As a priest of the Mar Thoma Church I am in charge of two churches, one in Dimapur and another in Kohima. The Christian presence in Nagaland is very visible and at times overwhelming. As a sport one can count the number of Baptist Churches and Seminaries in a short stretch of 4 K. m. in the premises of Dimapur. You find Ao Baptist Church, Phom Baptist Church, Sumi Baptist Church, etc. the point that as an observer one notices is every tribe has a Baptist Church of their own. So what I construe is that there is no intermingling of tribes at one level but this could be a naïve assumption. Nagaland has been known for its tense atmosphere and struggle for freedom. But such anxieties or tensions seem to be at least for the time being a matter of the past. So when one tries to understand a place there are many things that determine the character and ethos of it. In my small survey I believe the imprints of colonization by the British Government, Militarization by the Indian Government, Christianity and Western Education have shaped the place that we call Nagaland. Let us ask some questions to arrive at a better understanding of the place and the people.
Who are the Nagas?
The word ‘Naga’ is more of a label than a name. The people of the Assam plain called this particular people as Naga which is derived from the Sanskrit word Nanga which means naked. These people lived in isolation and created terror by attacking the people of the plains time and again. The Nagas belong to Tibeto- Burman group of Indo- Mongloid. Nagas are not a homogenous group. There are 18 tribes along with 30 dialects found among the Nagas. According to the oral traditions, Nagas migrated from Mongolia, and then through southwestern China and Myanmar into their present territory of habitation. Except for some groups that live in Assam, the Nagas inhabit a contiguous territory, but at present the people and their land are divided between India and Myanmar (west of the Chindwin river bordering the Kachin state and Sagiang state). Within India, the Nagas and their territory are further carved out into the states of Nagaland, Manipur (the four hill districts of Ukhrul, Senapati, Tamenglong and Chandel), northeast Arunachal Pradesh, and Assam (North Cachar Hills, Mikir Hills, Golaghat, Lakhimpur, and Sibsagar districts). The Nagas inhabited an area of about 120,000 square kilometers, within which the state of Nagaland covers an area of 16,527 square kilometers. So the basic understanding that Nagas are found only in Nagaland has been put to rest.
What are their Traditional Religious beliefs?
Before Christianity entered their lives in 1851, Nagas believed the doctrine that attributes spirits to surrounding inanimate objects and to natural phenomenon. Sociologists describe Naga religion as animistic. The Sumi tribe of the Nagas had an innate belief in an unseen higher power that regulated human destiny and, as such, was entitled to obedience, reverence and worship. They believed in three separate categories of spirits. The foremost of them was the Creator holding dominion over the process of creation. The second category related to the spirits of the sky such as angels and the third consisted of the group that inhabited the earth among human beings. While the Creator was beneficent and benevolent, the spirits of the second and third categories were malevolent and had to be propitiated with sacrifices and rituals. One must observe that no day in the week is specifically set aside for religious observances. On must take into consideration that the nature of the religion takes into its ambit the entire social system or village and the individual is on the periphery. Only when we take this into account can we comprehend the cohesiveness, unity and discipline of each Naga village. The religious practices are highly nuanced and detailed and are beyond the scope of this article.
What was the reason for head-hunting?
Nagas were very condescendingly called by the British as the ‘head hunters’. Joseph S. Thong argues that head-hunting was developed in the context of war. Every Naga village was a sovereign state and was at war with each other. The enemy was killed by throwing spear or shooting the arrow in a raid after which the victim was beheaded and his head was carried to the village accompanied by singing and dancing. About the origin of Head-hunting there is a folklore that says “One day a warrior, while on his way to fight his enemies. He saw two red ants fighting each other in the forest. He observed that one of the red ant killed the other and severed its head which was later carried to the ant hole. The warrior loved what he saw and beheaded the enemy after he had killed them and this practice caught on.” But one needs to understand that head- hunting was closely related to their religion and cosmology. The head being the receptacle of the soul was, therefore, regarded as an object of immense vitality and creative energy. Head hunting was propelled by the desire to acquire a head for retention in one’s house or village which would, as a result, be blessed with human and animal fertility. The head of a woman with long hair was especially precious, as it would stimulate an abundance of food crops. The taker of a head gained fame for prowess in the art of war and was, therefore, sought after by young girls.
What Was the Colonial Encounter of the Nagas like?
The Nagas experienced western military violence beginning in 1832 when British troops entered Nagaland. Between 1832 and 1851 the British undertook 10 military ‘expeditions’ into Naga territories, inflicting considerable damage and suffering on the people. The British occupation of the Naga Hills marked the presence of an imperial power hitherto unforeseen and unimagined in the life of the Nagas. John Butler, who led some of the earliest attacks, agreed that the Nagas ‘had hitherto never encountered a foe equal to contend with them, and in utter ignorance of the effect of fire-arms, they vainly imagined that no party could penetrate through their territory’. In pre-colonial times, conflict did occur among Naga villages, but suzerainty over another village remained minimal and political control amounted to little more than the occasional receipt of tributes or a day’s labor. Although depicted as ‘warlike’ and ‘wild tribes’, warfare was supplanted often by piercing the effigy of an enemy with spears, thus eliminating the need for going to war. As such, unlike the Euro-American history, the Naga history does not revolve around battles won or lost, bloody revolutions or deathly civil wars, let alone being determined and shaped by warfare at a global level, such as World War I or II. The invasion of the British completely changed this traditional scenario. The British invaded and subsequently occupied the Naga Hills for more than a century, causing a profoundly traumatic impact on the Nagas.
. When Kohima, the headquarters of the British administration in the Naga Hills and the present-day capital of Nagaland, was overrun by the British on 11 February 1851, ‘over three hundred Nagas were killed and [the British] prestige thoroughly established’. Even then with the difficulties involved in the administration the people of the Naga Hills were administered as Excluded Area which makes the Nagas contend that they were never part of India.
What is the Background of the Struggle with India?
This is a rather long and complicated one so the intricate details will be left out. But there are some build ups that laid the foundation of the struggle.
a) In the year 1918 Naga Club was formed and this is believed to be the genesis of Naga Nationalism according to Abraham Lotha. When Simon Commission in 1929 proposed the Reform Scheme of India, the Naga Club presented a memorandum, requesting to be excluded from the Reform Scheme. With further negotiations as per the Government of India Act, 1935 Naga Hills was declared an Excluded Area brought directly under the Governor.
b) During the World War II, many Nagas were enlisted by the British. The war reached the Naga Hills where the Japanese were defeated by the Allied forces in the famous battle of Kohima. This war had its toll on the villages of Naga Hills and therefore to reconstruct it the British Government formed the Naga Hills District Tribal Council (NHTDC) in the year 1945 to unite the Nagas. This further helped in laying the foundations of Naga nationalism where in February 1946, in a meeting of the NHTDC at a place called Wokha, the members changed the name of the council to Naga National Council (NNC) with greater political ambition whose purpose now became to achieve the unification and solidarity of all Nagas under one government as their legitimate national aspirations and interests.
c) The NNC was at the forefront of the negotiations with the British Government for a separate nation and an interim government and as per their internal decisions the NNC declared Naga Independence on 14th August 1947. A cable was sent to the United Nations General Secretary: “Nagas will be independent. Kindly put on record that Nagas will be independent. Discussions with India are being carried on to that effect. Nagas do not wish to accept Indian constitution. The right of the people must prevail regardless of size”. This obviously was rejected by the Indian Government who thought that the Naga Hills was integral part of Assam.
d) There was a long series of negotiations between the Government of India and the NNC. A. N. Phizo was the leader of NNC who was zealous about the Naga Nation. Frustrated with the failures of negotiations, Phizo, the President of NNC wrote to the President of India of their decision for a voluntary plebiscite on the issue of Naga Independence. Therefore in accordance on 16th May 1951 a plebiscite was conducted by the NNC where the thumb impression of both the sexes was taken. NNC had requested the Government to send observers for the same. The NNC claimed that 99.9 percent people were in favour of Naga Independence. This, for obvious reasons were rejected by the Government.
What Happened after the failure of negotiations for a Naga nation?
The antagonism and confrontation between the Nagas and the Indian government remained non-violent until 1955. In 1956 Naga Central Government was formed by Phizo. Phizo then started an all out battle against the Government and formed many movements to spread the idea of Naga nation. The Indian government began to send its military contingents to quash the Nagas’ escalating steps for a Naga Nation. Since then Nagaland remains one of the most militarized regions in the world, and atrocities against the people have remained high
In the years following the Naga’s organized resistance, three crucial anti-Naga political mandates were initiated, which subjected the Nagas to immense suffering. To end the Naga political uprising, the Assam Maintenance of Public Order Act, 1953 and the Assam Disturbed Area Act, 1955 were promulgated (Aosenba, 2001). Under these acts, much of the territories in which Nagas live were designated as a ‘disturbed area’ and remains so to this day. Then, in 1958, the Indian parliament promulgated the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act of 1958 (AFSPA), an extension of the Disturbed Area Act and considered by legal experts as one of the most draconian laws (Luithui and Haksar, 1984).
While the former two ordinances discussed above were state mandates, the latter was passed by the Indian parliament on 11 September 1958. Both the intent and terminology of AFSPA are drawn directly from the British colonial legislation called the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Ordinance. This British law was implemented in 1942 with the specific intent to suppress the Quit India Movement that Gandhi had begun to end the British colonial rule in India. Although AFSPA remains in effect in several parts of India today, it was originally implemented to bring the Naga Hills under control. The struggle between Government and NNC continued and as a concession the Indian Government decided to carve a place in Assam as Nagaland which was strongly opposed by the people of the plains of Assam. Therefore Nagaland on 1st December 1963 came into existence as a state. This was to placate the demand for a separate nation. But with the militarization of Nagaland, the NNC became more of an Underground Movement. Archbishop Thomas Menaparampil says that the Naga struggle was also supported by Pakistan and China to get even with India. This could be possible and strategic.
What was the impact of militarization on the Naga people?
Tezenlo Thong in an article ‘Thy Kingdom Come: The Impact of Colonization and Prolesytization on Religion Among the Nagas’ gives a glimpse of what were the primary effects of militarization. To this day, for many Nagas their only interaction with mainstream Indians is through their contact with Indian military personnel and traders, both of whom are distrusted and despised. This limited contact and history of unpleasant experience has created a chasm between the Nagas and mainstream Indians. For example, among some Nagas, such as the Chakesang Nagas, to be called an ‘Indian’ is considered an inexcusable offense or insult. Among the Rengma Nagas, the word ‘Indian’ is used to scare a rebellious child into submission and nothing scares a child more than the mention of it. For example, when a child disobeys or misbehaves, a mother or father would say, ‘Ghasang chichi nthale’ (I’m going to call an Indian). Or if a child cries at night s/he is told, ‘If you don’t cease crying, Indians will come and snatch you away’. These cultural practices and perceptions should not, however, be misconstrued as racism; for these images have come to emerge and be formed in the culture because of Nagas’ bitter experience of historical violence and the poor reputation of the Indian army in their suppression against the will of the Nagas.
What is the cause of Christianity being so high in the state of Nagaland?
This may seem a very abrupt question that defeats the logical progression of the article. But it is not so. Christianity had its advent during the British Colonialism. Thong says that Colonialism and Proselytization are intricately connected. Three years after his first invasion of the Nagas, on 10 March 1835, Jenkins sent a letter to the board of American Baptist Missions, requesting personnel for proselytizing the natives in north-east India.thong says that Christianity and civilizing missions went hand in hand in a European Colonial context. So, one of the popular missionary motives was the civilization of the ‘uncivilized’ natives. The first encounter between western Christian missionaries and the Nagas took place in January 1839, when an American Baptist missionary named Miles Bronson went to the Namsang Nagas in what is now known as Arunachal Pradesh. However, this mission did not succeed as it was terminated in two years. More than 30 years later, in 1871, an Assamese evangelist named Godhula was sent to the Ao Nagas by EW Clark, who was also an American Baptist missionary in Assam. In March of the following year, Clark moved from Sibsagar, Assam, and established a mission station among the Ao Nagas at Molung. In November 1872, he baptized nine Naga converts at Sibsagar, and this is considered the birth of Christianity among the Nagas. Subsequently, missions were started among other Naga tribes. The American missionizing enterprise was significantly truncated with India’s independence in 1947. In 1955 the Indian government summarily expelled all foreigners from Nagaland and imposed restrictions for all foreign citizens seeking to enter the region. This restriction remains in effect today.
The American Baptist missionaries were people of their time, who might have had good intentions but were deeply entrenched in the vortex of colonial euphoria and left behind trails of destruction on the native Naga culture. The thought that their action could be considered genocidal by the native people later never occurred to them. They prohibited the practice of native culture and introduced western values, education and Christianity. They forbade Naga converts from engaging in any cultural practices they thought were sinful or not compatible with Christian living, such as indigenous dances, songs, festivals and drinks, to mention but a few.One thematic connection between the agents of colonialism and proselytization is the assertion that the Nagas were uncivilized, barbaric and pagan in their entire way of thinking and living. In fact, American Baptist missionaries were notorious in depicting the Nagas as savage, primitive and wild. In their literature, they popularized and abused the term ‘headhunting’ and constantly used ‘headhunting’ or ‘headhunters’ in reference to Nagas. The Naga Hills were then referred to as ‘the wilds of barbarism’. Throughout their mission work among the Nagas, the missionaries fabricated colonial portraits or stereotypes and characterized the Nagas as ‘headhunters’, a term that became synonymous with Nagas. Colonial portraits such as this and others were essential for undermining the Nagas and to colonize their minds. The colonial transmutation of Naga culture essentially began with psychological colonization. The construction of this colonial portrait both drove and informed the process of colonizing the mind, which in turn precipitated change and conversion among the Nagas. Colonizing of the mind, according to Fanon, is ‘the emptying of the native’s brain of all form and content’, and ‘by a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures, and destroys it’. In order to civilize, the colonized must first be ‘uncivilized’ or ‘primitivized’; otherwise, the project of the civilizing mission cannot be implemented. The civilizing process cannot take place as long as the colonized subjects remain proud of and attached to their cultural heritage and identity. In order to sever the subjects from their culture and to produce change and conversion, it is necessary to constantly inculcate in the mind of the colonized that their culture is evil, savage, irrational and deficient. So, the colonizing of the mind precedes the dismantling of culture and traditional community and their values. For Nagas, colonizing the mind has resulted in the disintegration of their traditional and moral virtues. But attributing Christianity to the missionaries alone would be rather naïve an assumption.
So can we assume that the great presence of Christianity is due to Proselytization?
The answer is yes and no. Yes because that definitely laid the foundation but it is not a satisfactory explanation. According to the 1941 Census 17.9 per cent Nagas were Christians. But since 1950 the rate of conversion increased dramatically and in the 1981 census 80.2 per cent Nagas were Christians. How did 64.3 percent increase so dramatically in just a matter of 40 years. Thong beautifully argues that the period between 1950 – 1980 was very violent due to militarization and Underground movements. There were a lot of stress and anxiety caused by the Militarization which gave rise to many Christian Revival movements. As shown earlier, the consciousness of the Nagas was shaped as an ‘Other’ to an Indian. So accepting Christianity could be a way of a protest to be different from the Indian hindu. Traumatic social changes due to the struggle with the Indian Government, needed emotional resources. Since the colonial experience made them do away with the traditional cosmology, Christian Revival Movements and the ethos of the Baptist Church giving primacy to emotions and free nature of worship helped them to deal with the stressful violent times. Baptist Church has remained in the focus of this nationalist movement and therefore the mass conversion of Nagas to Christianity can be interpreted to be a protest movement very similar to the Conversion of Dalits to Neo- Buddhism.
Conclusion
The land of Nagaland is very complex and cannot be reduced to the observations above. One cannot absolutize the observations stated above but hold it as just a perspective. But it can be a starting point to engage with a land that has been shrouded with prejudice and stigmas. It does challenge our conclusions about Nagaland and the people and hope it inspires us to start all over again with freshness of mind and a curiosity to learn about cultures. I only hope and pray that our ignorance about a land will inspire us to dialogically engage with the Land, stories and the people who cannot be compartmentalized into neat labels and opinions. As a saying goes “If one has to go to the first floor of a house, he/she has to leave the ground floor.” If one has to discover the mystery and beauty of a land, people and culture, one has to give up the certitude of stereotypes.
Rev Merin Mathew
Mar Thoma Syrian Church
Guwahati
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