September Dialogue: Repatriation, de-colonisation and healing in Naga context

September 7, 2024 4 Views No Comment

Morung Express News
Dimapur | September 7

“What does repatriation, decolonizing and healing mean in the Naga context? With this contemplation, Dr Dolly Kikon opened the two-day September Dialogue on Naga Repatriation, De-colonization and Healing, which got underway at the Light House Church in Dimapur on September 6.

The event brought together a wide array of audiences ranging from college students, elders, scholars and the casual visitor curious to know what the dialogue holds.

Kikon, who is currently a Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Director of the Centre for South Asian Studies, University of California, explained that the three words of repatriation, decolonize and healing each underscore different meanings. “For me repatriation is an emotional trigger,” she said evoking the past experiences of the Naga people. Decolonize means a process of re-understanding and healing being an ongoing journey.

Kikon mentioned that as a people, Nagas have already been familiar with the practice of repatriation. Taking the recent example where Japanese remains in Kohima were returned back to their home country and erecting a memorial stone, she noted “so we cannot say that for Naga people in the 21st century repatriation is a new word.”

Coming back to the Naga context, the process began not from a particular war but a museum, she said. The Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM) in the United Kingdom that houses the largest collection of Naga human remains about 213 in total. According to Kikon, as repatriation is part of the process of decolonization, so too is it important to know what ‘decolonize’ means. It is the importance of indigenous perspective, to decolonize is to recognize our indigenous history, not be ashamed, she said.

On the journey of healing, Kikon pondered why the Naga collective hurt runs so deep and the anger, hatred and rage even deeper. “Perhaps at the end it is to transcend suffering in our limited time on this earth,” she observed.

Dr Tiatoshi Jamir, Department of History and Archeology, Nagaland University expounding further on the topic noted the impact that Western influence has had on archeology and its study. From his perspective, decolonizing means to engage with the indigenous community and building personal relationships in the study of archeology. This would imply, revisiting one’s own cultural practices, cultural forms and knowledge different from what had been imposed by the West.

As a way forward, he suggested the need for systematic provenance work with the help of experts in identifying the remains, support from the government and holding institutions like PRM in providing resources required to undertake all aspects of the repatriation process, involving the communities, strengthening the exchange of knowledge among students, and changing attitudes towards death and burial practices.

Dr Visier Sanyü, author and professor shared on the topic, “Echoes of the jungle: finding myself in the wilderness.” “Stories are most important tools for building a person, people and a nation,” he remarked. Sanyü gave a poignant retelling of his own personal story from a family that had undergone several upheavals during the first Indo-Naga conflict, to a life overseas far away from home.

Earlier, setting the tone for the dialogue, Rev Dr Ellen Konyak Jamir, coordinator of Recover, Restore and Decolonise (RRaD) gave a brief background of how conversations on repatriation of the Naga remains from PRM began.

“Discussions regarding the possibility of repatriating Naga human remains in the winter of 2020 were the first steps of the journey taken by the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR),” she said.

“We have an opportunity to create a pathway towards the future, to redress and reconcile, and in the process, usher in critical change in our Naga homeland, while honouring our ancestors,” she added.