Nandita Haksar - Kuknalim, Naga Armed Resistance: Testimonies of Leaders, Pastors, Healers and Soldiers

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Nandita Haksar and Sebastian M. Hongray began their political journey as human rights activists while studying in the Jawaharlal Nehru University. In the early 1980s, they began working full time in the human rights movement. They filed the first cases against the Indian Armed Forces, for committing human rights violations, in the Supreme Court and before the Guwahati High Court. They took up cases of illegal arrests, torture and also unfair compensation for development projects such as the Hundung cement factory. They have also been involved in the Indo-Naga peace process, and Haksar has represented NSCN leaders internationally, before the UNHCR, Geneva and before the courts in Thailand.

Their publications include The Judgement That Never Came: Army Rule in North East India ; ABC of Naga Culture and Civilization: A Resource Book (Nandita Haksar); Across the Chicken Neck: Travels in Northeast India (Nandita Haksar) and The Exodus Is Not Over: Migrations from the Ruptured Homelands of Northeast India (Nandita Haksar).

Haksar and Hongray are married and live in Goa and Delhi and sometimes in Ukhrul.

Contents

Preface

The Story of This Book

If you have come

To help me

You are wasting

Your time,

But

If you have come

Because

Your liberation

Is bound up

With mine

Then let us work together.

Lila Watson, Australian Aboriginal

The idea of writing a book on the Naga national movement based on extensive interviews with the leaders came to us some time after the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) signed a ceasefire agreement with the Government of India in August 1997 and began the peace process.

Before the ceasefire it would not have been possible for human rights activists like us to meet senior leaders of an underground organization.

At the beginning of the peace process there were great expectations that the Indo-Naga conflict would finally be resolved, and that resolution would lead to peace and prosperity for the Nagas and the rest of the country. We thought it was the appropriate time to write a book on the Naga national movement, to help in creating better understanding between the Nagas and the rest of the country.

We approached Thuingaleng Muivah and Isak Swu with the idea and they were open to it. Our interviews took place in 1998 and 1999, but we could not publish this book till now.

It seemed that our interviews were outdated and irrelevant, as was the original purpose for which we began our project. The interviews do not deal with the period beyond the establishment of the NSCN in 1980 and its split in 1988.

But on reading the interviews again, we realized that the stories that had been told are compelling and need to be told, otherwise a significant part of the history of the Naga national movement would be lost. We have given the political context of the movement and an update of subsequent events in the first chapter; there are also introductions to each section respectively.

In this book, leaders and members from ten Naga tribes in India and Myanmar, men and women belonging to two generations, speak directly to the reader about their childhood experiences, reasons for joining the armed resistance and their personal triumphs and tragedies.

These stories are about how men and women living in remote mountains decided to shape their own destiny, against all political odds, by sheer power of their collective will, courage, determination and audacity.

It does not matter whether we agree with or strongly disagree with the men and women who took up arms against the might of the Indian State; the significant fact is that successive Prime Ministers of India, from Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi, felt the need to personally meet the Naga leaders and sit across the table for peace talks. In part, this was dictated by the geo-political significance of the North East region and the international interest taken by various states, including Britain, America, China and Pakistan.

Even as the peace talks continue, the Naga insurgents continue to run a parallel government with legislative, judicial and executive wings; they continue to collect taxes and settle cases. And they continue to recruit for their Naga Army while they sit across the table and negotiate a settlement which they hope will be honourable and just.

Can there be an honourable solution? This is a question not only for the Naga leaders, but a challenge also for Indian democracy.

CHAPTER ONE

The Naga People, Their Land and The Movement

They call us primitive,

civilized us in the name of Christianity.

They measured our skulls and stole our bones

Leaving spirits shrieking from cold collector shelves

and lonely museums.

They trespassed and violated our Sacred Sites.

Their learning killed our song, our story, our dance, our voice,

our dignity, our humanityall.

Our Mothers teaching.

Jeanine Leane (Aboriginal poet)

They languish, these uprooted

Treasures of my heritage

Caged within imposing structures

in designated spaces

Tensula Ao (Heritage 1-4)

There are 370 million indigenous peoples in the world and they constitute 5 per cent of the population. They are called tribal people or first-nation, and in India many identify with the name Adivasi. One defining feature of all tribal communities is their special relationship with their ancestral lands: their culture and society is inextricably linked with their territory.

The special relationship between indigenous people and their ancestral lands has been recognized by international human rights law as well as the domestic laws of many countries. In 2007, the United Nations passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Article 26 of which states that:

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired.
2. Indigenous peoples have the right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use, as well as those which they have otherwise acquired.
3. States shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories and resources. Such recognition shall be conducted with due respect to the customs, traditions and land tenure systems of the indigenous peoples concerned.

The focus of the Naga national movement has been the integration of all Naga-inhabited lands, and the slogan of the movement has been KuknalimKUK is derived from the Tenyidie word KUO meaning victory; NA means people and LIMA means land. Some writers have said that the word was coined by Takatemsu and is purely an Ao derivative, and others claim that it is a word made from two Naga languages: Kukna in Chang means victory and lim in Ao means land. There is, however, no controversy over the meaning of the word: KUKNALIM, it is agreed, means Victory to our People and Land.

The Land

When the Naga nationalists refer to Nagaland, they do not refer to the present State of Nagaland within India but to the entire Naga-inhabited parts of Indian and Myanmar.

The Naga-inhabited areas stretch from India to across the international border in Myanmar. Naga territory is a part of the North East Region of India which is situated between the Himalayas (China, Bhutan and Nepal), the Indian Ocean (Bangladesh) and wide fluvial corridors (Brahmaputra, Chindwin and the Irrawaddy rivers).

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