“Were I to claim that I am not a Naga, what will be the criteria to decide my identity?” I once asked this question to a fellow Naga friend who was then working on Naga nationalism for her university degree.

Her immediate reaction was “How can you say that you are not a Naga?” She was politically right in her retort though my hypothetical question was not dismissed there and then. It did pick up some discussion, but only to put us and also our audience into a very unsettling and disturbing situation. I was grappling with the issue of my Naga Identity then. Not that I doubted my Naga identity but that I was struggling to find some grounds on the basis of which various Naga tribal groups have come together to assert our unique identity and our rights to freedom of self-determination. My own question continues to dog me until at certain point in time I decided to write out my thoughts. Today I feel that I made a little improvement though many more questions came about in the process. I am convinced that my Naga identity, above all other considerations, is primarily a political identity. For some, this is obvious but for me, it was different. I want to share some of the questions with which I have wrestled for quite sometime.

Suppose I were to be born and brought up outside my Naga homeland, unable to pick up my mother tongue, have no attachment to any Naga traditional or cultural values, will I be a considered a Naga? What if one of my parents is not a Naga? Perhaps with some reservation some may still be willing to grant me a Naga identity. But my problem goes further. Suppose all the Nagas en masse declare that henceforth we will not be called as Nagas but something else (on the ground that the very word ‘Naga” is not from our native language though I have heard of a native version somewhere from a friend), what will happen to my Naga identity? More, on what basis will the new identity of the people be constructed? Still pushing the doubt further, suppose all the Nagas were to forget our tribal languages, traditions and cultures and have adopted altogether new cultures and worldviews, then what will happen to our common identity, the Naga identity? Will we still call ourselves Nagas? What kind of meaning does the term ‘Naga’ connotes to the Nagas anyway? Do all the people presently identified as or claimed to be Nagas share similar perception towards the term ‘Naga?’ In other words, do all the Naga groups share the same sense of belongingness? What about those fellow Nagas who live in the present Myanmar or in the Indian states other than Nagaland? What will happen if the Bodos or the Mizos claim that they are also Nagas or vice versa. What will be the fate of our identity if, for instance, the Japanese or the Thais or the Chinese claim that the Nagas are their descendents and thus Nagas are also Japanese or Thais or Chinese? Is there any way out, that is, is there any basis or criteria to credit or discredit such a claim? After considering all these questions, I realized that neither race nor language nor place nor religion nor culture is enough to provide a criterion to decide my Naga Identity. Of course, I was not seriously considering the politics of my Naga identity then. I will now turn my attention to the political nature of my Naga identity.

“Is it possible to talk about my Naga identity without politics?” My answer is simple and straight – “No!” The moment I strip off politics from my Naga identity, I’ve lost my Naga identity. Perhaps, I may be an individual member of some group; for instance, a linguistic community, or a clan, or a village but definitely not a member of the Naga ethnic group. For out of politics and blood was born Naga identity. It is not so much about racial identity neither is it about linguistic or religious identity; so much less about the exotic terminologies of “nakedness” or “snakeness,” or of “pierced ears” or “mountainous folks” that have gone into the myth making of our ‘projected’ Naga identity. What I will call here, for convenience, as “others” or “outsiders” who in the opinion of some writers “narrated” us into existence is not what the Nagas were or are or will be. Of course, I don’t deny that others did their part to prepare the stage for our Naga identity to conceive and to be recognized. Without the others, as a matter of political fact, there can be neither Naga politics nor Naga identity. However, this is a question of a different order. But this is a very crucial point which I dare not ignore. For that matter, I will be grappling with this point again and again as I narrate the woes and wows of my Naga identity.

I am not Japanese

“Excuse me, are you from Japan?”

I hope Dr. Easterine Iralu will not mind for quoting her here. I must acknowledge that reading her poem – “Are you from Japan?” – which is made available to the Kuknalim readers, has in a big way inspired me to reflect and write on the present topic again. Today quite a sizable number of Nagas, the biggest portion of which is the group of knowledge seekers and bread earners, are scattered in different parts of India and abroad. Our initial encounter with the other people in India is often of this nature (we would be repeatedly asked): “Where are you from?” “Japan?” “Nepal?” “Korea?” “China?” “Thailand” and the list goes on. On learning that we are from Nagaland, some would ignorantly remark, “Where is that?” But some would curiously ask: “How is the ‘terrorist’ activity there?” Some are more sarcastic and pessimistic: “Do you think Nagas would survive on your own? What do you have to sustain yourself? Why are you asking for independence?” Still, to some, we are nothing but tribals who are simply surviving through the saving grace of the reservation policies. Only a handful of persons would sincerely try to understand our situation, empathize with us and also accept us to be part of the diverse Indian society. Somehow between the lines, it is visible in the expressions and in the attitudes of such people that we are a group of people who do not fit into the image of Indian identity. Not surprisingly it is on the basis of our interactions with various groups of Indian people, and also with other people at the global level, that the contemporary Nagas are continuously creating and recreating our Naga identity.

In the past, successive Delhi governments had resorted to various forms of colonial policies to deal with the Naga political question. The big mistake was their decision to sent armies to literally teach us some “imperial” lessons in our own homeland. They forgot that Nagas’ love for freedom constitutes part of their lifestyle, a question that cannot be settled by the use of force at any cost. Even the mighty British Colonial Raj realized the futility of attempting to subjugate the warring Nagas tribes. The Delhi Government learnt nothing in this regard from their former colonial master. The forceful occupation of the Indian armies backed by several draconian laws that led to a long history of untold Indo-Naga wars painted a black picture of the Indian image in the minds of the Nagas. It only resulted in bringing the various Naga groups closer and the Naga movement for freedom received a great momentum. The Nagas were forced to opt for armed struggle. What happened in the course of time to the Nagas has become part of our living history, too debasing and too dehumanizing to be recalled or retold in detail here. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the common struggles and pains and sufferings have become not only part of our history but more significantly, they have become part of our Naga identity today – that is, they have become associated with the social and political consciousness of our Naga identity by and large. Worse, the Nagas began to see the ‘Indians’ with nothing less than utter hatred, bitterness, distrust, shame, guilt, jealousy, remorse, etc. The only Indians most Nagas have seen and encountered in the past were the Indian armies. Many who live in the interior villages and greatly suffered in the hands of the armed forces and who never got the opportunity to see the other proud and honorable Indian citizens still identify Indian identity with the living image of those brutal picture of the cruel soldiers. When I go to a village, every home has some tragic story to share about their encounters with the armies. Let me tell one such story that happened to my tribe and which has been recounted by Kaka Iralu in his book “Nagaland and India: The Blood and the Tears” – out of the 64 Chakhesang villages that existed in those days (1960s), 60 villages were burnt during the army operation and one particular village, Porba, was razed to the ground 14 times in a single year. This is unforgettable. Being an oral society, such stories are narrated among the Naga folks again and again. I grew up hearing such stories. And over the years, this has accumulated into constructing a very tyrannical and cynical image of Indian identity among rural folks. Even today, to refer to, or to call someone “Indian,” for them, is to mean a debasing thing, perhaps with the same force as the term tribal is to some “orthodox” Indians. Of course, much has changed today. But it requires another essay to address the issues and problems of the changes that have come to grip the contemporary Naga society and Naga politics in the Indian context.

The point to note from the above discussions is this: with the contact of others or outsiders, the tribal differences gradually submerged and the sublime commonalities got manifested spontaneously. From one level, others have been constructing and imposing an identity for the Nagas, and at another level, the Nagas are realizing more and more that indeed the Nagas are different from the other groups of people. Thus, differentiating and dissociating from other sets (groups) of people enabled the Nagas to adopt a common set where they can become members of that set. The construction or rather acceptance of this identity, a Naga set, became almost inevitable as the differences with the other groups of people were increasingly becoming visible and the possibility of the Nagas either wanting to become a member of any of these groups or the other groups extending their core membership to the Nagas was almost ruled out. The others, in the meantime, contributed in this task of constructing the Naga identity by repeatedly pointing out that ‘the Nagas are a different lot of people having the following synonyms: head-hunters, savage people, naked people, beef eaters, pork-eaters, primitive, uncivilized, tribals, bloodthirsty people, rebels, terrorists, secessionists, etc.’ Having to share all these common perception of others – be it connoting a sense of shame or pride, defeats or triumphs, sympathy or apathy – nurtured and strengthened the feeling of being a Naga or Naganess. In short, contacts, conflicts and interactions with others of different kinds gave us the present Naga identity. Max Weber writes, “In our sense, ethnic membership does not constitute the group; it only felicitates group formation of any kind, particularly in political sphere. On the other hand, it is primarily the political community, no matter how artificially organized that inspires the belief in common ethnicity.” This seems to shows that there exists a strong relation between Ethnic identity and political identity. Being an ethnic group, Naga identity came about largely as a counter-product of Indian nationalism, which is understood by the Nagas as an act of Indian imperialism. While on other hand, the desire of the various Naga groups to live together, free from any kind of external control as has been in the past, resulted in the consciousness and subsequent construction of the Naga identity. This is my story. This is my Naga identity.