Friday, January 15, 2010

Nagaland Culture and religion

Culture and religion

The (14) tribes of Nagaland are Angami Naga, Ao, Chakhesang, Chang, Khiamniungan, Konyak, Lotha, Phom, Pochury, Rengma, Sangtam, Sumi, Yimchungru, and Zeliang, of which the Konyaks, Angamis, Aos, Lothas, and Sumis are the largest Naga tribes. Tribe and clan traditions and loyalties play an important part in the life of Nagas. Weaving is a traditional art handed down through generations in Nagaland. Each of the major tribes has its own unique designs and colours, producing shawls, shoulder bags, decorative spears, table mats, wood carvings, and bamboo works. Naga Tribal dances of the Nagas give an insight into the inborn Naga reticence of the Naga people. War dances and other dances belonging to distinctive Naga tribes are a major art form in Nagaland. Some of these are Moatsu, Sekrenyi, Tuluni, Tokhu Emong, and Gan-Ngai.

Christianity is the predominant religion of Nagaland. The state's population is 1.988 million, out of which 90.02% are Christians. The census of 2001 recorded the state's Christian population at 1,790,349, making it, with Meghalaya and Mizoram, one of the three Christian-majority states in India and the only state where Christians form 90 percent of the population. The state has a very high church attendance rate in both urban and rural areas. The largest of Asia's churches dominate the skylines of Kohima, Dimapur, and Mokokchung.

Nagaland is known as "the only predominantly Baptist ethnic state in the world." Among Christians, Baptists are the predominant group constituting more than 75 percent of the state's population, thus making it more Baptist (on a percentage basis) than Mississippi in the southern United States, where 52 percent of its population is Baptist.

Catholics, Revivalists, and Pentecostals are the other Christian denomination numbers. Catholics are found in significant numbers in parts of Wokha district as also in the urban areas of Kohima and Dimapur.

Hinduism and Islam are minority religions in state, at 7.7% and 1.8% of the population respectively. A small minority, less than 0.3%, still practise the traditional religions and are mainly concentrated in Peren and the Eastern districts.

Languages

Almost all the tribes of Nagaland have their own language. Nagas speak 60 different dialects belonging to the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. The traditional languages do not have any script of their own. The Christian Missionaries used Roman script for these languages.

In 1967 the Nagaland Assembly proclaimed English as the official language of Nagaland and is the medium for education in Nagaland.

Nagamese, a creole language form of Indo-Aryan Assamese and local dialects is the most widely spoken market language. Every tribe has its own mother tongue but communicates with other tribes in Nagamese. As such Nagamese is not a mother tongue of any of the tribes; nor is it written.

Nagaland north-eastern part of India

Nagaland (Hindi: नागालैंड) About this sound pronunciation (help·info) is a hill state located in the far north-eastern part of India. It borders the state of Assam to the west, Arunachal Pradesh and part of Assam to the north, Burma to the east and Manipur to the south. The state capital is Kohima, and the largest city is Dimapur. With a population of nearly two million people, it has a total area of 16,579 km² (6,401 sq mi)—making it one of the smallest states of India.

History

The early history of Nagaland is the story of the customs and economic activities of the Naga tribes. The people were originally referred to as Naka in Burmese languages, which means 'people with pierced ears'. The Naga tribes had socio-economic and political links with tribes in Assam and Burma (Myanmar); even today a large population of Naga inhabits Assam. Following an invasion in 1816, the area, along with Assam, came under direct rule of Burma. This period was noted for oppressive rule and turmoil in Assam and Nagaland. When the British East India Company took control of Assam in 1826, the Britain steadily expanded its domain over modern Nagaland. By 1892, all of modern Nagaland except the Tuensang area in the northeast was governed by the British. It was politically amalgamated into Assam. Missionaries played an important part in converting Nagaland's Naga tribes in Christianity.

Not much is known about the history before the Burmese invasion or before the Naga people were converted to Christianity.

Road to statehood

During World War I, the British recruited several hundred Nagas and sent them to France to work as aides at the front. While in Europe, the Naga, who had always been fractured by tribal differences, began to think that they should work towards becoming unified in order to protect their common interests. On their return to their homeland in 1918, they organized, and thus began the Naga nationalist movement.[1]

After the independence of India in 1947, the area remained a part of the province of Assam. Nationalist activities arose amongst a section of the Nagas, whose Naga National Council demanded a political union of their ancestral and native groups, damaged government and civil infrastructure and attacked government officials and civilians from other states of India. The Union government sent the Indian Army in 1955, to restore order. In 1957, the Government began diplomatic talks with representatives of Naga tribes, and the Naga Hills district of Assam and the Tuensang frontier were united in a single political entity that became a Union territory, directly administered by the Central government with a large degree of autonomy. This was not satisfactory to the tribes, however, and soon agitation and violence increased across the state—included attacks on Army and government institutions, as well as civil disobedience and non-payment of taxes. In July 1960, a further political accord was reached at the Naga People's Convention to wit: that Nagaland should become a constituent and self-governing state in the Indian union. Statehood was officially granted in 1963.

Latter day unrest

The government’s initiative was vehemently condemned by the NNC which pointed out that these are measures to divide the Naga people. A ‘Peace Mission’ was formed which resulted in the signing of an Agreement for Suspension of Operation (AGSOP) with the insurgents on September 6, 1964. But violence continued and six rounds of talks between the Centre and insurgents failed. The ‘Peace Mission’ broke in 1967.

The Government of India banned the NNC in 1972 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967 and launched a massive counter-insurgency operation. On November 11, 1975, the Shillong Accord was signed between NNC and the Government of India where the NNC cadres accepted “without condition, the Constitution of India”. However, a section of the NNC rebelled against the accord and formed the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) in 1980. Tribal differences led to a split in the NSCN in 1988 leading to the birth of Isak-Muivah faction (NSCN-IM) and the Khaplang faction (NSCN-K). Both these outfits continued their movement with an avowed objective of establishing a Nagalim (greater Nagaland) comprising Naga inhabited areas of Nagaland, Assam, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and neighbouring Myanmar.

Insurgencies were quelled in the early 1990s. Violence had re-erupted and there was conflict between rebel group factions till the early 1990s. On 25 July, 1997, Prime Minister Atal Bihari vajpayee announced that the Government after talks with Isaac group of the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) declared a cease-fire or cessation of operations.On August 1, 1997, the NSCN-IM and the Union government entered into a ceasefire agreement and have since held more than 60 rounds of dialogue (until mid-2009) to resolve the conflict. A similar ceasefire agreement was signed between the NSCN-K and the government in April 2001, though both sides are yet to start a process of dialogue. The ceasefire agreements with both the outfits have been periodically extended.

The militant groups have been continuously collecting ‘tax’ from the people and business establishments. This money is collected from all sources, including from Government departments and the extortion network spreads over not only the cities like Dimapur, Kohima and various District headquarters and townships but also over almost all the 1317 villages of the state. ‘Tax’ is also collected from commercial vehicles plying on National Highway 39, en route, to Manipur. Neither the Central nor the state Government is taking any action against this ‘tax collection’ by the militants. The ceasefire rules, which stipulate that the militants stay in designated camps, ban their movement in uniform and with arms and prohibit extortion, are also not followed by the militants. The cadres of the militant outfits move freely with their arms out in open and carry out all sorts of extortion activities. The police, Army and Central Para-Military forces were unable to take any significant steps in this regard for quite sometime but things appear to have been brought under control by 2009. In spite of the twelve year old ceasefire with the NSCN-IM and the eight year old ceasefire with the rival Khaplang faction (NSCN-K), the situation in Nagaland is still volatile. With the birth of NSCN-U, the situation turned murkier. Insurgency-related fatalities have been on a rise during the last few years in the state. Between 1992 and 2009 (till July), at least 2330 insurgency related fatalities have been recorded in Nagaland. The number of fatalities in insurgency-related activities increased from 154 in 2007 to 201 in 2008 (Source: www.satp.org). Most of the fatalities are a result of clashes between the various factions of the militant groups, as there have been very few incidents of militant-security force standoffs.

Reffered from wikipedia