NPMHR to reconnect with border communities

The Naga Peoples’ Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR) will be traveling to communities living in the border areas of Assam and Nagaland this week as a part of attempts to ‘re-affirm the importance of age-old practice and bond and reclaim the age-old ties and relationships by means of re-living the past through exchange of traditional and cultural practices’.

The organization will be commemorating International Day for the World’s Indigenous Peoples at Yanpha village, bordering Assam on August 9, Sunday at 11 am.

The organization issued a press release on Wednesday, August 5, informing about the program.

The press release stated: “Resonating with the rest of the world, the Naga Peoples’ Movement for Human Rights will commemorate the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples’ together with neighboring indigenous communities, viz., the Karbis and the Tai-Ahoms of Assam, along with the Rengma Nagas of Assam, and the leaders of Naga Students’ Federation, Indigenous Women Forum of North East India, the Lotha Hoho and the people living in a border village of Yanpha and its adjoining areas under Wokha District, Nagaland”.

“In understanding the fundamental need for strengthening the indigenous peoples’ roles and responsibilities as custodians of their land and ecosystem, the NPMHR will be organizing a one-day programme”.

The NPMHR stated that the civil organizations will “converge to celebrate our age-old neighbourly ties, share our cultural values and practice systems, and dialogue with one another for a more cohesive approaches for undertaking the realization of this year’s UN’s theme, ‘Indigenous Peoples’ as Custodians of the Land and its Ecosystem’’.

In the words of the NPMHR, “or centuries, the Nagas, Ahoms and Karbis have been maintaining strong political, social and economic ties with each other through acknowledgment of land boundaries”.  Trading through barter system was a central element in strengthening our ties as indigenous communities, the NMPHR stated. Citing an example, It said that agricultural produce such as cotton, linseed, ginger, and fruits from the Naga areas would be traded with salt from the Ahom people of Assam.

The organization stated: “However, in recent years, disputes and misunderstandings have emerged often intensifying into serious conflicts for ownership of land, a colonial legacy, which, in the interest of neo colonial Delhi government, still continues. Conflict over land disputes has emerged not directly between the indigenous neighbours but because of immigrants backed by state government and its policies over the past decades, Ralan area in Wokha district being an example of recent memory where the indigenous Naga community has been pushed to the wall for their land occupied by immigrants from other states of India along the Nagaland-Assam states border”.

While stating that the non-indigenous immigrant peoples residing in “our lands owe respect and co-operation to us in managing our land and ecosystem,” the NMPHR said, “In as much as they are assets to the land, it is also only just that these fellow social groups do not cause conflicts among the indigenous communities whose land they occupy”.

The organization envisaged that “we, the indigenous peoples, will partner with these social groups in the search for more responsible custody of our land and continuance of the ecosystems”.

Re-affirming the importance of ‘age-old practice and bond’, the NPMHR hopes to strengthen and ‘reclaim the age-old ties and relationships by means of re-living the past through exchange of traditional and cultural practices’.

The cultural exchange and dialogue on August 9 at Yanpha under Wokha District, Nagaland will also be marked by ‘folklores’, folk songs and dances, and exchange of indigenous seeds and plants followed by a dialogue on ways to peace-building among indigenous groups and preservation of the eco-system, the NPMHR stated.  

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