The Story of Mayangkokla of the Nagas

Mayangkokla‟s screams continue to echo in my ears, even as I pause to reflect upon her
biographical account in Kaka Iralu‟s „Blood and Tears‟ [Iralu, Kaka. D., Nagaland and India:
The Blood and the Tears (Kohima: Published by Kaka D. Iralu, 2000)]. His book is based on
testimonial evidence to argue for the cruelties and inhuman acts of the Indian army in the
land of the Nagas. Mayangkokla‟s story forms the major section of the chapter on Ungma
village and describes the cruelties and inhumanities of the Indian army there. Kaka sits with
Mayangkokla in her house in 1997 and listens as she tells her story with her frail old hand in
his. She recounts the tales of horror of her teen years and describes that fateful week. The
testimonial narrates that she was a village beauty, a young girl of 18, who was dragged,
beaten senselessly and then gang-raped both publicly as well as in private confinement for
over a week. Her screams of protest and mock-laughter of the army men fill every line of this
account.

My mind searches for tools to understand the few pages of blood and tears that I had just
read. I want to be critical of all that I read, I tell myself. Kaka, I say, is passionate about his
book, and could an overflow of that passion distort the reality that he describes? It really
could not have been so bad! I further wonder, could the choice of words in his graphic
account be intentional to suit a particular kind of audience that he is writing to, or even being
politically-correct? Or finally, could the memory of the incident have changed from year to
year, from each telling to another to accommodate the tenor of the larger narrative that it so
seeks to represent? However, all academic tools crumble as I see Mayangkokla, aged and
fragile, recounting her story, a testimony of what happened to her and who can defy or deny
her story? It is her story, like all our life-stories and who am I or we to contest it?

Also, her story is not told in isolation, it is not an anomaly or a variant, a blip in the rather
beautiful picture of life. The events that she experienced in her life unfortunately were not
unique to her. Hers is one chapter of a larger compendium that contains stories of similar
experiences. She compels us to listen to her and so we must. This gruesome act is one among
thousands, Kaka argues, that has taken place in Nagaland over the past 50 years. The Indian
army, armed with special powers, has been sent at the behest of the Indian government, and
representing the gods of democracy and nation-state to curtail these „underground insurgents‟
or „freedom fighters‟ (depending on who is narrating). Many members of the army that had
gone to protect the sovereignty of India misused their uncontrolled powers to kill, rape and
destroy countless lives.

A few decades earlier, something similar was happening in the Indian sub-continent. Then it
was the Indian insurgents or freedom fighters (depending on who is narrating again) fighting
against the colonial British Crown that was ruling India. The Colonial powers had ruled over
India for over 200 hundred years in some form or other. The Indian freedom fighters fought
and overcame the colonial powers that had imposed their rule on India. India said that she did
not want to be part of the colonial empire and asserted her right to rule herself. That story is
well-documented and we remember it with pride. This demon of colonialism was dethroned
and ousted and India got her freedom. The world lauded India‟s independence and it being
constituted as a republic. Each year we reminisce and celebrate our independence and the
victory of freedom over imperial rule. We hold high the virtues of freedom and self-rule.
Ironically, soon thereafter, a fight between the Indian State and the Nagas ensued pretty much
on the same ideologies that had caused India to fight the British. However, this time it was
the Nagas who were fighting Indian aggression. The Nagas said that they were never part of
the Indian state and hence did not want to be ruled and be colonized by India. But this time,
India fought her, forgetting the very values of freedom and right to one‟s self-governance that
had propelled her own journey in her fight against the British Raj, and she dealt ruthlessly
with the Nagas. There was no willingness to listen to the story of the Nagas who had made it
clear that they did not belong to the Indian state and asserted that India was imposing her rule
on a land and people who considered themselves to be an „other‟ with no common history.
History was repeating itself; India was doing exactly what the British Raj had done: she was
imposing her rule over a people who did not want to come under her governance. India sent
her army in and the atrocities began: mindless killings, uncounted rapes, burning of houses
and villages, it was indeed hell and have been for the past 50 years. The Nagas who
organized themselves into an army in turn fought the army and the war has continued. It is
rightfully called the world‟s longest lasting war. The story of Mayangkokla makes us think
about war, conflict, violence and their cruelties. It is here that you and I step into this story.
This is not a story that is happening across many seas or in another continent. It is happening,
right in our backyard, within the frontiers of our own country. How do we respond to this
story? Can tears of pain be replaced by tears of joy? Can life‟s story be written as The
Beautiful and the Triumph instead of Iralu‟s The Blood and the Tears?

I definitely have no solution to the world‟s oldest lasting war or even how to go about a
solution. But I do think that those who believe in peace and justice and hate violence must
raise their voice or do something. I dream of a world where the armed forces will be
unemployed, where there will be no need to fight or fire a gun, with no need to exert
violence. Where there will be no more anguished cries of Mayangkoklas but sweet laughter,
cries of children filling the air.

When the children cry

Let them know we tried
When the children fight
Let them know it ain't right
When the children pray
Let them know the way
Cause when the children sing
Then the new world begins

– From the song “When the Children Cry” by White Lion