Rev. Khoda Tana, a founding-generation figure of the Christian faith among the Nyishi, the largest tribal community in Arunachal Pradesh, died on July 11 of natural causes. He was 82.
Born on December 1, 1944, in Reyi village (now Pech) in the state’s Sagalee sub-division, he was orphaned young and raised through Christian mission schools in Assam, where he was baptised in 1953. He passed his matriculation in 1963 and graduated from J.N. College, Pasighat, in 1971, understood locally to have been among the first graduates from the Sagalee-Doimukh area.
In 1974, while working with the state civil secretariat, he was caught up in a wave of persecution against Christians in the region. In his own account, 47 churches among his tribe were burned that year, and he was arrested and detained for a week at Rono village, Doimukh, before his own house was burned down on April 30.
In 1978, under pressure from his community, he resigned from government service to contest the state’s first Legislative Assembly election from Doimukh-Sagalee as an Independent, polling 1,520 votes to finish second. He contested again in 1980 on a People’s Party of Arunachal ticket and lost by a margin of just 321 votes. He never held the seat, but the campaigns placed him among the state’s earliest political contestants.
He entered full-time ministry afterward under the Subansiri Baptist Christian Association, now the Nyishi Baptist Church Council (NBCC), serving over the years as its Executive Secretary, President and Treasurer. He also translated 248 hymns into the Nyishi language for the community’s hymnal, the Nyishi Kristian Bemin, and wrote the foreword to its 2014 sixth edition.
Tributes followed swiftly from across the state’s political and religious spectrum, including former Chief Minister Nabam Tuki, Itanagar MLA Techi Kaso, Arunachal Christian Forum president James Techi Tara, the All Nyishi Youth Association and former legislator Likha Saaya, who remembered him as a pioneering church leader and an early statesman from the Doimukh-Sagalee region.
Rev. Tana’s funeral was held on July 13 at Nirjuli Village-I under the NBCC’s Nirjuli Pastoral Range, with Rev. Halli Likha, principal of the Arunachal Theological College, officiating, and Rev. Dr. Tagang Gelo, the range’s pastor, leading the service. The order of service included congregational hymns led by the Nirjuli Town Baptist Church youth and tributes from family, church and the NBCC, before the coffin was carried to the grave by NBCC ministers.
Mourners, including relatives who travelled from neighbouring villages such as Hollongi, called on his widow, Jumshi Tana, at the family home in Nirjuli through the week. He is also survived by three daughters and a son, besides nine grandchildren.
Among the Nyishi, Rev. Tana was fondly addressed as “Makte,” “Achi” and “Abb,” terms of respect for elders and father figures. News of his death and funeral spread mainly through social media posts by church bodies and family members, with condolence messages continuing to appear through the week.
