Land of Jade

by Bertil Lintner

  The NNC split again in the late 1970s after some of its repre-sentatives signed a peace accord with the Indian government in 1975 at Shillong. Although this was ostensibly caused by a political rift between the NNC moderates and the hardliners around Muivah and Isak, who wanted to continue the armed struggle, it represented a clear division along tribal lines. The NNC virtually disintegrated after the signing of the Shillong Accord and the group around Muivah broke away and set up the NSCN in 1980. Today, the NSCN has gained strength and is by far the larger party.

  But the rump of the old NNC still maintains a token force of about 160 soldiers, based on the Burmese side of the border across from Tuensang in Nagaland. Its supporters are mostly Angami, Chakhesang and Ao. The few remaining NNC troops are nearly all recruited from the Khiamniungans, a tribe of jungle-dwellers whose territory straddles the border east of Tuensang.

  In theory the NSCN is opposed to tribalism, though most of its followers are Tangkhuls with a lesser contingent of Semas—followers of Isak, and another of Konyaks who inhabit the remote Mon district, where we planned to cross into Burma. Inside the NSCN’s base area in ‘the East’, the local people are called Pangmis and they have provided most rank and file fighters of the NSCN’s army. However, cross-border raids into ‘the West’ are mostly carried out by Tangkhuls.

  Though in state politics, the tight bonds of tribal affiliation are said to be slackening, the Konyaks and Semas still tend to vote for the ruling Congress party while the opposition, the Naga National Democratic Party, has its main power base among the Angamis and the Chakhesangs, with the Aos supporting both parties in roughly equal numbers.

  This tribal division partly explains the different contacts the mainstream political parties have with the two factions of the underground—a relationship we found profoundly confusing. From our previous experience in reporting on insurgent movements in Burma and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, we were used to a clear-cut division between the government and the rebel forces. In Nagaland, it was entirely different.

  Despite our underground existence some of our helpers seemed to think it would be a good idea to discreetly let certain persons in positions of authority know of our presence. We were slowly comprehending that Nagaland’s freewheeling economy has nurtured widespread corruption and created a new class of politicians, bureaucrats and contractors with intertwined interests. As a result, social inequality, which was almost unknown in Naga society only a few decades ago, has emerged.

  An Indian newspaper report, which I had copied from Zanietso’s files, said: “Many young educated Nagas think there is no justice for them under the present dispensation…no wonder a steady stream of educated youth are crossing the border to join the underground forces led by Muivah.”

  In a twist of logic, which reflects the extremely complicated situation in Nagaland, the newspaper continued: “The tragedy is that the Nagaland elite has a vested interest in keeping the insurgency alive. There is a growing feeling that unless the rebel army holds out, the funds from the centre will not flow.”

  Involuntarily we had become entwined in this tangled situation, and were coming to suspect that our prolonged stay in Kohima was the product of intra-tribal lack of trust. Since our hosts were Chakhesangs, they were most probably suspect in the eyes of the NSCN.

  This sensation of being trapped in an imbroglio was reinforced when we learnt that Phatang had returned to Kohima—with our letter in his pocket, still undelivered. He did not even come to see us, but we heard that he had not been to the NSCN’s headquarters, only as far as Longva where he had merely handed over responsibility for the group he was accompanying. The day after his return to Kohima, Phatang set out again for Imphal, leaving word that he would be going “only for a few days”.

  By then we had already spent a month in Kohima and though sustained by a daily routine, we were becoming restless. I had been incarcerated, with only one risky nocturnal excursion, throughout and I had lost a lot of weight, looked pale and drawn and felt constantly weary.

  A few days later, my tongue and gums turned sore and red. I suddenly realised that due to vitamin deficiency and lack of sunshine, I was coming down with scurvy. I treated my sores with glycerine and Buno kindly bought Vitamin C tablets for me; it soon cleared up.

  Politically, the situation around us was getting tenser. Zanietso always brought home newspapers from his office and on August 10, we read that Solomon, a former finance minister of the Manipur government, had been assassinated in Imphal. He was a Tangkhul, but accused by the NSCN of being a traitor.

  On the 13th—two days before India’s Independence Day—Muivah’s men struck again. Fourteen Indian soldiers were killed in an ambush near Tolloi, a big Tangkhul village in Manipur. On the following day, the NSCN had eliminated four prominent members of the NNC. The gunmen had walked into a village in Tamenglong, also in Manipur, and shot down the unarmed men in cold blood.

  Our hosts were also beginning to feel the strain. When Kewezeko came on one of his regular visits, Zanietso pointed out that there was a limit to the time he could keep us in hiding without attracting attention. Some time back Vemesü had dropped out of the picture. Perhaps having done so much for us, he felt in an exposed position and prudently refrained from visiting us.

  As for ourselves, whilst we had become proficient at backgammon—not to mention snakes and ladders—something had to be done. The question was what. Of our few underground contacts in Kohima, Phatang, despite his irascibility, seemed to be our only influential contact. We sent a message to Imphal, asking him to come and see us. The reply was that he would not be coming to Kohima for “quite some time”. Out of desperation, we began to consider other possibilities. We pulled out our maps once again.

  “We’ll go by ourselves and you can hide in a jeep,” Kewezeko said as we were kneeling on the floor studying the map. “The checkpoint in Amguri is not a strict one. The main problem is Tizit. There are actually two checkpoints there. Since the insurgents often use that route, the police at Tizit are more alert than at the Inner Line Gate we passed on the way from Dimapur to Kohima. If you make it and reach Mon without being apprehended, you’d have to push on to the border as soon as possible.”

  Once at the border, we could slip across and walk on to the first Naga village on the Burmese side. There, we could once again try to establish contact with the NSCN’s headquarters.

  “But we have to find a suitable jeep first,” Kewezeko sighed, “usually they stop everybody at Tizit. The only exceptions are cars flying official flags. You’d have to travel in a VIP vehicle, or disguise your jeep as one.”

  That did not sound easy. A VIP vehicle? We were not even sure whether we could borrow an ordinary jeep. I folded the map and put it in my shoulderbag. But there was no choice. We had to try.

  In the midst of our preparations, unexpectedly, Phatang showed up again. He seemed ill at ease and smiled sheepishly when Kewezeko brought him over to see us. We made no attempt to show that we were disappointed he had not forwarded our letter to the NSCN’s leaders.

  “I’m sure Muivah would be willing to help us if he knew we were here with an invitation from the KIA. There’s no way he could refuse,” I said sharply.

  “Only my words bear weight. Unless I’m there to argue your case, they wouldn’t do anything,’ Phatang persisted as usual.

  “We absolutely have to leave within the next few days. Our baby is due soon.”

  “I have no azha to send you.”

  He eventually softened his stance and agreed to help in finding a suitable jeep, preferably one with NLG—Nagaland Government—number plates. With these we would be less likely to be stopped and searched at the critical checkpoints in Tizit. At last, things seemed to be moving.

  On the morning of September 12, a Thursday, we packed our rucksacks. Hseng Noung felt unaccountably restless and went to the kitchen to make htoo nao, Shan soya bean cakes. Later that afternoon, she felt her womb contracting fiercely. At first we thought they must be f
alse labour pains; it seemed so early. But the contractions continued throughout the evening. By 11 pm she was very tired. I was getting anxious also.

  “You’d better lie down and get some rest while you can.”

  “The baby is on its way. It can’t be anything else,” Hseng Noung wearily smiled.

  Fortunately, we had already made four white bed sheets for the baby from cheese cloth, which we had intended to take with us across the border. We were excited but, needless to say, worried. I thought I would be able to handle the delivery. After all, I had a few years experience from working as an orderly in an intensive care unit in a Swedish hospital. Buno has also lent us a copy of Dr Rosemary Sturgess’ The Baby Book. Hseng Noung and I had read it several times but since the beginning of the labour pains we had been checking off the sequence of events again. I cleaned a small table in our room with Dettol and sterilised the basic equipment we needed: a sharp razor blade and white cotton strings. Then we waited.

  Hseng Noung’s labour pains had almost ceased by three on Friday morning and she was able to sleep for a while. I sat beside the bed all night, tired but too tense to even think of sleeping. I had turned off the electric light, but kept a candle burning on the well scrubbed table.

  Early in the morning, I went over to Zanietso’s and Buno’s bedroom and tapped gently on the door. Zanietso, dressed in pyjamas, opened it and peered at me with bleary eyes.

  “The baby. It’s coming,” I whispered. He came fully awake on the spot.

  “But please don’t worry. I think I can deal with it.”

  “But if there are any complications? And she needs to go to hospital?” Zanietso faltered.

  “Everything’s gone all right so far,” I replied and retired to Hseng Noung who had also woken up. I sat on the bed and held her hand. She gave me a weak smile when she saw me, but her pains increased and she could no longer stifle her moans. I called Buno and between us we supported Hseng Noung as she shuffled into a room at the back of the house.

  “It’ll be safer here. The neighbours won’t hear anything,” Buno said confidently.

  At 8 am, Zanietso went to his office as usual to avoid rousing suspicion by breaking his routine. Buno stayed with us in the room to help with the delivery. Before long, it became apparent it was going to be a difficult birth.

  “We need a midwife. This is beyond us,” Buno sighed.

  The nephew was sent with an urgent summons for Kewezeko. Soon, he came running towards the house, looking concerned. He and Buno discussed briefly in their own dialect and then he hurried out again to fetch a midwife—a Chakhesang, naturally. Within half an hour we glimpsed through the window Kewezeko and a middle-aged Naga woman coming. Buno recognised her instantly.

  “That’s the midwife. There’s nothing more you can do. Hide! Go inside the toilet!”

  I rushed into the toilet of our old room, where I locked myself in. There was a low wooden stool in one corner and I sat down, feeling thoroughly disconsolate. Our first child was being born and there was no way I could help. I was confined to the two metres square room. The concrete floor was damp as usual and water was dripping into a bucket standing under the bathroom’s single brass tap.

  Through the door, I heard Buno welcoming the midwife. From the few words I could make out from their conversation in Chakhesang, I understood Buno was explaining to the midwife that Hseng Noung was a Khasi from Shillong. Consequently, she spoke English, but not any of the Naga dialects or Hindi. The midwife discreetly refrained from asking any embarrassing questions while skilfully continuing with her task.

  In the traditional manner of fathers-to-be, I was pacing backwards and forwards, though I could only take a few slippery steps in either direction, in a futile attempt to alleviate my anxiety while listening to the painful process of the delivery in the nearby room. While pacing past the small bathroom window, I halted petrified. Two uniformed policemen were striding up the garden path. This was it. Everything was blown.

  I sank down on the wet concrete floor and began feverishly thinking of what to say during the interrogation which would follow our arrest. I stared out of the window, my mind in a turmoil. Then, to my complete astonishment, I glimpsed the backs of the policemen as they went out of the gate. I gave an enormous sigh of relief but was totally confused by this unexpected turn of events. It was only later that day I learnt the policemen were actually friends of Zanietso’s who had just dropped by. But finding him not at home, they were off to call on him at his office.

  Bertil Lintner in hiding in Zanietso’s house in Kohima, September 1985.

  At 11.55 am I heard a shrill cry from the nearby room. A newborn baby. A few minutes later, I was startled by a soft tapping on the window. When I cautiously opened it, Zanietso’s nephew was standing there with a big smile on his face.

  “Congratulations! You have a daughter now,” he whispered. “She’s very big and very white.”

  I smiled back at him shakily. It was over at last and they were both safe. As all proud new fathers, I wanted to see my wife and our baby as soon I could. But, frustratingly, the midwife lingered in the house and I had to stay where I was. She did not leave until the late afternoon. Buno knocked gently at the bathroom door.

  “She’s gone. You can come out now.”

  I followed Buno into the kitchen where I found Hseng Noung sitting at the table. She was pale but smiled radiantly and nodded towards the bedroom. I tiptoed through the door and over to the bed where the baby was lying quietly, wrapped up in a blue piece of cloth. My heart overflowed. “You little troublemaker,” I thought. “You picked a good time to come and join us, didn’t you?”

  She had her mother’s beautiful, Asian eyes and my fair complexion. The midwife had been quite surprised by this.

  “I told her my husband is an Anglo-Indian and works for the tourist department in Shillong,” Hseng Noung said when I rejoined her at the kitchen table. More necessary lies and deceit, I thought wryly.

  A few moments after our daughter was born on September 13, 1985.

  “Let’s take some pictures,” I suggested.

  I went back to our room and fetched the camera. Hseng Noung knelt on the bed beside our daughter.

  “My goodness she’s big,” I said. “No wonder you had such a rough time.”

  “Yes, the midwife estimates she’s about 3.5 kilogrammes.”

  Hseng Noung leant forward to caress the baby fondly while I took some photos. Then Kewezeko arrived, carrying a dead chicken by its legs. He held it up, smiling.

  “It’s a Naga tradition. A new mother’s first meal must be chicken broth to help her regain her strength.”

  He presented it to Buno to be prepared and cooked. We had just finished eating when Zanietso came home from office at 5 pm, full of congratulations. He sat down with Kewezeko at the kitchen table to discuss this latest development. Hseng Noung and I understood nothing of the conversation in Chakhesang. But after a while Zanietso turned to us.

  “There’s no way the baby’s presence can be hidden here. You, Bertil, can stay on for a few days until we’ve found another place for you. But Hseng Noung and the baby must leave tonight for somewhere safer.”

  Hseng Noung and I glanced at each other. It was a hard blow to have to separate on this of all days. But in the long term interest we had to agree to this harsh dictate.

  4

  IN HIDING

  Hseng Noung and the baby had left after dark, so as not to attract the neighbours’ attention, on Friday night and I spent the next four days at Zanietso’s. The last I saw of them was Hseng Noung walking down the garden path with the little girl hidden under a Naga shawl and entering a jeep, which had been provided by Kewezeko. They constantly remained in my thoughts throughout the lonely time at Zanietso’s.

  Finally I too left Zaniesto’s and likewise was secretly moved in the dark through Kohima to the outskirts of town. On leaving the jeep, I pulled up the collar and hunched over in an attempt to conceal my height. I followed Kewezeko alon
g a muddy foottrack to a small concrete house on a hillside. I had been told my new host was Sakulemba, a student activist and though he belonged to the Ao tribe, he was regarded as trustworthy. He was waiting our arrival and opened the door as we got to it, smiling through his excitement.

  “I almost can’t believe it! A foreign journalist! This is what we have been waiting for for years!”

  Sakulemba was well aware of my profession and that as an illegal immigrant to Nagaland I needed protection. He had not, though, been informed about the actual purpose of my coming to India’s northeast. His young wife, Narola, served us tea and biscuits. Sakulemba seemed elated over my arrival—too much so perhaps. He almost immediately asked me who I wanted to meet and interview in town. I did my best to explain that I was, at least for the time being, only interested in hiding. But I hinted vaguely that I had more elaborate plans for later on.

  When Kewezeko had left, I was shown to my new room. It was a tiny cubbyhole, about two metres long and one and a half wide. A wooden bed occupied more than half of its space. It did not take long to make myself at home. I spread out the camera equipment on a small, low wooden table—I was still worried about the growth of fungus inside the lenses—and then hid the suspicious-looking army pack under the bed. The room had only one window—and the curtain flapped in the wind as one of the panes was missing. For cover I hung up a thick blanket over the whole window.