Garos of Nagaland celebrate Wangala with fervor

November 22, 2024 8 Views No Comment

Tribal communities have shared cultural traits’

Morung Express News
Dimapur | November 22

The Wangala Mini Hornbill Tribal Festival 2024 was celebrated with great fervour by the Garo community in Dimapur on November 21. The premier festival of the Garo people is organised annually by the Nagaland Garo Tribal Council in association with the Department of Tourism, Nagaland.

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The celebration, this year, was hosted at Samaguri village, where L Singsit, President of the Kuki Inpi Nagaland, was invited as the special guest. Singsit is a retired IPS officer, who retired as the Director General of Prisons, Home Guards and Civil Defence, Nagaland.

Singsit, in his address, expressed excitement at attending the celebration of a festival he used to frequent as a youth. “I am so happy to be attending the Wangala festival celebration. It reminds me of my student days in Meghalaya. I am honoured to be invited as the special guest,” he said.

According to him, the Garo, the Kuki and other tribal communities share cultural affinity with the festivals centred on the celebration of agricultural activities. “Not only us, most of the tribal communities have shared cultural traits,” he said.

However, despite sharing so many similarities, people generally tend to focus on the differences. “If we don’t support each other, who will?” he asked, while adding that the four indigenous minority communities of Nagaland – Garo, Karbi, Kuki and Kachari, have so much in common.

He said that the four communities are known as minorities in official parlance but the labelling should not serve as an obstacle towards growth. “God doesn’t go by numbers or size of a people. God looks after the weak,” he said.

He further thanked the Nagaland state government for giving space to the minorities of the state. “If it was not for the government (Nagaland) we would not have gotten the opportunity to celebrate our festivals in such a grand scale,” he said.

Commenting on the state government announcing enumeration for the Register of Indigenous Inhabitants (RIIN) of the four indigenous minorities, he said that they were quite apprehensive, initially. But their doubts were put to rest after consultations with the government and the civil society organisations of the state.