Rolling Stone PODIUM: Hornbill Festival is Where Tradition Meets Modern India

(The views and opinions expressed in this blog belong solely to the aforementioned blog writer, and do not represent those of Rolling Stone India as a magazine)

I was fortunate to be invited as a State guest of the Government of Nagaland to attend the recent Hornbill Festival on the site of the Naga Heritage Village, Kohima district, in December. The festival is named after the spectacularly plumed and beaked Hornbill bird, which swoops over the mountains and valleys’ local skies.

Along the 90-minute route from the airport, traversing the newly-tarmacked and old lumpy-bumpy sections of road from the airport, I passed pineapple farms and the last vestiges of the season’s fruit for sale in the roadside huts. It’s a bucolic balmy scene in the lush green hills windblown by the gathering dust of winter.

From hotels to homestays and campsites, there was barely a bed available on travel and accommodation portals, such is the popularity of the Hornbill Festival and the magnetic effect it has on attracting adventure seekers and culture tourists to the remote northeast and the beautiful state of Nagaland.

The festival is a celebration of all things Nagaland — its traditions, artistic ambitions and young population; and brings together two key government ministries to make the festival happen each December for ten days — the Ministry of Art and Culture and the Ministry of Tourism. It’s an excellent collaboration, reflecting the festival’s ability to contribute to the celebration of Nagaland and the northeast’s arts and culture, employment and livelihoods, and its impact on attracting national and international cultural tourists to the villages, towns, and hill stations. 

From day to night, the festival has two distinct atmospheres which reflect the contrasting cultures, artists, and audiences. It’s a strange juncture, nevertheless, an enticing one for a first-time visitor such as myself.

During the day, the 19 indigenous communities of Nagaland perform in cultural troupes on the astroturf of the arena with traditional costumes, music, dance, bamboo stilt games, and sports played out before the tiered crowd. The patchwork of performances marks the passing of the year with harvest festivals and seasonal rituals around farming and hunting traditions – it’s quite a spectacle. The crowds move to the many Morungs that scatter across the Hornbill site to hang out and eat traditional foods like hotly spiced pork, fermented soya beans, fried bugs, and bamboo shoot dishes with delicious variations of rice beer after the band’s soundchecks in the arena in the mid-afternoon. 

Each of the Morungs traditionally built and decked out, in the past, were used as classrooms for young people passing into their late teens, taught by elders of the community. The Morungs — representing different indigenous communities — smoke and crackle with campfires as the festival rumbles to the hum of Nagamese (a mix of the Nagaland and Assamese languages) and the other 19 languages and dialects of the indigenous communities. This really is India’s multilingual diversity reflected in one festival hotspot.

Permanent gallery spaces, the World War II Museum and temporary marquees for photo exhibitions, sculpture parks, crafts demonstrations, and stalls pepper the Hornbill site. While young people from the communities are dressed in traditional costumes (albeit with mobile phones tucked into their clothes), girls in Doc Martin boots and lads in their shades chatted and sang. 

One young woman, Zoe, from the Angami community gave me samples of her linguistic brilliance and ambition. Zoe charmed everyone by speaking seven different languages — Nagamese, Hindi, Sanskrit, her indigenous language and its two variant dialects, French and English. I was embarrassed not being multilingual. If you want to understand modern India, speak to young people, especially the girls, to share in their openness for new ideas, the value of tradition and ambition to break through with education.

The mood shifts from day to night, and the main stage is set from the astroturf for the thousands who are now standing, sitting on the terraces, and heaving in the moshpit for the wall of sound that comes from the rock, hip-hop, heavy metal, and EDM artists. The contrast from day to night could not be more startling, with local bands, headline acts and international outfits performing back-to-back over the course of the nightly gigs. As the moon came out, the energy rose along with the searchlights and amps ramped up to the max. The young crowd and families jumped, screamed and danced to the sonic blasts of some fabulous metalheads and young bands. I particularly enjoyed the two bands from the northeast — Gingerfeet and Andrea Tariang Band. Meanwhile, kids skittered about, pursued by parents anxious not to lose them in the crowd. It was a joyous, headbanging mix.

There’s palpable pride in the traditions of indigenous communities (tinged with a risky mix of exoticizing them in the present) moving to a predominant lineup of male-fronted headliners on the three evenings I attended the festival’s night programming. As a matrilineal state, the festival will benefit from having more women bands on stage in the coming years. TaFMA, who program the festival, are pushing at the boundaries from ancient tradition to modernity with an eye on how to internationalize the festival more in future years, to have lots more great programming to play for with women and diverse bands on stage.

During the ten days, other parts of Nagaland’s valleys and villages are opened up for the ‘festival of festivals’. As a state guest, I was honored to attend the landmark Stone Pulling Ceremony marking 142 years of the Anglo-Naga Peace Treaty in the hilltop village of Mezoma. I must also take a moment to recognize the contribution of the brilliant artists from the northeast for bringing the people of India and U.K. together through the arts. The India/UK Together, Season of Culture – a landmark program commemorating India’s 75th anniversary – would be incomplete without the art of emerging artists from the northeast collaborating with their U.K. counterparts.

To the future – keep your eyes focussed for more, as the many other Nagaland festivals throughout the year get discovered by global audiences on the Festivals from India digital platform, made possible by the British Council, to spotlight hundreds of arts festivals in India and international partnerships between the U.K. and India.

All of which is to say – set your calendar for December 2023, your Google Map for Kisama, book early and get ready for a truly enriching and adventurous arts and culture festival to celebrate with the Hornbill birds and Nagaland.

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Jonathan Kennedy is Director Arts, India for British Council.