The Northeast At 70: Through The Stories Of A Naga Family

An old, sepia-tinted photograph of a rugged, handsome young man, clad in a military tunic occupies the pride of place on the mantle above the fireplace of a well-appointed cottage at Kohima’s Forest Colony. It is dated August 1918 and, in barely decipherable flowing Victorian handwriting, gives the name of the person as T Khire (born: 1897, died: 1948) .

Beside this photograph, held in a silver frame, stands another portrait of yet another handsome young man; he in a military uniform staring proudly and a tad defiantly into the camera. His name: A T Khire (born: 1920, died: 1984). They’re father and son, and both served in the British Army – the senior Khire as a member of the Naga Labour Corps that was deployed to France in First World War, and the son as a jawan of the Assam Rifles that played a stellar role in the Battle of Kohima from April to June 1944.

There are other family portraits, too, of A T Khire’s son Francis (1946-2015) and the latter’s family, including his sons Robert, Desmond and Lanu and daughters Temsula and Mary. Mary, 29, the youngest of the siblings, is a successful entrepreneur in Kohima and looks after the house her father built, as well as some other properties around Kohima and their native village Vishwema, about 22 kilometres south of (Nagaland’s picturesque capital) Kohima.

The history of this family encapsulates the flow of events – some proud and happy, many tragic and quite a few unfortunate – as well as the accompanying myriad emotions – soaring hopes and acute disappointments, anger, rage, frustrations and, now, the dawn of a new era – that have marked the transition of Nagaland, and the entire Northeast India for that matter, since the British era.

The First World War And Thereafter

It is hard to imagine what life would have been like for T Khire (that is how his great grandchildren, who do not want their full names revealed for the sake of privacy, would like him to be known as). A young man barely out of his teens who had never stepped out of his village being suddenly drafted into the Naga Labour Corps and packed off thousands of miles away to a foreign country to repair roads and build fences!

The journey itself would have a bewildering one for him – by bullock cart from Kohima to Assam, then by train to Calcutta (with two breaks to cross the Brahmaputra and the Padma by ferry), and thence by ship to France. And the terrifying sounds of aerial bombings, canons being fired, bullets whizzing by, seeking shelter in dirty trenches and surviving on alien food! Khire, a hardy young man, survived the back and forth journey and the war in Europe, unlike many of his fellow tribesmen. He was back in Kohima in end-July, 1918, and after receiving a handsome compensation from the British, returned to his native village where he built a new house, married and settled down.

The exposure of the 1,700-odd Nagas who were sent to Europe (a few hundred perished) to the ‘outside world’ and the close ties forged between the Naga tribes and the British administrators that time, as well as the advent of Christian missionaries and the resultant large-scale conversions to Christianity, led to the rise of ‘Naga nationalism’. Having lived together very closely and faced adversities together, the members of the Naga tribes also realised the need to forge a common Naga identity by sinking their inter and intra tribal feuds. The Naga Labour Corps members, after their return, formed the ‘Naga Club’ which, in 1929, submitted a memorandum to the Simon Commission demanding that the Nagas be granted the right to self-determination in the event of the British leaving India.

T Khire was an active member of the Naga Club and, having learnt to write a fair bit of English, got involved in drafting memorandums, petitions and leaflets making out a strong case for Naga self-determination. His fellow villagers and many of his tribesmen also got involved in the movement for Naga self-determination. And this demand only grew stronger with the passage of time, especially with the advent of the Second World War.

The Second World War

Khire’s son Thomas (A T Khire) studied in a small school run by Baptist missionaries and then went to college in Shillong. He returned to Kohima before completing his graduation and got a job as a petty clerk with the district administration (the Naga Hills was part of Assam till 1957 when it became a Union Territory and subsequently a full-fledged state in 1963).

Soon after his return to Kohima, the Second World War broke out. But it was only in March-April 1944 that the War reached the doorsteps of Northeast India with the Japanese and the INA marching up to Manipur and Kohima. Thomas, then barely 24, enlisted into the Assam Rifles that was actively aiding the Allied forces.

Nagas, by all accounts, rendered yeomen service to the Allied forces and played a crucial role in the victory of the Allies in the Battle of Kohima from April 4, 1944 to June 22, 1944. They acted as spies, porters and soldiers, and Thomas even earned himself a bravery medal and a commendation. But the War had an unintended fallout: the Nagas’ disconnect with mainland Indians increased exponentially. That was because, according to many historians, the INA soldiers mistreated the Nagas, looted and burnt their houses, took away their cattle and livestock and tortured and killed many of them. The British also bombed some Naga villages, including Viswema, in order to flush out the Japanese and the INA troops, but they provided quick compensation and succour.

The Kohima Battle and its aftermath – the generous compensations given by the British for damages, the prompt aid for reconstructions and the support provided to the battle-scarred Nagas by a sympathetic British administration – brought the Nagas closer to the British. The Baptist and other missionaries also did their bit to help the Nagas. In contrast, the Nagas’ dealings with the mainland Indians – INA soldiers – left a bitter aftertaste and this persisted down the decades.

Independence And Insurgency

The Nagas never wanted to be part of India and in 1946, the Naga National Council (NNC) – which grew out of the Naga Club – under the leadership of Angami Zapu Phizo, declared Nagaland an independent state on 14 August 1947. The NNC resolved to establish a “sovereign Naga state” and conducted a “referendum” in 1951, in which “99 per cent” supported an “independent” Nagaland.

In the meantime, prior to Independence and thereafter, the Nagas’ alienation with, and antipathy towards, ‘mainland’ Indians grew. That is because, as sociologists explain, the ‘mainland’ Indians – mostly from North India – were petty traders, contractors and labourers who, to the Nagas, were exploitative, cunning, loud, brash, unsophisticated and dirty as compared to the suave, caring, gentle and sophisticated Britishers.

The NNC boycotted the first general elections in 1952 and launched a secessionist movement. NNC cadres started raiding police outposts for arms and extorting money from businessmen. Phizo launched the Naga Federal Army (NFA) in March 1956. Thomas’ younger brother Robert (name changed) joined the insurgent group. In April 1956, the Indian Army was deployed in the Naga Hills district (of Assam) to crush the insurgency and the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (or AFSPA) promulgated.

What followed was an orgy of bloodshed, human rights violations, displacement of tens of thousands of Nagas from their villages, custodial tortures, rapes and molestations, and untold sufferings. Robert was killed (after being tortured, alleges his family) on Christmas-eve of 1961, and his sons Joel (then 18) and Gideon (15) also joined the rebels subsequently. Joel was killed by the Assam Rifles (a force his uncle served in during the Second World War) a few years later while Gideon survived the bruising insurgency, left the NSCN (IM) which he had joined after its formation in 1980, and settled down with his wife and three kids at Dimapur (Nagaland’s commercial capital) sometime in the early 1990s.

After the War, Thomas re-joined the district administration as a clerk in late 1944. He completed his graduation and got promoted, retiring as a deputy secretary of the Nagaland government in the mid-1970s. He had married and had five kids – Francis being the eldest, followed by John, Margaret, Rosie and Sidney. Thomas’ sister Akunuo, a spinster who was also a teacher in a private school, stayed with Thomas and his family in Kohima.

One late afternoon in August 1967, some Naga rebels allegedly fired on a passing Indian Army convoy in Kohima. The army jawans started firing indiscriminately in retaliation. One bullet hit Akunuo, who was playing with her niece Rosie in the front lawn of their little cottage, on the face and killed her instantly. Another bullet pierced through Rosie’s stomach and she died two days later in a government hospital. Sidney, who was just 11 then, witnessed the killings and never recovered from the shock. He alternates between severe depression and schizophrenia and is cared for by his niece Mary in Kohima.

Hope And Then Despair

Francis, the eldest son of Thomas, was sent away to study in a boarding school in Shillong. He excelled in sports and academics, and got a seat at a college in Delhi. He obtained his Master’s degree in sociology from the Delhi University and joined a shipping company in Mumbai in 1974.

Francis was bright and ambitious, and caught the eyes of the directors of the company. He got two out of turn promotions and was even sent to England for a month on a training programme. Referring to his memoirs, Mary says that the first couple of years in Mumbai were quite happy for her father.

And Nagaland, too, started seeing light towards the end of the dark tunnel it had passed through. Peace negotiations between the government of India and the NNC were on and in 1975, the Shillong Accord was signed between the NNC and the Government of India under which the NNC agreed to lay down arms and accept the Constitution of India. This Accord was followed by hectic consultations among the Nagas to arrive at a final settlement of the Naga issue.

But for a Naga in the 1970s, living in Mumbai – or, for that matter, any part of ‘mainland’ India – was quite daunting. Referring to his memoirs, Mary tells me her dad faced at a lot of discrimination and even open hostility from his colleagues. “As soon as he caught the eye of the senior management and started getting rewarded, his colleagues started feeling jealous and started politicking against him. They spread rumours that was a sympathiser of the ‘underground’ (meaning the Naga rebels) who were fighting the Indian Army. He was evicted from his one-room apartment by his landlord who accused him of being anti-Indian. He managed to stay for sometime at the YMCA. But there too many were hostile towards him. Some also accused him of being a Chinese spy,” says Mary.

Francis ultimately gave up his job in 1977 and returned to Nagaland, a very embittered man. Around the same time, the euphoria generated by the Shillong Accord was dying with some hardliners among the rebels opposing what they termed was a ‘sellout’ to the government of India. Ultimately, the hardliners led by Isak Chisi Swu, Thuingaleng Muivah and S S Khaplang formed the NSCN in 1980 and relaunched the armed struggle.

Francis appeared for the state civil services and cleared it. But he could never forget his bitter experiences in Mumbai and always regretted the fact that he was denied a richly-deserving career in the corporate sector by his “petty-minded” and “cunning colleagues” (as his mentions in his memoirs) from ‘mainland’ India. He rose to retire as a Secretary to the government of Nagaland, but his deep distrust of ‘mainland Indians’ stayed with him forever.

Dawn Of A New Era

Francis’ eldest son, Robert, is now a visiting professor at a university in France, the country his great grandfather went to as a labourer. Desmond is a paediatrician attached to a renowned hospital in Hyderabad. Lanu is an architect with a firm that has offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore and divides his time between at all these cities. Temsula is an engineer with a public sector undertaking in Assam while Mary is an entrepreneur in Kohima.

All the siblings have studied in various parts of India. And like their dad, they too faced discrimination and despair. But they stood firm and confident, and faced the jibes, the taunts, the prejudices and even the injustices head on. “We were proud of our identity and we knew we were standing firmly on our feet. We wouldn’t take nonsense from anyone and we were always determined to get what is our due. We have demanded, and got, justice and fairness. We never wavered, even in the face of hostility,” said Desmond, who is married to a Goan and has two kids.

Lanu says that times were difficult when he was studying in Delhi and Ahmedabad. “But who says life is always fair? There will be many adversities, and I think the present generation of Nagas know it and are confident enough of facing it. We are Indians, proud to be so, and we will assert our right to live as free and equal citizens of this country,” he says over phone from Delhi.

And about the time the siblings were spreading their wings and studying or taking up jobs in ‘mainland’ India, the Naga peace process was initiated with then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao meeting Muivah, Swu and others in Paris in June 1995. In November 1995, then Minister of State (Home) Rajesh Pilot met them in Bangkok. Subsequently, then prime minister H D Deve Gowda met them in Zurich on 3 February 1997, which was followed by meetings with officers in Geneva and Bangkok. Prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee met them in Paris on 30 September 1998. The government of India signed a ceasefire agreement with NSCN (IM) on 25 July 1997, which came into effect on 1 August 1997. A framework agreement was signed in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi between the NSCN leadership and the government of India interlocutor R N Ravi in August 2015 that lays down the framework for an eventual peace deal.

Nagaland has enjoyed a long spell of peace, and that is what the Nagas want. So do the people of the Northeast. The foremost concerns among the people of the state, and the region, is peace as a prerequisite for development, a responsive and clean administration, jobs and livelihood, and preservation of their unique identities and cultures that makes the region such a vibrant, colourful, exuberant and positive one teeming with soaring aspirations and hopes. It is, thus, fitting that Nagaland and the rest of the region form the pivot of what Prime Minister Modi says is the engine that will drive India’s economic future. ‘Act East’ is the new buzzword in New Delhi and the capitals of the seven sister states of the region, and this policy promises to change the face of the region and the country as well.

T Khire would have surely approved. But little could he have imagined, living in a small village a hundred years ago and having no knowledge of the world beyond, that his descendants would spread their wings so wide and so gloriously. And his people, his Naga Hills (now Nagaland), and the region would undergo such a transformation!