From 2017 to 2021, the Rev. Marc Boswell, Ph.D., pastor of St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church, was the managing editor of Progressive Southern Theologians (PST), a voluntary collective of progressive spiritual writers living in the southern region of the United States.

As part of its work, PST ran a series of ten interviews featuring leaders from various faith traditions who were actively working and writing in the South. Below is one such interview, and it is shared by Dr. Boswell here in the wake of the untimely passing of the Rev. Sani Mao, Ph.D.

Profiles in Leadership
featuring Dr. Sani Mao

2021

[PST] Sani, thanks so much for chatting with us. You’ve been living the U.S. for a while, but you’re originally from Nagaland and identify as Naga. Could you start by telling us where Nagaland is, and can you give us a snapshot of how its history has unfolded over the last two centuries?

[Sani Mao] When I refer to Nagaland as such, I’m referring to the Nagas’ broader ancestral homeland, which is a region that spans across the borders of Northeast India and Myanmar/Burma. It spreads out across the southeastern portion of the Himalayan mountain range.

There’s also Nagaland State, which was administratively created by India in 1960-61 and only represents a fraction of the entire Naga ancestral homeland. Under British colonial rule, and after their exit in the 1940s, our homeland was divided along these carved out national borders, though before colonization, those borders didn’t exist and we simply had our Nagaland ancestral home.

Understandably, this colonial history and imputation of borders is confusing, especially if you look at a map and assume that national borders have simply just always been in place. This isn’t the case for Nagaland, and the bifurcation of our land and the creation of Nagaland State, as an administrative unit under the power of India, has hijacked much of Naga peoples’ movement for self-determining power. India claims our land as belonging to the nation, though Naga peoples have not historically considered themselves to be part of modern India. My concern is always for the entire Naga ancestral homeland.

[PST] You mentioned the Naga peoples’ push for independence and for self-determining political power. Has that been happening prior to the creation of the Nagaland State in 1960-61?

[SM] Absolutely. Our fight for independence links back to a time before British colonial rule, a time when Naga people lived in our own independent village republics. Over time, British colonial powers annexed portion after portion of our land, to the point that a major portion of our Naga ancestral homeland was annexed into and under the rule of colonial British India. We were colonized, in other words.  

From the time of British rule, and well before 1960-61, Naga people have been pushing for our right to regain self-determining power, but our struggling indigenous community is small, having less than four million people. In 1947-48, upon the end of British colonial rule, our land was officially divided - without the consent of our people or our leaders. In the east, our land was apportioned to Myanmar, and in the west, we were included in the nation-state of India. But not for a single moment have our people abandoned our fight for political self-determination, and we continue to do so to this day.  

Over time, of course, our people have had differences of opinion on the best way forward. At the moment, though, there are ongoing political talks between the Naga nationalist government and India at the prime minister level, talks which have, in some fashion, been happening for the past 23 years. People say that there will be some sort of political solution, and many of us choose to be cautiously optimistic about this happening.

[PST] Share with us a bit about the unique Christian history and demographics of Nagaland. How has that come about?

[SM] About a hundred forty years ago, Baptist missionaries from upstate New York and the New England area first reached our people with the Christian religion. The British colonial powers weren’t far behind, so they too brought with them Christianity and English education. Our leaders and families embraced the Christian faith, and they did so, at least on the Western side which is now in India, almost entirely. Nearly 100% of our people are Christian and primarily Baptist, like the missionaries who first came to Nagaland.

There are positives and negatives that come with evangelical Christianity, such that we have a very religious group of people, and yet we have an oppressive political context. While our faith teaches us to peacefully pray and to preach the gospel, we have simultaneously a political situation in which our people have been killed and women have been sexually assaulted by colonial and postcolonial powers on all sides.

Because Naga people are different both ethnically (i.e., we’re Mongolian) and religiously (being Christian), Naga Christians have had to struggle to develop a faith and theology of our own. We’re having to figure out what constitutes a distinctively Naga Christianity and Naga approach to theology. On the one hand, we’ve received a form of conservative evangelical Christianity that often teaches us not to engage the political realm or question the powers-that-be. On the other hand, we’re indigenous peoples who have lived and suffered an incredible amount and have begun thinking more intently in our theologies about suffering, liberation, and colonial violence. This violence has been perpetuated even more since the end of British rule through the heavy presence of the Indian commando and military forces.

[PST] So why are these forces present in Nagaland? What’s the current situation like?

[SM] Historically, they’ve been present because we’ve always had a contingent of Naga people who sought the power of political self-determination. We existed independently as a village republics before the British empire or the formation of the Indian or Myanmar/Burmese nation-states in the 20th century. Because of how our land was carved up by the colonial powers, we’re also now in a geopolitical position that puts us near the border of other nations.

In 1970s, the Indian army presence in Nagaland outnumbered the entire Naga male population. That number has reduced a little over the years, but otherwise the army and police forces are present everywhere, and at any point and time, they can show up and take Naga citizens into custody. They simply have to say that someone appeared to be acting suspiciously. They’ve been able to kill and arrest and assault Naga people with impunity due to the Armed Forces Special Power Act of 1958, a law which formally granted this type of legal coverage to their occupying forces. Our ability to document and tell this story is happening only now. In the past, the entire media system was completely restricted by the government in such a way that we haven’t been able to shed light on these abuses.

But, like I mentioned earlier, Naga nationalist leaders have been in political dialogue with India for the past 23 years. Because the dialogue has been occurring at such a high level, things have been a bit calmer in Nagaland State. The military operations are relatively fewer today, and while we still have a long way to go, there are fewer killings of Naga people and fewer reports of Naga women being assaulted.

[PST] On a more personal note, you and your family are moving back to Nagaland. Tell us what you’ll be doing.

[SM] We’ll be headed back to live in the town of Dimapur, which is the only town in the plains of Nagaland – all of our other towns and cities are in the mountains. I will be teaching at Oriental Theological Seminary in the department of Theology and Ethics. In the U.S., I’ve completed a Ph.D. from Union Presbyterian Seminary, focusing on theological ethics and on indigenous peoples’ human rights and related concerns. Likewise, my wife will seek a teaching position. She loves to work with children, and she earned a masters degree also at Union Presbyterian Seminary. So that’s where we’ll be, and everyone is welcome to visit Oriental Theological Seminary! It is a vibrant school where many of the professors have had the privilege of being trained in North America.

[PST] There has clearly been a liberative impulse present in Nagaland for quite some time. But theologically speaking, it sounds as though the discourses of liberation and political theologies are coming into Naga Christianity only more recently. How has your work and your theology been situated in this milieu?

[SM] Over the years, I’ve seen more academic theological work, including my own, that has engaged theologies with liberative themes from a Naga context. In parts of India and in similar contexts, more academic attention has been given to indigenous peoples from the point of view of Christian liberation theologies, and more people from our backgrounds have been welcomed into the academy to do this important work.

In the past, doing such work in a Naga context has been challenging because our society is predominately conservative and evangelical. If faith leaders brought up anything about human rights or justice, it was quickly branded as Marxist or socialist or communist, and given our close geographic proximity to China, there’s always the looming narrative that we’re being influenced by Chinese communism. Of course, these accusations are political propaganda from the Indian side and then also from the Burmese side, and they’re not rooted in reality.

Unfortunately, some of our earlier Naga indigenous leaders were co-opted into believing this. They were encouraged to propagate this same story and encouraged others to see more progressive forms of Christianity in this negative light. I suppose it was tempting to disparage this type of Christianity in exchange for social and political capital.

On a related note, we also need to have a serious conversation about the dominant understanding of salvation that’s been embraced by conservative Naga Christians. By that I simply mean how evangelical Christianity understands salvation as a way to escape the world, has an otherworldly focus, and teaches us that temporal or so-called secular and political matters are less important and that good Christians shouldn’t engage those realms of life. It becomes an excuse to disengage from the world and to not pay attention to oppression and abuse and to not care for our neighbor or for our own communities when political and social suffering is present.

[PST] What’s one of your favorite things about Nagaland?

[SM] Community life. We still carry within our communities a sense of being present for and with each other. Our relationships matter; being in community matters. That’s one of the deepest aspects of my theological understanding, the idea that human beings were created by our Creator to be in relationships and to care and seek justice with and on behalf of one another. Where that’s not present, we need to go back and revisit this notion in our own Naga past, and we should remember that this is deeply theological.

[PST] How long have you been living in the U.S., and the South, in particular? What’s that experience been like?

[SM] I’ve been in the U.S. for 17 years now, and all of that time has been spent in North Carolina and Virginia (with wonderful opportunities to travel and see other parts of the country). I started my journey to the U.S. by teaching for three years in a seminary in India, saving up $600, and buying a plane ticket and moving to North Carolina. I’ve been very blessed. I’ve met so many kind and gracious people over the years. During that time, I also got married to a wonderful Naga woman, and we now have two beautiful children.

[PST] We southerners like to think of the U.S. South as a unique place. Was there anything that you experienced in the South that stood out to you or that you’ll remember?

[SM] As soon as I showed up, I was welcomed within the immediate community of Wake Forest, NC. My neighbors were very hospitable and sought to get to know me better. Students and professors invited me into their homes for dinner, knowing that I came from a faraway place and didn’t, at the time, have any family nearby.

Within a few months, I started looking for a church, and I was invited to a Baptist “homecoming” service. For readers who aren’t familiar with this, these are big Southern events where family and friends of a church, particularly those who may have moved away or are not present any more in the community, come back to the Church and have a big day of worship and a large lunch on the church grounds. That was quite a welcoming experience that I will never forget.

[PST] What are some of the most salient lessons you’ve picked up over the years in your theological journey - things that you might pass along to students or incorporate into your seminary classroom?

[SM] I will certainly take with me the idea that I should commit myself completely to the education and empowerment of my students. I was given that and saw it modeled by professors like Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon, who modeled how to teach and construct a learning environment in such a way that students are genuinely encouraged to tell their story and to own their story and to embrace who they are and what leads them to the work they feel called to do.

At the same time, I take seriously the idea that I can continue to learn from my students. It’s important to have humility and to remember that I have a lot to gain by the stories that my students bring with them. For students coming from Naga society, I’d encourage them to really take a closer look at their lives in the larger picture of the Naga context and to claim their voice as Naga individuals who are seeking to respond to real world situations and concerns.

[PST] When things get difficult in life, what do you do to keep going?

[SM] I go to my wife. She’s the calming spirit in the family. I seek her out, we sit down, we pray, and we talk through things. She’s the person I know I can rely on in every situation. Through prayer and conversation, we calm our spirits, trusting in God and each other. Somewhere along the way, wisdom can come to us, and we can move forward, doing something practical to engage whatever is causing the difficulty.