By Michael Meiphami Shaiza
Intellectual Food for Collective Safety and National Survival
There are two kinds of unity in this world. One is forged in darkness. The other is built in light. One leads to a cliff. The other leads to liberation. For the Nagas of Manipur, this distinction is not philosophical. It is existential. It is the difference between survival with dignity and destruction with applause.
The Anatomy of Unity in Darkness
Unity in darkness is unity without truth. It is a gathering where questions are forbidden, where leaders demand silence in the name of “oneness,” where wrong is called right because “we must not divide.” It is unity built on lies, fear, and selfish narratives. It says: “Do not ask where the money went. Do not ask why our hospital has no doctors. Do not ask why our youth are dying to drugs. Do not ask about the status and progress of the Indo-Naga peace talks or Framework Agreement. Just stand together.” But what kind of togetherness is this? It is a unity that protects the powerful and sacrifices the people. It is a unity that covers corruption with a flag, that masks oppression with slogans, that trades justice for temporary peace.
Biblically, this is warned against: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness” Isaiah 5:20. A people who unite in darkness are not marching forward. They are marching in circles, deeper into the pit. It is a mass self-suicidal slogan. It achieves nothing constructive because it is founded on falsehood. And falsehood, by its nature, is destructive. It eats institutions, it eats trust, it eats the future.
Retrospectively, we have seen this. When communities unite to shield the guilty instead of demanding accountability, when they unite to stay silent instead of speaking truth, the result is always the same: greater oppression, deeper poverty, and a generation that inherits betrayal.
The Power of Unity in the Light
Unity in the light is different. It is uncomfortable at first because light exposes. It exposes hypocrisy. It exposes privilege. It exposes the double standards of those who say “all are equal” while living as if “some are more equal than others.” But light also heals. Unity in the light means unity around truth, around justice, around the common good. It means the elder and the youth, the village and the town, the student and the pastor, standing together and saying: “We will not accept a broken hospital. We will not accept narco-politics. We will not accept leaders who exempt themselves from the laws they make for us.”
This is the unity that built nations. This is the unity that broke chains. Politically, it is democratic because it demands accountability from every office, from the village chairman to the state assembly. Socially, it is constructive because it builds schools, protects forests, and feeds the hungry instead of feeding corruption. Morally, it is virtuous because it chooses righteousness over convenience. “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” Amos 5:24. Nationalistically and patriotically, it is the highest love of people: to will what is truly good for them, not what flatters them.
Introspectively, unity in the light forces us to ask: Are we uniting to protect our children, or to protect our egos? Are we uniting to build institutions, or to protect personalities?
The Plight of the Nagas of Manipur: A Test of Which Unity We Choose
Today the Nagas of Manipur stand at a crossroads. There is suffering: in neglected healthcare, unmotorable roads, no proper water supply and electricity, in unfulfilled promises, in the pain of displacement, in the slow erosion of ancestral land and values. In this pain, two voices will rise. One voice will call for “unity” that means silence. “Do not protest. Do not question. Do not demand. Just be united.” That is unity in darkness. It will go nowhere. It will only preserve the structures that are crushing us. The other voice will call for “unity” that means truth. “Let us unite to demand justice. Let us unite to restore our institutions. Let us unite to protect our land, our children, and our conscience.” That is unity in the light. It is harder. It will be criticized. But it is the only unity that can achieve something magnificent, something lasting, something free from oppression and falsehood.
The Call: Intellectual and Spiritual Food for the Nation
This is intellectual food, meant for intellectual digestion. A nation that cannot think cannot survive. A people that cannot discern between true unity and false unity will be led anywhere by anyone. Therefore let us choose prudently, powerfully, and prayerfully. Let us reject the selfish lies that tell us to unite in order to hide. Let us embrace the courageous unity that tells us to unite in order to build. To be free is not just to be without an external enemy. To be free is to be free from lies within. To be free is to walk in the light, even when the light burns. The Nagas of Manipur are a people of faith, of resilience, of deep love for land and community. That same spirit must now be turned toward truth. For only truth sets free. “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” John 8:32.
Conclusion
Unity in darkness is a tomb. Unity in the light is a doorway. One leads to destruction. The other leads to a future where our children inherit justice instead of slogans, institutions instead of excuses, and dignity instead of despair. Let this be our resolve: No more unity for the sake of unity. Only unity for the sake of truth. Only unity in the light. That is how a people are saved. That is how a nation is reborn.
Michael Meiphami Shaiza is Co-incharge of BJP Manipur State Political Programmes and Meetings and President of Ukhrul-based NGO Ecological Rehabilitators’ Association (ERA).
(Views expressed are writers’ own and do not, in whatsoever manner, reflect that of Ukhrul Now)