Word: naga
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...fiercely proud Naga tribesmen, who inhabit the hills of India's elephant-ridden northeast frontier, no longer lop off other people's heads with abandon, but they still adamantly refuse to bow their own to any man. For two years India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, so often a volunteer peacemaker around the world, has been fighting a private and bloody little war of his own with dissident Nagas...
Sealed Off. Finally, Naga guerrillas, under the leadership of a former schoolteacher and insurance salesman named A. Z. Phizo, sharpened their native daos, collected an armory of ill-assorted and outdated British, U.S. and Japanese guns, and went to war, demanding complete independence. Jawaharlal Nehru, who likes to keep the skeletons in his own closet well hidden from the world, promptly sealed off the entire embattled area from the prying eyes of newsmen, both Indian and foreign, and dispatched 9,000 Indian troops to put down the trouble...
Last week in New Delhi, surrounded by a tight little circle of moonfaced Nagas in pressed Western trousers and clean white shirts, the Pandit announced to newsmen what amounted to at least a partial victory for the Nagas. The announcement granted amnesty to all Nagas for past (but not future) guerrilla activities, promised an end to the military practice of "regrouping" Naga villagers into what amounted to concentration camps, and heralded the formation of a single, self-governing "autonomy within the Indian nation" out of the two largest Naga areas. This new "state" will unite some 250,000 Nagas...
With that manifesto the Nagas launched a Mau Mau-like war of terrorism against villages and Indian government posts, wielding their razor-sharp daos (axlike knives) or shooting off Japanese and British arms pilfered from World War II caches. They were led by one A. Z. Phizo (who, lacking a Christian name, took the first and last letters of the alphabet). Phizo, 56, a mission-educated Naga, guided his warriors on ruthless raids in which they slaughtered hundreds of villagers and Indians, then retreated into the jungles and pathless mountain terrain...
Afraid that the Naga revolt may spread to other tribes and give Red China an opening to step in on the disputed Indo-Tibet border, Prime Minister Nehru last week called on the Indian army to join Assam's armed police in an offensive operation against the rebels. Next day Naga terrorists kidnaped seven pro-government villagers in broad daylight, beheaded four of them. In the Assam hills warriors scornfully tore from their colorful costumes the dyed goat hair that they had substituted for human hair. Into its place, once more, went the real thing...