Even as this year marks the end of the first quarter of the 21st Century, the ideas of 19th and 20th Centuries continue to shape the Naga society, both the material reality as well as the philosophical foundations of being. The colonial era introduced three big ideas and norms–––Christianity, Nationalism, and Western Education–––almost simultaneously that radically changed the worldview of Naga society. These ideas and norms remain influential, though they have undergone a role reversal of sorts between then and now in the Naga context.
The introduction of the new ideas and norms can be traced back to the Charter Act of 1813, also known as the East India Company Act of 1813, passed by the parliament of the United Kingdom. The main aim of the Act was to extend the company’s rule of the British territories of India for another twenty years. However, it was other provisions of the Act that had far-reaching consequences on modern Naga society.
One provision relates to removal of all restrictions to Western immigrants into India. A key clause was the granting of permission to Christian missionaries to enter India and engage in missionary activities. Prior to this, the East India Company was opposed to missionary work, fearing it might provoke local Indians to develop a negative attitude towards the British.
This marked the first formal establishment of the Anglican Church in British India headquartered in Calcutta (now Kolkata). The missionaries established primary schools to educate and spread Christianity. By the late 1830s, the American Baptist Mission reached Assam, from where they first contacted the Nagas. We know what happened in the second-half of the 19th Century, under the “Naga Mission”, the Gospel spread to different Naga territories.
The other provision of the Charter Act relates to education wherein the East India Company was compelled to accept the responsibilities for the education of inhabitants of British India. For this purpose, a sum of rupees one lakh was to be set aside. By the mid-1830s, a new system of education was rolled out in British India to disseminate knowledge of Western literature and sciences with English as the medium of instruction.
The idea of “nationalism” was a byproduct of Western education. The notion was presented to the Nagas when nationalism discourse was at its peak in the 19th Century in Europe. By the 20th Century, it spread throughout the colonised world including Asia and Africa. In Europe, nationalism was a powerful socio-political ideology that played the role of both destructive and unifying force. If Germany and Italy witnessed their unification under nationalist movements, aggressive nationalist forces with expansionist policies contributed to the outbreak of two world wars in the first-half of the 20th Century.
The Nagas of the 20th Century underwent a tumultuous period as they were confronted with a completely new world in belief system, socio-political ordering and knowledge production, heavily influenced by Western characteristics. In a remarkable display of adaptability to the new environment, the Nagas exhibited intellectual deftness by localizing the new norms to equip themselves and set a new agenda for themselves to deal with the realities of the time. The ability to internalise foreign norms allowed the Naga society to avoid complete uprooting of its indigenous traditions and practices. The localization process of the foreign norms helped the Nagas navigate the emerging world of 20th Century.
The outcomes of the localized norms in the Naga context were the emergence of a new faith in the form of Christianity, the birth of a collective identity under the name “Naga”, and a social medium to connect with the outside world mediated through Western education. These factors together provided the foundational principles upon which the Nagas organised themselves as a “nation” through the nation-building process that followed.
The ability to swiftly adapt to the new world is noteworthy, however, what’s even more significant, was the dexterity with which the Nagas employed the new norms for agenda-setting in charting out a new course for themselves. Christianity opened the doors for the Nagas to know the son of the true living God and the emergent shared identity played a critical role as a unifying force among the Nagas. The faith-based identity provided a sense of oneness that got enmeshed with the notion of Naga nationalism, contributing to strengthening the Naga nationalist movement.
The idea of nationalism allowed the imagining of a sense of belonging and a collective identity among the Nagas. Furthermore, it provided the Nagas with the political vocabulary to protect their land, history and culture as well as the methods to fight for their rights. As a powerful ideological force. nationalism acted as the glue for the Nagas to undertake the collective resistance movement to defend what belonged to them.
Education played an enabling role for the Nagas to understand the world around them and the changes that unfolded during that period. The Naga society was able to locate themselves within the wider global developments and envisioned a futuristic agenda for themselves that was conveyed in the language understandable to the outside world. The most impactful messaging of the period took the form of the political memorandum submitted to the Simon Commission on June 10, 1929 by Naga Club, the declaration of Naga independence on August 14, 1947 by Naga National Council (NNC) and the exercise of Naga plebiscite on June 16, 1956.
If the 20th Century witnessed the contributing role of Christianity, nationalism and Western education in consolidating a sense of unity of purpose amongst the Nagas, the same ideas and norms have come to play the reverse role in the 21st Century. Unlike the past, what was considered a source of unity has become a cause of divergence and what was viewed as a common good has become a source of conflict. The play of divisive politics is a common thread evident in all the three ideas and norms in today’s Naga society.
As Christianity becomes the predominant faith in the Naga society, the sheer growth in number has not guaranteed its unifying role. Today, the church is afflicted with internal divisions within a church, between churches, and along denomination lines casting a shadow over the credibility of the sacred institution. Sample the church and community dynamics in a Naga village––churches are in constant tug of war to woo members often resulting in a perennial state of hot and cold tensions. The mushrooming of churches in villages added another layer to the ever-increasing divisive forces, rather than bringing people closer. The village is the base of Naga society and when the church becomes a contributing factor in weakening the base, it is difficult to envision the church playing a unifying role in the current setting.
Naga nationalism continues to remain an ideological force driven by the desire to be a “free nation”, however, translating the idea on the ground has produced more fissures and divisions. The ever-growing number of Naga political groups tell its own story. Even as the collective identity of the Nagas as a people and a nation is an established reality, the ability to build a collective vision remains elusive as the trajectory of taking the idea forward is contested. The failure to find answers to these issues have become a major source of the divisive politics that even threatens the very sustenance of the idea itself.
Education as an enabler has become an end in itself and a cause of social contestation. The impressive literacy rate and the growth of a large educated class have not translated into bringing about the much-needed social transformations on issues that drag the society from moving forward, let alone setting a new agenda to prepare the Nagas to navigate the 21st Century. To be fair, the educated lot has spent much of the time and energy tackling the unintended outcomes and consequences of the processes that were set in motion in the 20th Century. Today, the Naga society suffers from intellectual rigidity that only limits the space for intellectual honesty.
What began as ideas of emancipation of the material and metaphysics of Naga society are today at a crossroads. The second quarter of the century will be critical for the Nagas to envisage a collective agenda and prepare the ground for its execution in the second-half of the century. If the Nagas allow the current divisive forces to run the course, the Naga society may reach a point of no return. The 21st Century will go down in the annals of Naga history as “the lost century.” More importantly, if the Nagas don’t set their own agenda for the future, others will set it for them.
Khriezo Yhome
The writer is a scholar with a research focus on Southeast Asian studies
Monday, July 21, 2025