“Our Knowledge Has Roots”
Chizami, Nagaland | EKHON: In a powerful and deeply reflective keynote at the North East Network 17th Biodiversity Festival at Chizami village in Nagaland, Gam Angkang Shimray, former General Secretary of the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP), stood before a gathering of communities, elders, youth, and practitioners and delivered more than a speech, he offered a worldview.
Under the theme Agroecology for Community Resilience, his message cut through technical jargon and policy frameworks to assert something both simple and profound that knowledge is rooted in land, and without respecting that, no solution whether climate, ecological, or social will endure.
Shimray began by challenging a common assumption, that knowledge is universal and transferable without context. Using the example of Chizami and Jessami, he made a sharp distinction. “You will never claim the knowledge of Jessami, and Jessami will not claim yours.”
This is not about division, he clarified, but about integrity. Indigenous knowledge systems are shaped by specific territories, by the soil, forests, water systems, and histories of a place. To understand this, he invited the audience to imagine layering multiple maps of Chizami, the territorial boundaries, land-use patterns, ecological systems, cultural practices and creative knowledge and “When you overlay them,” he said, “everything aligns.”
This alignment, Shimray asserted already documented by mapping practices and supported by scientific approaches, demonstrates that knowledge is not abstract, it is ecological, lived, and place based. But remove people from this context, and the connection dissolves. “Take the same people to Jessami,” he noted, “and that alignment will not exist.”
From this grounded understanding emerges a critical political idea that is knowledge sovereignty. Each community, Shimray emphasized, is sovereign over its own knowledge systems. This sovereignty is not about isolation but about mutual respect. Communities can share, learn, and collaborate, but not appropriate or override.
At a time when global institutions often extract and generalize indigenous knowledge for broader application, Shimray’s assertion was clear, that is, without sovereignty, knowledge loses its meaning, and its ethics.
According to Shimray, if sovereignty defines the boundaries, relationality defines the connections. He described indigenous knowledge as inherently relational, a concept often repeated but rarely understood in depth. To explain it, he brought the audience back to the most intimate space – the home.
Around the traditional hearth, three stones hold the cooking pot. In many Asian indigenous cultures, these stones represent: Ancestors (the past), Parents (the present), Children (the future). This simple arrangement inscribes a philosophy: life is a continuum, and relationships bind time together.
“It is from this fireplace,” Shimray said, “that we learn how to relate to each other, to our community, and to the world.”
This relational ethic expands outward, to clans, villages, and networks. Even modern institutions, he argued, are simply extensions of these age-old principles. “What we call networks today,” he added, “are not new to us. They are already embedded in our kinship systems.”
And at the core of these relationships lies truth. Recalling the wisdom of his grandfather, a village chief from Chingjaroi, Shimray shared a guiding principle. “Good words spread far. Bad words also spread far. But truth becomes the centre.”
He emphasized that truth, in this sense, is not about winning arguments, it is about sustaining relationships. It is the anchor that holds communities together, the standard by which decisions are made. “I am not here to prove I am right,” Shimray said. “I am here to find what is right.”
Extending relationality to nature, Shimray described a worldview where humans are not masters of the land but participants within it. In his community, the founding of a village involved not just human agreement but spiritual validation. Leadership was chosen democratically, then affirmed through rituals seeking acceptance from the Creator. Central to this process was a vow, to live in symbiosis with the land.
“We are not the trees, not the rivers, not the mountains,” he said. “We are human, prone to error. The land is older. We follow the law of the land.” His argument is that this humility shapes governance, law, and justice. When conflicts arise, the goal is not punishment but restoration of relationships, between people and between humans and nature.
Shimray also turned attention to the roles of women, youth and children within the community that sustain these knowledge systems. Women, he said, are not only life-givers but knowledge holders. Through weaving, crafts, and oral traditions, they encode philosophy, values, and history. “A lot of our knowledge,” he noted, “is in the symbols of the cloth.”
And as for youth, Shimray likened them to trees, strong when rooted, expansive when nurtured. A vibrant youth community attracts others, just as fruit-bearing trees draw birds.
While children, he said are the foundation of the future. Drawing from the wisdom of Karen communities in Thailand, Shimray shared, “Just as a horse draws strength from its hooves, we draw strength from our children.”
This perspective challenges dominant climate discourse. While global conversations focus on technology and policy, Shimray argued that the real solution lies in raising responsible human beings. “Everyone talks about the future,” he said. “But who is taking care of their home?”
Shimray offered a sharp critique of mainstream conservation models, particularly the “fortress” approach that separates people from nature. “Will this approach really solve the crisis?” he asked. Instead, he called for a shift toward relational conservation, one that integrates human communities as stewards rather than excludes them as threats.
This requires moving from Segregation to Cooperation, Control to Participation, External authority to Community leadership. It also means recognizing indigenous communities not as beneficiaries, but as foundations of environmental solutions.
In closing, Shimray addressed governments and funding agencies, pointing out a critical gap: most climate financing focuses on forests, not people. “This creates conflict,” he warned. “It distances communities from the very ecosystems they protect.”
His call was clear, place communities at the centre. Support the revival and restoration of indigenous knowledge systems. Build approaches that are democratic, participatory, and rooted in respect for sovereignty.
As he concluded his address, Shimray returned to a deeply personal note. “My umbilical cord is buried here (Chizami).”
It was not a claim of ownership, but of connection, a reminder that identity, knowledge, and responsibility are all tied to land. In a world searching for solutions to ecological collapse, his message resonated with quiet urgency. The answers are not only in policies or technologies, but in relationships, restored, respected, and rooted in the land.
(By EKHON.)
