My 3 encounters with Mahatma Gandhi

The first time I heard about Gandhi was when I was about 5/6 year old, when I heard a female cousin of mine singing a song. Originally in one of our NE dialects, the song, roughly translated, goes like this:

Bapu Raja Gandhi Raja, is a big man

Gandhi has built a road, my dear friend

Now it’s much easier/ for us to fetch water.

As you have guessed, the singer (in this case my cousin) lived in a village where there were no running water taps and the nearest tubewell was quite a distance. To build a road, therefore, is truly something very nice of a Gandhi raja. However, till this day, I am not sure which of the Gandhis really had this road built. But the use of words such as 'Bapu' and 'Raja'/ ‘king’, and considering Rajeev Gandhi was never a popular guy in NE region, makes me believe that it was Mahatma Gandhi.

My second introduction to Gandhi happened in a government-run primary school. It was a school where 3 of my elder siblings went and I was often sent with them, tagged by my mother who thought, that was the best way to handle us.

Third Nagaland: One demand, Many Questions

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The state of Nagaland – the 16^th state in the Indian Union - was created in 1963. Soon after that, the Nagas started an armed movement for an independent, sovereign Nagaland, outside of the Indian constitution. Thousand died in the bloody battle between the separatists and the Indian army, before the two parties agreed on a ceasefire. And now, here is a new, dramatic development taking place in Nagaland: Demand for a separate statehood. 

After decades of ambush, encounter and combing operations, there is finally some peace in Nagaland; a ceasefire is on between the government and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland Isaac Muivah group (NSCN –IM)

 NSCN – the all powerful Naga separatist group. Yet, angry slogans are being heard on the streets of Nagaland now, this time for a new state called Frontier Nagaland.