna fell in love with princess Chitrangada, is also about people like Rani Gaidinliu who was one of the leading revivalist Naga social reformers and freedom-fighters.
The North-East is not just about the loud anti-national pitch of certain Naga voices but also about the subdued voices of Manipuri Vaishnavite Meitis and Chakmas and Maras of Mizoram. After various evolutions of the Naga club it was the militant organisation called The National Socialist Council Of Nagaland (NSCN) that unified all other insurgent groups under its banner for an armed struggle against the Indian state over Nagas to establish a People’s Republic of Nagaland based on Mao’s ideology. Interestingly, the NSCN, that cries foul about human rights violation, has slogans like ‘Nagaland for Christ’, embedded in its manifesto where socialist doctrines are sought for economic solution under a spiritual refuge.