Every time I try to make a sense of our Naga culture, an inexplicable sense of procrastination somehow takes the better of me. Until now, I have kept myself from plunging into it. There appears to be some kind of ‘no trespass’ signboard attached to it, some kind of uncertainty or uneasiness about it, the kind that is perhaps normally associated with unpleasant discovery or realization. Some truths are not always a delightful thing to discover after all. Often certain truths are found to be covered with layers and layers of narratives, narratives involving lies and deceptions as well.

Such narratives are a product of culture and then go on to become part of culture itself. At times, they symbolize human intelligence and creativity. Perhaps, we have learnt it from our long history of survival games of life. But again, every once in a while, when some persons of uncommon intelligence and commitment probe deep into history and culture, they come up with insights to teach us how we can discern truth from falsehood, right from wrong and good from evil. They help us to understand who and where we are and where we are heading.

I am convinced that the time is also ripe enough for Nagas to start such a process of serious introspection into our culture. There have been sporadic attempts by few concerned individuals. But what we need is a sustained and concerted effort, not flirtatious attempts. Some truths are hard to unearth and more difficult to communicate. Here I write this with no pretension of having discovered some truths to talk about. Rather I write this with dual intentions: to invite every reader to give a thought about it and to invite those with more experience in this field to contribute more.

Today culture has become such a pervasive concept in the academic world. It is as broad as a worldview and as specific as a hairstyle. It is not everyone’s piece of cake to define it. Even giant thinker is found to falter and so more experienced scholars prefer to hint rather than to fix its definition. Sometimes, even after reading a whole book on culture, we tend to despair as it does more to problematize than to illuminate. Such is the nature of culture – inevitable and yet indefinable. Despite this paradoxical nature, culture is not something mysterious or incomprehensible. We all understand our culture and we live by it accordingly. Perhaps, one reason why culture is so illusive of definition is that it is always in a flux.  Another reason could be that no culture is ever pure and homogenous.

One common point that most Naga writers tend to do is clubbing together the ideas of tradition and culture. For this reason perhaps, I notice that they are at a loss whether or not to glorify our culture. They oscillate their views between rejection and acceptance. It is true that there is no sacrosanct distinction between the two. However, some subtle differences may be brought out. Fort instance, tradition is resistant to change but culture is open to change.  Let me put it this way: in the linear scale of time, while culture acts as the meeting point of one’s practice with the practices of others in the present, at the other end of the time scale lies tradition, the ancestral practices which were largely unaffected by the practices of others.

Culture can be created in the process of interaction with the environment. Tradition is better understood as the preservation of past beliefs and practices. A tradition tends to define our ethnic identity but culture helps to co-exist with others in the larger context. Tradition is more static and rigid but culture is more creative and dynamic. Tradition can be very selective, compromising only of those beliefs and practices which are deemed to be good and bear significant meanings in life. They are normally stated in the form ‘It is taboo to do ‘X’ or not to do ‘X.’ Some elements of sacredness and normativity are attached to it. Comparatively, culture has a loose mixture of both good and bad practices and thus commands less normative force.

A cultural crisis normally comes about by virtue of there being a meeting point however. Inability to communicate effectively with others at the meeting point creates a crisis. And that is precisely what we Nagas are facing today.  There are too many meeting points; each seems to be promising a way of life that is better. Elders are unsure of how to educate and inculcate values in their young ones and young ones are equally perplexed as whether or not to look back to learn from tradition when modernity demands that we ‘let go off the past.’ In such a situation, when social life fails to be regulated or guided by a well defined set of norms and values, both individual and social lives naturally degenerate. This results in confusion of all sorts – moral, social, and political.

A more radical culture from outside is here to confront us again – post-modern culture. The culture of post-modernism is such that the very idea of ‘culture’ is venerated as the ‘final’ arbiter of every human experience. This notion of culture is neither continuity nor respecter of the past (tradition). It is the ‘ultimate’ definer of meanings and values. It has cut the wings and tongues of any notion of absolutism or objectivity; truth for instance can neither speak for itself nor fly anymore above our ‘experience.’ We no longer discover truth. We either invent it or engineer it. The implication is that no one has the monopoly of truth; every one can create his or her own truth. This is reminiscent of a phrase which one of my (late) professors fondly used to cite: ‘I am the principal of this school. What I don’t know is not knowledge.’ Of course, the difference in the present time is that every one is a principal.

How about juxtaposing the above idea of post-modern culture to our received tradition and culture? The above idea will be found appalling to both church leaders and conservative elders alike. But that is what more and more of the younger Naga generation will be learning, if not in the institution of formal learning, then from the mass media that have come to invade and pervade our society today. Interestingly, in the tug of war between the younger and the older folks, the latter seems to be fighting a losing battle. This has subtle but serious ramifications. For instance, with the decline of traditional values, the influence of elders is becoming very minimal, even annoying at times.

Let me illustrate the above point with my personal observation. I have come across some elders who never hesitate to point, “You youngsters care nothing about our tradition-and-culture” and sometimes some others, who in a nostalgic and regretful tone, express, “We are forgetting all our tradition-and-culture.” But the hard fact of life is that mere statement of ‘what is’ or ‘what ought to be – a wish’ hardly brings about positive change. One has to put an effort. Often, as if a rule, one has to be the change one wants to see in others. This is sadly found direly wanting in us – both young and old alike. If our elders and leaders allege that we don’t have enough young, daring Esthers in our society today to take risk or initiative to save our past and our identity, so also we don’t have enough of elderly Mordecai who dared to rebuke and challenge and inspire the younger generation of Esther. I seldom see an uncle or an aunty, or parents spending time with children teaching folk songs or telling them folk tales. For a long time, I have not seen a Naga leader (elders included) dressed in traditional attires or singing a folk song with a motive to inspire or to educate the younger generation, except occasionally during the festivals. Their lifestyle is hardly consistent.

Not long ago, I read an article in a newspaper written by a young couple. It was about the story of their struggle and contentment in relation with their son who was born with certain infirmity. The boy is unable to compete and win any medal but the parents confessed, hopefully candidly, that they are only so happy and proud that their boy is growing up with the attitude of self acceptance and self confidence under their loving care. To the increasingly selfish and competitive world, he may appear to be a born loser but to the parents, he is their beloved champion, their joy, their hope and their achievement. The boy gives meaning to their lives as parents. This is what I call ‘parenting.’ Parenting does not mean only looking after the most promising or potential children. Among others, it also means owning and nurturing even the least capable ones with a sense of pride, to inculcate in them a worthy self esteem as well. It is both believing in and bringing out the best from a person.

How are we ‘parenting’ our culture? This is the issue at hand. We have inherited a lot of traditional and cultural heritage from our ancestors. But sadly, we are apparently losing them while looking out at the outside world either to imitate or to learn. Indeed, we have been watching the ever restless and imposing foreign cultures for too long, like an innocent boy glued to TV with amusement and amazement. We are not doing enough either to understand what is coming from outside or what we have inherited from our ancestors. The outcome is simply threatening, if not, devastating.

While not denying the merit of embracing various aspects of modern and foreign cultures, we should not give a step-motherly treatment to our ancestral culture and tradition which gave us our present ‘Naga identity.’ I am not here to advocate the doctrine of “Back to Vedas” type. Partly, I am trying to remind ourselves how hypocritical and how inauthentic we have become as an ethnic group of people claiming to be having a unique identity. Interestingly we have argued our case for national aspiration in the light of this presupposition. It is true that we cannot live in the present world with the entire baggage of the things of the past. It is also true that in so many aspects, our former belief systems and practices were enslaving and non-progressive and that, on the contrary, some of the promises of modern culture are quite liberating and progressive. However, all this does not in any manner give us the reason or the right to denounce our past or ill-treat our culture. We need to foster motivation for what I term here as ‘parenting culture.’

In the event of cultural confusion, a society usually witnesses a drastic decadence of moral standard. The moral degradation of our contemporary Naga society needs no further explication or explanation. The other day I was so distressed to read the news of four young men who gang raped a pregnant mother. The many expressions of contempt and desperation for that unforgettable act do little to cheer me up. They all seem to reflect our present cultural crisis. It is a fact of history that moral decline is intricately connected to the decline of even mighty empires and great civilizations. One only needs to merely flip a few pages of any standard history book on the downfall of empires or civilizations to learn this fact. To recapitulate our point, it is cultural confusion that always precedes and leads to moral confusion. As such, it is a costly affair to forget our past. Let me wind up in my typical manner, this time by citing a Chinese proverb: “To jump further, go back further.”