This paper attempts a decolonial and de-imperial analysis of Sustainable Development by
critically analysing the principle of ‘leaving no one behind’ (SDGs), which was also adapted
as the theme of International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, 2021 calling for ‘a new
social contract’. This paper is a study from ‘within’ to engage on the questions of
sustainability in the age of the Anthropocene. From ‘within’ their lifeworld, this paper
negotiates for space and recognition in the ‘ecology of knowledges’ simultaneously seeking
cognitive justice against epistemicide and epistemic profiling. This paper also argues in
passing that decolonising methodologies ought not to be only deconstructing for it is
nihilistic; rather, be reconstructive by way of proposing alternatives to allow an ‘ecology of
knowledges’.
In an attempt to propose an alternative, the second section brings in the idea of sustainability
embedded in the customs, tradition, and culture of Tangkhul Nagas - Indigenous Peoples
occupying the highland of Northeast India and Northwest Myanmar. The third section give a
phenomenological study of their culture, cosmology, worldview, and lived struggles and
experiences, which foregrounds the constituents of sustainability. The fourth section then
proposes an idea of sustainability from a Tangkhul Naga perspective through reflexive
interpretation by way of reflexive rationalization.
