Responding to the recent statement issued by the Eastern Naga National Workers Forum (ENNWF), which had reacted to the statement of WC, NNPGs on RIIN concerning Nagas from outside the present Nagaland, the Eastern Nagaland National Workers Association (ENNWA) GPRN/NSCN Friday said the present political position of the Nagas in each territorial boundary should be taken into consideration while taking up the matters on the identity of the Nagas.
In a press statement, secretary ENNWA, GPRN/NSCN said the direction that NNPGs issued in the matter “strongly adheres to the Naga customary Practices and procedures and confines only to the present political State of Naga LAND. It has no bearing on the Naga LIM.”
According to ENNWA, it was an “established indoctrination in the Naga customs” that in the internal matters of one tribe, another tribe cannot intervene. Each tribe of Nagaland, it said has a well established territory, politically well demarcated and customarily known as Naga country.
Asserting that a bona fide Naga was identified by his village and clan, the ENNWA said “These cardinal principles and procedures still in practice cannot be thwarted or destroyed by the vested interests of the Nagas from other territories or states or countries.”
Further, ENNWA said that there was no authority other than or above the ancestral village, which has the power and authority to issue any form of identity to a Naga. “Only such Nagas identified with clan and village alone can have a stake in the customary and political affairs of the Nagas of Nagaland,” it said, adding that Nagas of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, likewise, have their own respective identities and customary systems.
ENWWA also stated that it was beyond the competence and powers of any authority outside the purview of the customary system of one Naga territory to certify, identify or interfere with same affairs of another territory. It said that such violations or authoritarian indulgence in the territorial boundaries of one tribe by any authority or tribe from another territory would be an infringement on the sovereign constituent powers of the respective village authorities and the internal affairs of that Naga tribe.
“In the same way, Nagas of Burma cannot endorse the Indigenous Inhabitant identity of the Nagas of Nagaland or any other state and vice versa,” it added.
ENNWA maintained that any Naga from one linguistic and tribal territory settled in the land of another tribe cannot indulge in the affairs of that tribe.
Further, according to ENNWA, whether it be citizenship or identity, the rights of individual Nagas flows from the authority vested within the Villages of their birth. “There should be no questions raised from any quarters on these matters,” it asserted.
It said that customary system should not be left open for political debates and statutory interventions “through such conflicting arguments in the public forum.” If any clarification on any matter was required, ENWWA said the concerned organisations through their representative Tribal bodies were free to raise the matters with NNPGs, adding that the doors were open for anyone to understand and deliberate on critical issues.
It stated that NNPGs opinion on RIIN was “in good faith to clearly identify who is who in this complicated world.” It stated that sacrifices and untold sufferings and the agonies of the “eastern Naga (Burma Naga) people for the national cause is held fresh in our minds and will be written with golden letters in the annals of the history of the Naga National Movement.” However, ENWWA said that Nagas of Nagaland cannot certify them as indigenous inhabitants of Nagaland state. It has, therefore, stated that the question of “undermining or betraying” them did not arise. “We are addressing the matters pertaining to state of Naga- L(and) and not about Naga L(IM),” it underscored.