The Nagas

Hill Peoples of Northeast India

Project Introduction The Naga Database

typescript 'Journey to Nagaland', by Mildred Archer. An account of six months spent in the Naga Hills in 1947

caption: NNC meeting at Wokha, June 1946
medium: diaries
person: Kevichusa
date: 18.7.19476.1946
production:
person: Archer/ Mildred
date: 9.7.1947-4.12.1947
text: These differences in viewpoint were fully existent when the N.N.C. met at Wokha, midway between Mokokchung and Kohima, in June 1946. At this meeting, Kevichusa, the leading Angami strongly urged the Nagas to demand their independence. 'If we join the national government of India,' he said,'what sort of Indian government are we joining? We are distinctly individual from all the rest of India. There are people on the Burma side who are more akin to us than any other race in the world. Self- government should mean a government of the Nagas, for the Nagas, by the Nagas. Nothing else means anything to the Nagas. We have to be masters of our own country and be free.'
text: In spite of this appeal, however, the Aos were unconvinced and realising that only through a united front would any advance be possible, the Angamis yielded to Mokokchung opinion. They abandoned the demand for independence and the council resolved that 'the Naga Hills should be constitutionally included in an autonomous Assam, in a free India, with local autonomy and due safeguards for the interest of Nagas.'