Surviving the Winter of Violence

Since the appearance of part one of this essay last month, there have been more clashes between the two NSCN factions in which more soldiers were killed and others injured. According to Indo-Asia News Service, October 26, more than 200 soldiers have been killed on both sides in the last three years as a result of the “bitter turf war for territorial supremacy.”

There are also increasing signs that the Naga public’s patience with factional violence is running out. Clearly, Naga nationalism is at a crossroads, and the factions have the choice to either make peace and survive together as a legitimate movement for the Naga cause or disintegrate and fall into the dustbin of history as failed revolutionary armies.

As frustrating as it must be to the factions, the image of organized crime is being associated with the warring groups in the minds of many Nagas, especially of the younger generation, not because they are against nationalism but because of what the NSCNs are doing in Nagaland. Educated, younger Nagas see the activities of the two groups as incompatible with Naga nationhood. From their perspective, what (I-M) and (K) are doing to one another is absurd. It is as though they were saying: “Let’s kill each other, destroy each other’s property and reputation and, in the process, create fear and insecurity among the Nagas because we are Naga patriots who love our homeland.” This statement makes no sense of course, and it is not what (I-M) or (K) have set out to do for themselves or for the Naga people. But intended or not, the effect of their actions on the public in Nagaland, as well as the perception they create in people’s minds, is real. Both (I-M) and (K) need to recognize this reality about themselves and deal with the situation in a real hurry.

For starters, they can look to history for a lesson. The absurdity of nationalist groups destroying one another in the supposed interest of the nation they wish to create is not new. Infighting among rival groups for dominance is as old as nationalism itself. And they are not entirely to blame either. Nationalism has been inevitably tied up with violence, to begin with, mainly because of the refusal of dominant nation-states to consider the cause of the aggrieved people unless the latter back up their cause with physical force. And when the dominant nation-state’s intransigence persists long enough (it almost always does), the aggrieved liberation party splinters into ideological groups and turn on each other. There are too many examples from the past to prove this point. Two will suffice here – Ireland (probably the longest lasting nationalist movement in the Common Era) and Palestine (the best known and consequential in our time.)

Ireland’s problems with invaders started as far back as 1166 CE, with the Normans and the English. By 1700, only 14% of Ireland was in Irish hands, the rest under English control. Their economy and way of life devastated, millions of impoverished Irish left the country, mostly for the United States, especially following the potato famine in the middle of the nineteenth century. Meanwhile, Irish nationalism grew and came to a head in 1920, with the Government of Ireland Act, which divided Ireland into two: Irish Free State for the mainland (later to become The Republic of Ireland) and Northern Ireland, which is still a contentious region. The rivalry between the supporters and the critics of the 1920 Treaty continued — deadly and unresolved — under different leaders and incarnations, until more than seventy years later, in 1998, when the Good Friday Agreement put an end to the cycle of internecine murder and reprisal in Northern Ireland, at least up to now.

All this is well-known information. The point of this summary, though, is to draw attention to the moment in Irish nationalism that changed it from a liberation movement against English colonial rule to the self-destructive war among the Irish themselves that it became in 1921. What is going on in Nagaland today between the two factions of the NSCN parallels the deadly rivalry between the supporters of the Irish Free State Treaty, led by Michael Collins, and the anti-Treaty Republican group under Eamon de Valera. The Irish are still paying for those leaders’ lack of vision at the momentous crossroads in their struggle for a united Irish nation.

If in the heat of present challenges, the NSCNs find Irish nationalism of the 1920s too remote for instruction, then they need only look to Palestine and see the plight of the world’s most intractable national struggle for existence. The fratricidal war between the Fatah party and Hamas. Again, outside forces have bedeviled their relations, but what Hamas and the Fatah are doing to themselves has derailed the Palestinian people’s dream for a homeland. Palestinians have never been farther from realizing their goal, since 1948, than they are today, thanks to the Fatah-Hamas rivalry.

Naga nationalism does not come close to the power and longevity of Irish nationalism nor to the global reach of Palestinian nationalism, but it shares, on a smaller scale, the same story of self-destructive behavior on the part of freedom fighters. In the prevailing circumstances in Nagaland, individuals and traditional organizations have been rendered powerless to effect change, and can do little more than exhort the leaders not to doom themselves and the Nagas by failing to learn from history. A useful way for the NSCN factions to learn is to recognize that what is going on between them is the enactment of a script from the grand narrative of nationalism itself. Simply put, they are at an agonistic moment of truth for their future, and with it the future of Naga nationalism. The narrative script indicates that each faction feels compelled to look at and approach this moment as a question of its own survival against the other party’s. But the script also shows that there is, in fact, no lasting victory in this war for one side alone. They both fall or rise together.

Of late, NSCN (I-M) has been put in the unenviable position of riding two horses (New Delhi and NSCN- K) going in opposite directions. (I-M) wants to renew the cease-fire agreement with New Delhi so it can continue to operate as the official nationalist organization in Nagaland, but New Delhi seems in no hurry to negotiate the cease-fire. And (K) is determined not only to challenge (I-M)’s position, but to put it out of business if it can. Caught between these forces that cut both ways, (I-M) feels pressured to settle for less than it is ordinarily comfortable with. But that is a premature direction to take in the absence of unity among the nationalist groups and of support from the Naga public.

As for the Naga public, the desire for unity among the nationalist groups takes precedence over factional deals with India. Last week, the GB and DB federation of Nagaland made a formal appeal to the rival groups to get past the “calls” and “press releases” for peace to real “action” for peace. Naga church leaders and organization too have repeatedly called for unity and peaceful negotiations, so have Naga People’s Movement for Human Rights, Naga Student Federation, several apex tribal bodies, newspaper editorials, intellectuals and prominent citizens. In addition, organizations from outside Nagaland, including American Baptists and the Society of Friends (Quakers), have either sent or are planning to send delegations on a mission to reconcile the NSCNs. The interest of the Quakers is particularly noteworthy because of their peerless record of work on both sides of the Atlantic for nurturing peace and respect among people in conflict, going back to the time of slavery. It is doubtful there will be another time when all these positive forces from within and outside Nagaland can unite again behind the call for peace and unity among the nationalist groups. The hope, then, is that NSCN (I-M) and (K) will start talking honestly and directly to one another instead of needling each other through the media about grudges and minor logistical details. What this global effort amounts to is that the Naga people and our well wishers expect the NSCN rivals to realize that the time is now or probably never.

Granted, the Naga public cannot fully appreciate the challenges facing the NSCNs because we have not traveled the difficult road that they have. But what is clear to all is the fact that this is a question of survival for the Nagas as a people. All of us understand that survival is an extreme condition to be in, and when the challenge to survive is against organized violence, we must consider new and radical ways of surviving. The appeals for unity suggest that peaceful negotiation is a radical — and the best — way to survive honorably in the extreme environment we are in. A successful process of peace-making at this time can become the foundation for nation-building in the future. We could realize, like some have, that the strongest nation-defining moments are those spent in resistance to might and violence, rather than in their use, that the true character of a nation resides not in the use of brute force but in its disciplined restraint, or in the worst-case scenario, its use against a greater inhumanity. For a people like the Nagas who would be a nation, then, regardless of the legitimacy of our cause, the means we adopt to reach our goal are still as important as the goal itself. The choice should be peaceful suasion and “soul force,” and the process must start at home, among us Nagas.

The alternative is devastating, even to the imagination. Without implying a parallel future for Naga nationalist workers, one is reminded of Wilfred Owen’s poetic vision in “Strange Meeting.” Owen, who fought and died in World War I, imagined the strange meeting of two enemy soldiers in Hell. Dazed and beyond help, one says to the other:

“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.

I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned

Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.

I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.

Let us sleep now. . . .”

But even more telling and relevant for Nagas is the story of an Irish soldier in “The Sniper,” written by Liam O’Flaherty who fought on the Republican side against the Free Staters during the civil war. The story is set at dusk in Dublin, with the sound of heavy guns in the background, and rife with snipers from the rival armies, hiding, dodging and hunting each other in the streets. After an intense and intricate angling for the enemy, the adept sniper in the story guns down a soldier on the roof of a building across the street. He watches the enemy fall to the ground, and shudders; the lust of battle suddenly dies in him; he is struck with remorse; he curses the war, curses himself, curses everybody. He becomes curious about the identity of the enemy he has killed, so sneaks over to where the body fell, dodging a hail of bullets. Then throwing himself face down beside the corpse, “The sniper turned over the dead body and looked into his brother’s face.”

Patriotism has limits. As O’Flaherty — who should know — suggests through this story, patriotism is not an end, it is a means to the well being of the larger society, and he knew Irish patriotism had clearly crossed the line when it led to fratricide. Likewise, we know Naga nationalism has crossed the line when Nagas kill one another in the name of patriotism.

Tags: nationalism, NSCN, violence, winter