Remnant of imposed election in Nagaland…replacing corrupt system…restoring people’s sovereignty only hope…

Replacing the imposed corrupt political system and creating a new system based on our own Naga democracy and restoring our sovereignty is the only hope for bringing change in Nagaland and for the Nagas

By Nsungbemo Ezung

Another round of India’s election in the state of Nagaland just got over. The voters’ turnout figure read – 75 percent (as per the report of Election Commission of India), although the projected figure does not necessarily reflect the actual mood of the Naga populace on the ground. It remains to be seen how many Nagas had actually come out for voting in this election as rampant practices of proxy voting, cash for votes, force and intimation and poll related violence had failed to convince many right thinking Nagas to participate.

For India, it’s a mission accomplishment as they survived another scare of poll boycott call given by tribal organizations of the state. Delhi has successfully completed the election process in the state, which had become part of India only through politics of proxy and has been for decades a hotbed for “insurgency” and also in the grip of chronic “separatist” and “secessionist activities”. This particular election had therefore once again given political legitimacy for New Delhi to claim Nagaland as an integral part of India.

This attempt on the part of New Delhi of claiming Nagaland however represents confronting and denying historical reality. Naga political struggle for a free sovereign nation had been sprouted based on history; that Nagas were never subjected to either the Hindu or the Muslim rule nor to any Burmese rule in any period of history and British-India Empire could exercise only limited control over the Nagas and that Naga had declared her independence ahead of India.

India can claim Nagaland only through manipulating these historical facts and conducting an imposed election. The latest election in Nagaland produces the victory of the politics of proxy over people’s aspiration. The grievous reality of this election is that the only enthusiastic participants are the state politicians and their cohorts. With our fate in the hands of those politicians for the next five years, we will continue to live a life of mockery and deception thrown to our face by those unscrupulous politicians of no vision?

Now our longest and bloodiest struggle for sovereignty is slowly and craftily degraded to an issue that can be used as a political tool in the hand of such people for their petty political gains. The disastrous path taken by the band of treacherous dealers would be to use the fate of the Nagas as begging bowl in New Delhi. This would be the sole intention of our present state politicians thus endangering our present and future generation Nagas, as it never bothers them as long as Government of India satisfies their needs in their selfish pursuit of becoming filthy rich politicians.

The stakeholders in Nagaland government have been playing artfully to the tune of the Sangh’s advancing campaign in all strategic counts. Such are the painstaking but hypocritical struggle in the pursuit of power resulted into earning a disgrace to the self and dishonour for our Nagas. It’s too hurting for us the Naga common people to accept anybody from our Nagas to play stooge to the present saffron government which has waged war against pluralism.

On the other hand, our people are also invariably proving ourselves to be senselessly susceptible to such kind of victimization by the Sangh force in collusion with their political associates in Nagaland through duping when, at the best, our society vacillates between easy-going to emotional fools and never tends to go towards right consciousness. We must remember that a society of emotional fools always remains a fallen prey to wolves. The onslaught that comes down upon us, by attacking the cultural and religious diversity that was to suppose to make modern independent India, should not be countered by emotional outburst but by rational intelligence and take strong cognizance of hidden malicious design upon us by the majority community of the mainland.

With another successful India’s election in Nagaland, Nagas are once again left with the only option of wishing that someday somewhere someone would deliver something good for us out of the present Indian political system. This had been the Nagas’ way of life for the last seventy years under this given imposed political system and we had to live in an illusionary world of searching for a good person to represent the Nagas and cleanse the system and bring positive change for us. We have experimented with it, this phenomenon for seven decade and it had failed us miserably. Corruption, underdevelopment, exploitation of our land and suppression of our people was the story so far of our seven decade old association with this particular system.

The development myth in Nagaland and the rest of Northeast region is that ever since these states get attached to India, in terms of road development, for instance, other than repairing the state highways, national highways, major village roads made by British administration, hardly any new roads had been made in the last sixty years. No manufacturing industry, no resource mobilization in terms of natural and human resource is ever seen. They want to extract uranium from Meghalaya and oil that is produced in Assam just for exploiting the resource not for developing the land.

State sponsored immigration of selective religious group is another feature of India’s control in the region and thereby underneath hidden agenda of making the region part of Hindu Rhastra. The classic case is the Tripura’s tragic experiment where indigenous Tripuri today become minority in their own land reducing their population in the state from 70% in 1931 to 31 % in 2011.

Nagas can no longer afford to live under this illusion. The solution to our problem lies not in the question of electing good person to the system because it only resulted in corrupting ourselves, but in replacing and bringing in a new political system that will start producing good people for our good. What is left for the Nagas, after this election, is to bite the remains of another dirty election. We have just reduced ourselves to the role of a pawn in other’s political propaganda game. It’s time for us, the Nagas, to seriously introspect on our current state of affairs and consider whether to continue creating an impression that we are participating in India’s election, that we belong to India and keep electing the leaders who are always ready to submit to the will of the occupying force and making us become subservient and stranger in our own land.

Replacing the imposed corrupt political system and creating a new system based on our own Naga democracy and restoring our sovereignty is the only hope for bringing change in Nagaland and for the Nagas.