India: How BJP Won Without Winning in staunchly Christian Nagaland

Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 53, Issue No. 10, 10 Mar, 2018

How BJP Won Without Winning in Nagaland

by Pradip Phanjoubam (phanjoubam[at]gmail.com) is the editor of Imphal Free Press.


It would be preposterous to treat the results in the recent assembly elections in the three North Eastern states—Nagaland, Meghalaya and Tripura—as a barometer for the Lok Sabha elections 2019 in these states.

Nagaland politics is probably at its nadir at this moment. The events of the few months before the assembly election, the results for which were declared on 3 March 2018, demonstrate this. Moreover, the formation of a new government was delayed till four days after the results were declared.

BJP's Performance

It was a hung verdict, but the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) skilfully and cunningly put itself in a position where it would not lose, even though it did not have the numbers to lead. Two political parties—the Naga People’s Front (NPF), led by outgoing chief minister T R Zeliang, and the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), led by Zeliang’s bitter rival and former chief minister, Neiphiu Rio—had emerged at the top of the table with the NPF bagging 27 seats (four short of a majority in the house of 60) and the NDPP 17. The NDPP is a very new political party which Rio formed in the last few weeks before the elections after breaking away from the NPF. The BJP managed to return a credible 12 seats, while the remaining four seats were shared between National People’s Party (two seats), Janata Dal (United) (one seat), and Independent (one seat).

The BJP’s support hence became crucial. The single largest party, NPF, could have done without the BJP, but none of the smaller parties were ready to be its partner. The NDPP did not have the numbers either and this was so even after the BJP offered its 12 seats. However, after this decision of the BJP, the support of the smaller parties became almost a natural consequence, given that all of them preferred to be on the side of the party in power at the centre. Now, the state is preparing for another term with Rio as chief minister.

One question is still intriguing. How did the BJP manage to put up such a credible performance? Before the results were declared on 3 March, it would have been difficult for many to believe that the BJP would win 12 seats in the staunchly Christian Nagaland. This was especially true because there were calls by the influential Nagaland Baptist Church Council to not allow any inroads by the party in the state. In the last election, the party could win only one seat. Although, not long after this, its tally in the assembly increased to four, thanks to three Nationalist Congress Party legislators who decided to merge with it.

The Power Struggle

The answer to this question has a lot to do with the manner in which the ruling NPF discredited itself before the Naga public especially after the countdown to the assembly election began. Bitter power struggle between three of the party’s top leaders—Zeliang, Rio, and another veteran Shurhozelie Liezietsu (all former chief ministers)—put the party in an existential crisis. Party Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs) were split irreconcilably and mass and multiple floor-crossing became the order of the day. The role of the state governor, P B Acharya, a former secretary of the BJP in charge of the North East, had also come under public scrutiny then.

It was in the midst of this struggle that Rio formed the NDPP, splitting the NPF support base vertically. The BJP’s moves thereafter were masterly and shrewd. All through the internal turmoil, the party stuck with its 15-year-old partnership with the NPF in the Nagaland Assembly, which effectively marginalised the Congress which had once held sway in the state. The NPF is also a partner in the NDA government at the centre. However, just before the filing of nomination began, the BJP struck a deal with the NDPP without disowning the NPF. It had calculated that the two were evenly matched and it did not want to put all the eggs in one basket. Given the power balance, the NPF could not muster courage to protest the BJP move, nor did the NDPP insist on the BJP severing ties with the NPF. This ensured that the uncertainty of the power struggle lasted well after the election results were known. Till the last moment before the BJP took a decision, both the NPF and NDPP were profusely pledging allegiance to the BJP.

Rio made a bigger sacrifice in enlisting the support of the BJP, and for now, this has proven to be a more politically deft decision. He allowed a pre-poll seats sharing arrangement with the BJP such that his party contested in only 40 seats and in the remaining 20, it agreed to support the candidates fielded by the BJP. This should explain the increase in BJP’s seats—from one seat in the last election to 12 in this one. What was witnessed was not actually a steep rise in the BJP’s popularity in the state, but an outcome of the party riding on the support base of Rio’s party, which in turn is roughly one half of the original NPF’s support base. That the NPF, which set up candidates in all 60 seats, won 27 seats, while the NDPP-BJP combined won 29 seats, should give a picture of this balance. If there was no split in the NPF, and if the BJP had gone to the polls on its own, in all likelihood, its performance would not have been any better than in the 2013 assembly election.

What About the Neighbouring States?

There are some more entanglements though. In neighbouring Manipur, the NPF with four MLAs is an ally of the BJP government. The Nagaland NPF tried to use this card to influence the BJP to put its lot behind them, but to no avail. Much to the Nagaland NPF’s chagrin, the BJP’s North East strategist, Himanta Biswa Sarma of Assam, told a press conference that the Manipur NPF and the Nagaland NPF are two differently registered political parties and therefore, there was no contradiction in the BJP being an ally of the party in one state but not in the other. How far this contention is true is not known, but this probably will not matter anymore. The Manipur NPF has also been ominously silent on the matter.

If the electorate equation in Nagaland remains as it is, the anticipation in the national media that the BJP will be a formidable contender for the lone Lok Sabha seat from Nagaland in the 2019 general elections, is farfetched. The BJP will probably still have to depend on its clever alliance-making skills to be part of the winning team, because it will be too ambitious for the party to think of contesting for this seat on its own strength. However, things can change dramatically in the days ahead to alter this equation. For instance, it is not altogether unrealistic to imagine that the NPF, now sitting on the opposition benches, may not be able to keep its flock together to avoid a total disintegration.

The Rio government has a very thin majority of 33 as of now, and this too with the support of MLAs of four different parties. It is then only to be expected that, in the days ahead, Rio will start looking to splinter the NPF further and have its MLAs join his ranks and consolidate his position. The Tenth Schedule forbids this, but if the affairs in neighbouring Manipur are anything to go by, this will be no hurdle. In the Manipur election almost exactly one year ago, the Congress was the single largest party with 28 in the house of 60 and the BJP was second with 21. The BJP however managed to enlist the support of all the smaller parties to form a coalition with a thin majority. However, within a few months, it managed to woo the support of eight Congress MLAs. The anti-defection law still remains uninvoked, so that the turncoat MLAs are technically still Congress but lending support to the BJP.

It is expected that Rio will soon begin resorting to the familiar tactics of flagging loftier issues to New Delhi, in particular that of a permanent solution to the “Indo-Naga Problem,” in order to divert attention from the abysmal state of political affairs at home. While everybody wants a solution to the Naga issue, it is also everybody’s knowledge that a rushed accord can have big repercussions in Nagaland as well as in the neighbouring North East states. The danger is that politicians, when domestically under pressure, often save their skins by invoking visions of these bigger dangers and challenges before the larger community.

Conclusions

In summary, it would be preposterous to treat the results in the recent assembly elections in the three North Eastern states—Nagaland, Meghalaya and Tripura—as a barometer for the Lok Sabha elections 2019 in these states. In Nagaland (one seat) and Meghalaya (two seats), the BJP can only hope to be an ally of the winners. Even in Tripura (two seats) where the BJP won resoundingly, the answer is far from decided as the narrow margin in the votes shares indicates. The BJP and the CPI(M) are almost tied at 43% and 42.7%. The 2019 result will therefore depend on how secure the uneasy partnership between the BJP and the Indigenous People’s Front Tripura remains.

India: Nagaland town adopts resolution to keep illegal Bangladeshi immigrants away

Hindustan Times - Oct 06, 2017

Nagaland town adopts resolution to keep illegal Bangladeshi immigrants away

An enumeration drive is also being planned in the town between October 9 and October 31 to find out the number of non-Nagas and IBIs residing in the town.

india Updated: 10:30 IST

Utpal Parashar
Hindustan Times, Guwahati

Residents of a Nagaland town Chumukediama, located some 14Km from the state’s commercial hub Dimapur, adopted a resolution to restrict entry of illegal Bangladesh immigrants.


Residents of a town in Nagaland have adopted a resolution to restrict entry of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants (IBIs).

The resolution was adopted at Chumukedima, located 14km from Nagaland’s commercial hub Dimapur, on Thursday following a public rally to “create awareness” on alleged influx of IBIs.

An enumeration drive, between October 9 and October 31, is also being planned in the town in order to find out the number of non-Nagas and IBIs residing in the town.

Thursday’s resolution follows an attack on a Naga family allegedly by a group of non-Nagas in the town on September 21.

The resolution adopted after the rally organised by the Tribal Union Chumukedima Town (TUCT) felt the IBIs posed serious threat as they controlled “several vital economic activities” and posed danger to “peaceful coexistence of the public”.

Speakers at the rally insisted that the resolution wasn’t aimed at Indians from other states but only directed at detecting and deporting IBIs who might be staying in the area using fake or forged papers.

Among the steps suggested, the resolution stated no new or existing trade licences should be issued to IBIs and restrictions imposed on their businesses including sale and purchase of poultry, fishes, vegetables etc.

The so-called IBIs would not be allowed to rent out or take on rent both commercial and non-commercial vehicles and Nagas and other Indians shouldn’t buy or sale anything to them.

The resolution urged the state government to strictly implement the inner line permit (ILP) system all over Nagaland and warned land/house owners not to give their places on rent or lease to the suspected foreigners.

Earlier this week, the head ‘gaon bura’ (chief village elder) of Chumukidema town announced an enumeration drive and asked all non-Nagas to produce identification documents like passports, voter identity cards, Aadhar cards etc. during the process.

“Any non-Naga failing to produce their identification proof as required shall be compelled to leave Chumukidema town and the expelled members (if any) shall not be allowed to dwell in and around Chumukidema,” a release stated.

In Nagaland, ‘gaon buras’ are important functionaries responsible for administration in villages. The posts, usually permanent, are filled by members elected by villagers or nominated by clans.

“The enumeration drive is being carried out on directions of the district administration to find out presence, if any, of illegal immigrants and those without valid documents,” said a senior government official on condition of anonymity.

There is growing concern in Nagaland about influx of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

On Wednesday, Naga Students Federation issued a copy of memorandum addressed to the chief secretary urging the government to check influx of illegal immigrants and implement the inner line permit (ILP) system effectively within a month.

Inner line permits are required by Indians from other states to enter Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. The practice started by British to protect their business interests in the region was continued after Independence with a view to safeguard the customary tribal practices of the region.

In Nagaland, Dimapur, the largest town and commercial hub, doesn’t come under purview of the ILP system.

India: BJP’s spectacular success in Northeast; in 1995 RSS and affiliates had 650 units, in 2017 over 6000

The Indian Express

Behind the BJP’s spectacular success in Northeast, years of silent work by Sangh
Back in 1995, the RSS and its affiliated organisations had about 650 such units in the Northeast; today there are over 6,000.

Written by Samudra Gupta Kashyap | Updated: March 27, 2017 8:15 am

To form N Biren Singh’s government in Manipur, the BJP has risen meteorically to win 21 seats. (Source: Express Archive)

What do T Thangzalam Haokip of Henglep, Vungzagin Valte of Thanlon, V Hangkhanlian of Churachandpur, Samuel Jendai Kamei of Tamenglong and Nemcha Kipgen of Kanpokpi have been common? They are all tribals, members of the new Manipur Assembly, elected on BJP tickets. More significantly, they are all Christians, and have been elected from constituencies where almost 99% voters are Christian. The elections in Manipur have dismantled the myth that the BJP is a party that belongs to and works only for Hindus.

In Manipur, the BJP has risen meteorically to 21 seats; less than a year ago, it had swept the Assam elections, increasing its strength from 5 to 60 in the Assembly. While credit for the success in Manipur is due to a team led by Northeast Democratic Alliance (NEDA) convener and Assam minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav, the young strategist Rajat Sethi, party secretary in charge of Manipur Prahlad Patel, and Assam BJP secretary Jagadish Bhuyan among others — the party also owes is remarkable showing to the work carried out silently by a number of organisations of the Sangh Parivar, some of whom have been working in 100% Christian areas in the Manipur hills.

“It is a fact that the BJP worked hard. But one must also remember that various Sangh wings have been working very hard for years, both in the Imphal Valley as well as the surrounding hill districts,” Jagdamba Mall, a veteran RSS organiser who has spent 40 years in Nagaland and was deputed to Manipur for the elections, said. “Tribal people, irrespective of their religious faith, particularly trust and respect our welfare programmes. This trust was definitely converted to votes,” Mall said. As many as 15 organisations affiliated to the Sangh have been active in Manipur, some for over three decades. “All the good work these wings have done have paid dividends,” said Shankar Das, prachar pramukh of the RSS’s Uttar Assam prant, which covers most of Assam, and the whole of Nagaland and Meghalaya. Instead of openly campaigning for the BJP, the RSS wings focused on getting people out on polling day. “When you go from door to door, house to house and village to village asking voters to come out early, the message not only becomes clear, it also gets translated,” Das said.

Organisations like Sewashram, Ekal Vidyalaya, Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram, Sewa Bharati, Kisan Sangha, ABVP, Vidya Bharati, Friends of Tribal Society or Van Bandhu Parishad, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Bharatiya Jan Seva Sansthan, Bharat Kalyan Pratishthan, Bal Sanskar Kendra, and the Rashtriya Shaikshik Mahasangh have been running formal and informal education units across Manipur, and have had some impact, especially on the parents of children attending these centres. “You should not be surprised if you find children of some so-called extremist leaders of Nagaland attending English-medium schools run by a Sangh wing,” said one RSS worker who belongs to Maharashtra but has spent over 20 years in the Northeast.

Back in 1995, the RSS and its affiliated organisations had about 650 such units in the Northeast; today there are over 6,000. The number of Ekal Vidyalayas is said to have crossed the 3,000 mark. The RSS has over 120 shakhas and mandalis in Manipur alone, and its Ekal Vidyalayas — though restricted to the Imphal Valley — have touched a large number of families. “We have not only promoted Indian culture, but have also successfully driven home the point that Manipuri culture is an inseparable part of it,” said Kedar Kulkarni, who has recently moved to Manipur after having served for several years in Nagaland. And while the illegal influx of Bangladeshis resonates across the region, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had, during a recent visit to Manipur, declared that the problems of the state were the problems of the entire nation.

The BJP’s alliance with the Naga People’s Front (NPF) in neighbouring Nagaland — which had not gone down well with the Meiteis because the NSCN (IM) includes parts of Manipur in its Nagalim map — too contributed to the BJP’s victory. Although the Congress initially gained some ground among Meitei and non-Naga voters of Manipur underlining the central government’s signing of the Framework Agreement with the NSCN (IM), a sizeable section of Meiteis later changed mind, with the RSS playing a role in persuading them. “We have been focusing for long on the patriotism and nationalism of the Manipuri people,” Mall said. The membership of the RSS has been increasing in the Hindu-majority areas of Assam. In the Imphal Valley, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura, the Sangh’s organisational structure has grown from 2 divisions until 2013 to 4 now.

Veterans in the RSS strongly believe that Manipur is just the beginning of the realisation of their potential in the hill states, and more is in store. The number of workers in Tripura has doubled in just a year, and with Assembly elections likely in February 2018, the BJP could give the ruling Left Front a run for its money. The RSS is also working to prepare the ground for the BJP in Meghalaya, another Christian-majority state that goes to polls early next year. Various Sangh wings are fast adding units, and last year, over 300 RSS cadres — mostly from the Khasi and Jaintia communities — paraded through Shillong in khaki shorts and white shirts, holding sticks. The BJP already has an ally in Conrad Sangma’s National People’s Party, which has a strong base in western Meghalaya — what it needs now is the help of the RSS’s wings to reach out rapidly in the eastern region of the state.

India: Going Beyond the Gender Divide in Nagaland (Sanjoy Hazarika)

The Wire

Going Beyond the Gender Divide in Nagaland

By Sanjoy Hazarika on 13/02/2017

The anger over constitutional reservations for women is being expressed in a negative way only because of a larger atmosphere of frustration in the state.

 As the confrontation in Nagaland over women’s rights ( specifically constitutional reservations for women participating in local body elections) escalates, between those insisting on ‘protecting’ male-dominant traditions and others pressing for reform and an active role for women in elections, we tend to forget that it’s not an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ confrontation or simply patriarchy versus women’s empowerment, but a combination of many factors that are being overlooked in an effort to simplify issues.

We need to be cognisant of the following:

• Elections to 32 municipal and town councils in the state were notified after a gap of more than 12 years
• The provision of 33% reservation for women in urban local bodies (ULBs) was staunchly opposed by various male-dominated tribal bodies and ‘civil society organisations’, who said that it infringed on article 371A of the constitution which provides special rights to Nagaland and protected its customary rights and traditions (without defining the latter)
• Article 371A says that no Act of parliament will apply to Nagaland unless passed by the state legislature; after many delays, much debate, a lot of hesitation and turnabouts, the state government of T.R. Zeliang approved the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments applying to local bodies, which included the proviso for 33% reservation for women. Opposition to this triggered demands for withdrawal, boycotts and other intimidation of women contestants as well as threats of ex-communication, which are totally unacceptable. There were firings on protesters in which three persons were killed, public buildings torched in Kohima, the state capital, and curfew clamped on both Kohima and Dimapur, its commercial hub. Women leaders are moving about with security guards, a sad day.
• For the first time, at least in Nagaland, article 371A is being interpreted by ‘pro-tradition groups’ as conflicting with the constitutional provisions empowering women
• A consequence of the agitation is a growing demand seeking the resignation of the chief minister and of MLAs; those issuing the call include male-run tribal organisations
• Both sides (the traditionalists and non-traditionalists) are using the constitution to buttress their respective positions
• But the state government seems to be in a funk and hastily passed a cabinet resolution which seeks the exemption of Nagaland from the constitutional provision of implementing ULB elections – a classic copout if there was one. Essentially, it amounts to throwing the baby out with the bathwater and the Centre must not acquiesce but use whatever good offices and the little goodwill that it has among the Nagas to stitch up an agreement based on trust, equality and consensus, without compromising on the constitutional assertion of equality of all. If it can’t do this, then it needs to find people who are respected among the Nagas and who can play a role, with government backing, in bridging the differences.

There also appears to be a major common thread running through the commentaries of prominent scholars, writers and others on the current imbroglio. On the surface, this may appear as unconnected with the reservation issue. But it is critical to understand the heart of the complexity in the state and among the Nagas. This relates to the trust deficit with New Delhi and the latter’s complete opacity with regard to the so-called ‘Framework Agreement’ with the NSCN (I-M) of August 3, 2015. Till date, neither signing party has made this ‘accord’ public to allay fears and suspicions, not just of the Nagas but of many others in the region, especially in Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, where there have always exited concerns over territory and borders in the light of the NSCN’s assertions on a larger territorial space. So a deep sense of frustration has been building up in Nagaland – the contestation over women’s legal rights, asserted through the Supreme Court, gave space for this anxiety to overflow in an extremely negative way.

Naga women demanding reservation in elected bodies are seen during a rally in Dimapur. Credit: PTI/Files

I wonder if the thinking must have gone something like this: “We don’t know anything about this agreement which is 18 months old, we don’t trust this lot of politicians and now they’re thrusting this Indian constitutional provision down our throats without discussion”, despite the fact that this had been consistently opposed by the male bodies including the overall alliance of Naga tribes called the Hoho (all male representatives) since 2004. The trigger for the violence was the government’s own turnaround from an agreement to keep the elections in abeyance two days before the polls were to be held. This was forced by a high court order insisting on the elections on February 1. As a result of the turmoil, the elections were cancelled and have just been declared null and void. Fresh dates have not been announced.
Prominent Nagas say that women’s groups have failed to understand the larger issues, although one influential tribal group has acknowledged that men have not accepted women as equal partners.  A case in point is the fact that customs lays down that Naga women do not inherit ancestral property.
A complex battle
Charles Chasie, a prominent independent researcher and writer, says that the Naga system should be called patrilineal rather than patriarchal. But I think he was missing the point. The women’s groups, in this case the Naga Mothers’ Association, which has been at the forefront of the struggle seeking the right to contest elections, is at least as much about the attitude of Naga groups as about the law.
Chasie wrote recently, “Today, things have changed and Naga women must be included in decision-making. If we do not include the women, we will not only exclude half the population. This will be to our cost. But the women too must be clear about their role in society and not be affected by happenings elsewhere or try to implement those ideas here without proper reflection.”  He said that the Naga tribe associations were prepared to accommodate women up to 40-50% of the bodies, but then said that these women would need to be nominated.
Chasie, who is an old friend, went on (and this is the part that I completely disagree with for it is contradictory to the concept of a functional democracy), “Nomination would also ensure women’s presence as they would be ‘uncontested’. They would have avoided the problems associated with elections, including financial costs and enmities always involved in electioneering. They could also choose women of ability they know and place them where these women could make a difference, with more representation than they were asking!”
“Why did the women leaders refuse? It would seem that the women leaders were more interested in making a political statement instead of having women’s welfare in their minds,” he added.
I don’t think that is so: the Supreme Court took six years to rule on the case, upholding Naga women’s rights to constitutional provisions. I doubt if the highest court in the land was interested in merely making a political statement but asserting the democratic rights of people under the laws of the land, of which the fount is the constitution. There was enough time for tribal and civil society organisations, including women’s groups, to develop conversations on the need for change within society instead of opting for a head-on confrontation.
Monalisa Changkija, the editor of the Nagaland Page and a resolute pro-rights campaigner on this issue, is quite acerbic in her editorials: “’Women’s reservation is necessitated in patriarchal societies for the historical fact of the practiced culture of inequalities ubiquitous in Naga society ~ even if we don’t practice dowry, sati, female foeticide and infanticide and the caste-system”. In a later editorial, “Clearly, here the problem is denial of the culture, customs and traditions of patriarchy and misogyny in Naga society, unfortunately even by some Naga women. Why is it that only Naga men believe that they alone can form organizations and appropriate for themselves the right to be the custodians of Naga culture, customs and traditions? What gives the right to all-male tribal organizations to demand women’s organizations of various tribes to disband or disassociate from the Naga Mothers’ Associations? What makes Naga men believe that they have the right to dictate Naga women? It is the patriarchal culture. The other factor has makes Naga men take an even more strident position, as witnessed recently, is the fear of Naga women’s ascendency to political and economic power ~ after all, especially in the past three decades, Naga women have been scaling heights no Naga men has scaled before. This is a threat perception …”
As a result of this confrontation, the Naga Hoho has split, with at least two other groups claiming to represent Naga tribal interests, the women’s movement has been damaged and the process of asserting equality under the law has been stalled. Chasie and other say that the name of the Nagas as standing for honour, equality and dignity has been tarnished.
It is significant that Naga groups, which once contested the constitution and the very concept of India and their accession to it with arms, are now using this foundational document to contest each other’s views of rights as enshrined therein. We cannot forget that the constitution is an amalgam of many parts. Whether wisdom lies in quoting John Donne’s eternal lines, “No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent” or not, no part of the constitution can be seen as unconnected to other segments.
The section on fundamental rights make it absolutely clear – all must be treated equally and have the right to hold office and cannot be discriminated against on the basis of religion, caste, sex etc. It is no accident that the visionaries who founded of the republic gave this chapter their highest priority.
It is in this light that the confrontation must be resolved. Many of us have friends, as I have said elsewhere, on either side of this unnecessary and tragic divide. There are many prominent figures in Nagaland who can help calm the tension and enable a mutually-agreed mediation. Their friends are prepared to help in this process.
The government of India must stand firm on this fundamental issue. It cannot be seen to waver for the sake of political gain – it has already lost much goodwill as a result of its silence of the hastily bundled together ‘framework’, signed in a public space, hailed as historic but which still remains a secret document.
Sanjoy Hazarika is director, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative.

India: Will anti-women quota stir in Nagaland affect BJP’s plan for a uniform civil code? (Ashwaq Masoodi)

Livemint.com - Feb 07 2017

Can women demand political representation if, under customary law, only men are entitled to run institutions of governance? That’s what the Naga women’s fight is all about

http://www.livemint.com/Politics/jGb6h5jVomZJwoXzW01PRM/Will-antiwomen-quota-stir-in-Nagaland-boost-BJPs-uniform-c.html

India - Nagaland: Choose women's rights over tribal custom - Editorials in Live Mint and the Indian Express

[Two editorials speak out regarding opposition to quota for women in Nagaland]

Editorial in Livemint.com, February 08 2017

Communities can’t veto women’s reservation

A basic minimum on gender rights should be non-negotiable even in a state with special privileges like Nagaland

The elections for urban local bodies in Nagaland—slated to be held on 1 February—have been postponed in the light of violent protests against the provision of 33% reservation for women. The local elections have been due for more than 16 years now. In September 2012, the Nagaland state assembly had passed a resolution opposing the quota for women. However, this resolution was revoked by the assembly in November 2016, clearing the way for the elections to be held. The assembly and the T.R. Zeliang government were responding to an interim order by the Supreme Court in a petition filed by the Naga Mothers’ Association (NMA).

The NMA argues that article 243(T) of the Constitution, which provides for 33% women’s reservation in municipal bodies, applies to Nagaland as well. The opposite view—spearheaded by Naga Hoho, the apex body of Naga tribes—contends that article 371(A) gives precedence to Nagaland’s customary traditions and laws over the laws passed by Parliament. Moreover, the male-dominated tribal bodies assert that Naga society offers equal opportunity to their females obviating the need for any kind of affirmative action.

In reality, no woman has ever been elected to the state assembly in over 53 years of Nagaland’s existence as a state. It has sent a sole woman representative—late Rano M. Shaiza in 1977—to Parliament. The village development boards in the state, on the other hand, do have 25% seats reserved for women. But most of the tribal bodies which act as the custodians of tribal culture and traditions are dominated by men. As a result, the property and inheritance rights are highly skewed against women. This is also a system developed over the years to keep property from being taken outside the community in the eventuality of a woman deciding to marry outside the tribe.

Given the way the arguments are stacked, the first issue at stake here is the writ of the Constitution and the Supreme Court against the power of local customs and traditions. The right of Naga Hoho to speak for local customs can indeed be challenged, but focusing on merely that aspect provides a convenient excuse for not taking the difficult issue head on. As far as gender rights go, Indian laws and community-specific orthodoxies have gone against each other a number of times. The perennial debate on uniform civil code and the recent controversies over the rights of women to enter certain religious places are the best examples.

These debates are just a bit more complex in a state like Nagaland due to its unique history, tribal status, a special relationship with the Union of India enshrined in the Constitution, and the fact of it being riven by India’s longest running insurgency. Even a progressive Indian law can quickly be reduced to a conspiracy by New Delhi to dilute Naga nationalism.

The contest is not confined to the issue of gender rights. It was, for instance in Tamil Nadu, animal rights pitted against local traditions in the recent Jallikattu controversy. One-size-fits-all policies designed in New Delhi without accounting for local and varied granularities have indeed been problematic. But equally, the argument for autonomy has also been misused by communities to perpetuate their own internal inequities. This has certainly been the case for gender rights. A uniform civil code guaranteeing a basic minimum on gender rights is imperative and should be non-negotiable.

The second issue here is one of reservations. Even if the goal of women’s empowerment is a worthy one, is the policy of reservations the right means to get to it? This matter was vociferously debated when the United Progressive Alliance government had introduced a constitutional amendment to institute 33% reservation for women in the legislatures. While some members of Parliament had raised excellent points both in support and opposition of that bill, a few had shown their worst behaviour, forcing the use of marshals to evict them from the house.

The under-representation of women in Indian legislatures is a fact: among 193 countries ranked by Inter-Parliamentary Union, India’s lower house stands at a poor 145 (behind neighbouring Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal) in terms of women’s representation. But the means to address it can be many. One of the prominent alternatives suggested to reservations in legislatures was reservations in tickets distributed by political parties. But this is not foolproof either as political parties might distribute tickets to women from seats which they don’t expect to win.

Another objection to reservations is that women’s empowerment cannot take place by women winning elections against other women. But the outcomes in local body elections—which provide for women’s reservations—show that women are now steadily eating into the unreserved seats as well. Reservations for women are also less prone to creating entrenched political economies which tend to convert public goods into club goods for a handful.

A former French minister, Françoise Giroud, had once said that women will be men’s equals only if incompetent women could hold important jobs just like men did. Taking the cue, men in Nagaland should concede and the state government shouldn’t.

o o o

Indian Express - February 8, 2017

Editorial

An opportunity lost

In face-off between tribal custom and gender justice, Nagaland government abdicates its responsibility

February 8, 2017 12:04 am

Kohima: The Kohima Municipal Council office which was set ablaze by Naga tribals during their violent protest, in Kohima on Friday. (PTI Photo) The Nagaland government’s decision to defer elections to urban local bodies shows that it remains in thrall to the state’s powerful tribal bodies. These influential male-dominated groups fomented unrest over the state government’s decision to reserve 33 per cent of seats for women in civic bodies, slated to go to the polls in the first week of February. The Naga Hoho, the body that represents the state’s 16 tribal groups, contends that the reservation violates the safeguards to the tribal customary laws provided by the Constitution’s Article 371A. But women’s rights groups in the state argue that since municipalities and town councils are not customary institutions, women should be entitled to the reservations in these urban local bodies mandated by the 74th amendment to the Constitution. In the run-up to the elections, the state government had affirmed its commitment to this constitutional provision. But by backing off in the face of violence incited by tribal groups, the Nagaland government has shown its lack of resolve to fulfill its constitutional obligation to gender justice.
This volte-face could have been foretold. Nagaland delayed the adoption of the 74th amendment by 13 years because the state government did not want to upset the tribal groups. In 2011, women’s groups challenged the state government’s refusal to hold elections to urban local bodies in the Gauhati High Court. In its response, the Nagaland government said it had received representations that opposed the reservation of seats for women “on grounds that it was against Naga customs”. The court found the state government’s arguments “flimsy” and directed it to hold elections. The Nagaland government, however, managed a stay against the order in the Supreme Court. In April 2016, however, the apex court vacated the stay order.
That the state government has unresistingly pandered to the anxieties of the tribal groups says something about its inability to stand above the contradictions of Nagaland’s society. At 76.69 per cent, women’s literacy in Nagaland is far above the national average. Naga women work in fields, excel in business, and as academics and professionals. But customary laws prevent them from claiming rights to land or inheriting ancestral property. Since Rano Mese Shaiza was elected to the Lok Sabha in 1977, no Naga woman has made it to Parliament. The Nagaland state assembly has never had a woman member. It is unfortunate that another chance to resolve these contradictions has been lost.

Hindu takeover of tribal religion: Unholy politics of India’s far right (Clea Chakraverty)

Le Monde Diplomatique
February 2016

Hindu takeover of tribal religion

Unholy politics of India’s far right

Ultra-nationalist Hindu organisations are taking a close interest in indigenous religion in the mountains of northeast India.

by Clea Chakraverty

Rata Yirang, a young Adi tribesman, comes back from a hunting expedition with a well-filled bamboo bag. He signals his success by clicking his tongue and hooting. In plastic sandals (made in China), he moves easily over the mud and gravel between the houses on stilts of his village. Damro, population 1,000, stands on a hill 800 metres above sea level in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. Bordering China, Bhutan and Burma, it’s a region of forests, rivers and mountains largely unexplored except by the locals, mostly “scheduled tribes” (1) who speak Tibeto-Burman languages. Damro is about six hours by jeep from the district capital, Pasighat, a former British army station in the Siang valley.
Life in the valley, largely unchanged until the 2000s, has rapidly caught up withthe global economy, which has brought advertising, private banks and cheap Chinese and Indian consumer goods. The electricity supply is intermittent, but everyone has a mobile phone. People crowd around the few television sets, fascinated by Indian sitcoms. But agricultural festivals and fertility rituals still govern the rhythm of life for the villagers, who depend on subsistence farming and hunting. The Adi religion blends mythology with shamanistic and social practices and has until recently resisted institutionalisation.
According to clan elder Saram Yirang, young people today are “more interested in Bollywood and western fashion than in the wellbeing of the village.They are moving to the city, and clan solidarity is gradually declining.” The latest census (2001) shows the state’s urban population has increased to 21.34%, compared with 3.70% in 1971. Some blame this migration for the adoption since 1980s of the dominant non-tribal — especially Christian — cultural practices, to which they attribute the most significant changes. “Christianity has made significant inroads into all tribes. The converts don’t observe our festivals any more,” said Aini Taloh, chair of an Adi feminist and cultural organisation in Pasighat. A dozen evangelical churches have been established there in under a decade (2).
A young Baptist pastor said: “Our ancestors were like children. People continue to worship nature spirits, but we believe that is shaitan — the work of the devil. We condemn sacrifices and the consumption of alcohol.” These churches with their powerful, well-organised congregations use a modernist message to win over new converts, while incorporating aspects of local culture (folk songs, dances) into their services. They hold regular prayer and healthcare camps. These “healing crusades” (in both the physical and spiritual senses) have been very popular with participants, who are turning away from healers, whom they feel charge too much, and government hospitals, which suffer from staff absenteeism (3).
“The evangelicals started converting masses of people, because they were offering something more attractive, more modern, than our tribal system,” said Kaling Borang, a civil servant in Pasighat who became a militant indigenist in the 1970s. “Conversions threatened our culture. That’s why we created our own religious movement, reforming our practices and beliefs.” A few educated, English-speaking Adi took up the cause, concerned by the extent of conversion to Christianity, which had already spread to most other states in India’s northeast (4).

‘We felt devalued’

“From the time when we first had contact with the rest of India — at school, or when applying for official documents — we always had to identify ourselves by our religion. But we didn’t have one, or at least not one that other Indians knew about. We felt devalued,”said Borang. Local activists decided to blend their religious practices under the name Donyi-Polo (sun-moon), which relates to cosmology and tribal beliefs. In 1986 they established an official committee. Inspired by Christian and Hindu practices, they established places of worship known as ganggin, and a clearly defined pantheon with standardised divinities and symbols. Talom Rukbo, leader of this group, proposed to write down the songs and prayers — a revolution for these tribes, which have a preference for spoken forms of language.
In Arunachal Pradesh today, households that practice Donyi-Polo display a flag with a red sun on a white ground. The place of worship, a big rectangular house, is mostly frequented on Saturday mornings, when services are held. There is an altar, with figures from tribal mythology in the style of Hindu gods.A psychedelic rainbow symbolises the faith. There are candles, incense and little bronze bells. The innovation continues: “We have introduced meditation and yoga, and reciting the word keyum,an Adi concept similar to the Hindu ‘Om’ (5),” said Tajom Tasum, secretary general of the Pasighatganggin. But this is not to everyone’s taste.
“Thirty years ago, none of this existed. The reforms were useful in fighting against conversions, but now, Hindu organisations are interfering with our beliefs,” said Kalin Taloh, a business owner in Pasighat, who refuses to go along with them. The organisations provided strong support to the indigenist movement. According to Borang the support was only logistical at first: “We didn’t know how to get started, how to organise our movement. They gave us practical help, manpower, training, advice...”
But these organisations are part of, or have close links to, the ultra-nationalist Hindu movement Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS, National Volunteer Organisation). The RSS’s ideological project, Hindutva (Hindu-ness), is based on a political and supremacist vision of Hinduism. In many Donyi-Polo places of worship today, there are portraits of RSS leaders. Talom Rukbo, co-founder of the indigenist movement, was made an icon of the RSS after his death in 2002.
These organisations have had a strong presence in Arunachal Pradesh since the Sino-Indian war of 1962, and operate through a social and educational network designed to strengthen the sense of national identity. The small Donyi-Polo Vidya Niketan primary school in Pasighat, and 14 others like it in the RSS Vidya Bharati (6) network in Arunachal Pradesh, offer activities over and above the official Indian curriculum: patriotic songs glorifying Bharat Mata (Mother India) and religious songs in Sanskrit. Yet most pupils are from tribes like the Adi, who are unfamiliar with Sanskrit and the Hindu pantheon. “As far as we are concerned, they are Hindu,” said educational coordinator K V Ashokan. “Donyi-Polo is part of Hindu pluralism. If local people think otherwise, we won’t try to stop them from saying so. But this religion is as indigenous as Hinduism: we have the same beliefs. Hindus have Surya, the Sun, and our god Ram was himself a descendant of the Sun; Hindus venerate nature, as do followers of Donyi-Polo. So what’s the difference?” Ashokan, a senior figure in the organisation, believes education should raise young people’s awareness of their culture as promoted by the RSS, which seeks to demonise conversion to Christianity. Schools also foster a Hindutva view of history.

A Hindutva view of history

Ashokan said: “We need to be sure of the loyalty of the local populations. Muslims and Christians cannot be loyal. How can they, when their allegiance is to the Pope of Rome or Mecca? When people do not feel they are Hindus, then they are foreigners. It’s a threat to our national identity and integrity.”At the little school, the teachers use Hindi on a day-to-day basis. “Post the 1962 war, the Indian government let missionary schools such as the Ram Krishna mission or Vidya Niketan run freely in Arunachal to ensure that Hindi was also taught. The idea was to get and maintain a grip in the region, especially since in the other northeastern states such as Manipur or Nagaland, the insurgent movements were gaining popularity,” said Mirza Zulfiqur Raman of the social sciences department at the Indian Institute of Technology in Guwahati. “This allows the government to assert its authority in the region.”
One RSS organisation, Arun Jyoti, asserts in an English-language pamphlet that there is a “need to protect nationalist sentiment against foreign agents”, especially through its personal development and counselling camps for teenagers. This implies that social and economic ills are due to “backward” tribal culture, a view shared by RSS organisations and by India’s education system, according to anthropologist Nandini Sundar (7).
Omer Tatin, assistant secretary of Arunachal Vikas Parishad, another local RSS organisation, said: “The ministry of tribal affairs is useless. When we wanted to establish our religion formally, only the RSS supported us. That’s why we turned to them.” Like other Adi, he believes the tribal populations need to be developed.The Adi have internalised the rhetoric of a branch of Indian sociology led by Govind Sadashiv Ghurye in the 1940s: the tribes are “backward Hindus”, who must be assimilated through (Hindu) cultural and economic development. This view, reflected at the highest levels of government, helps to get massive industrialisation projects accepted. Between 2005 and 2014, public-private partnerships signed 162 pre-project agreements for dams on the Brahmaputra, without properly consulting the people who would be affected and with no transparency about the use of the funds.

Translated by Charles Goulden

Clea Chakraverty is a journalist.
(1) “Scheduled tribes” are an administrative category of the Indian population. In 2015 there were 411 of them.
(2) Christians are 30% of the population in Arunachal Pradesh, 2.3% in India as a whole.
(3) See Vibha Joshi, A Matter of Belief: Christian Conversion and Healing in North-East India, Berghahn Books, New Delhi, 2012.
(4) Nagaland, Meghalaya and Manipur are 70% Christian; Mizoram is 99% Christian.
(5) Om or Aumis a sacred sound in Hinduism and Buddhism.
(6) The Vidya Bharati school network was envisioned in 1952 by Madhav SadashivGolwalkar, an RSS ideologue who claimed inspiration from Hitler.
(7) Nandini Sundar, “Educating for inequality: the experiences of India’s “indigenous’ citizens”, Asian Anthropology,Hong Kong, September 2010.

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Inserting Hindutva in Nagaland (Arkotong Longkumer)

source: http://southasianistblog.com/2015/04/02/inserting-hindutva-in-nagaland/

Inserting Hindutva in Nagaland

BY ARKOTONG LONGKUMER

IMAGE CAPTION: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Governor of Nagaland, B.P. Acharya (left), at the inaugural function of the Hornbill festival in Kisama Heritage village in the outskirts of Kohima on Dec. 01, 2014. – PHOTO: RITU RAJ KONWAR

The Naga resistance, which is as old as Indian Independence, has consistently fought for a homeland. South Asia’s longest running political conflict has only been tempered by ceasefire agreements between the Indian government and specific Naga groups.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi, visited Nagaland during the annual Hornbill Festival at Kisama in December 2014, there was a general sense of excitement. “Silent on insurgency, Narendra Modi woos Nagaland”, said the national newspaper, The Times of India; “PM Modi Graces Hornbill Fest 2014”, said the local Nagaland Post, reflecting this positive proclamation.

Modi’s presence was all the more interesting as his audience was comprised of not only Nagas and various official dignitaries, but also included international tourists, who had come not simply to listen to Modi, but also to visualise and participate in the Hornbill Festival. The confluence of these audiences along with Modi’s presence highlighted the fact that Nagaland symbolised the colour and diversity of India. He came to celebrate, but importantly, he also came to promote a new vision of the Union government’s approach in Nagaland.

There were two things on people’s minds as Modi’s arrival became imminent. First was the expectation that Modi would alleviate the cash-starved State machinery by providing a substantial economic package. Rather than provide economic overtures to the State government of Nagaland, he made a general gesture towards economic development for the whole of the northeast of India, calling the region a “Natural Economic Zone (NEZ)”.

Contrasting this notion with Special Economic Zones (SEZs) that are largely man-made, Modi’s vision is to develop the region in terms of these NEZs, making the northeast the capital of “organic agriculture” in India. The Prime Minister announced a number of packages ranging from establishing agricultural colleges and garment manufacturing centres, to strengthening the railway infrastructure to help boost tourism and to realise the potential of Nagaland and other northeastern States. He also introduced, with characteristic flourish, the idea of setting up schemes for Northeast students under “Ishan Uday” and “Ishan Vikas”. These would, respectively, create around 10,000 scholarships for students from the northeast, and enable around 2000 students and 500 teachers yearly from this region to visit, and learn from, different educational institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), National Institutes of Technology (NIT), and National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT).

The second expectation was that he would make a statement about the long drawn out Naga nationalist movement and its desire for sovereignty. The movement has its genesis around the mid-1940s, headed by the charismatic Angami Zapu Phizo (1903-1990) of the Naga National Council (NNC). In 1997 the Government of India, headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, also from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the main Naga nationalist group, now the National Socialist Council of Nagalim Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM), signed a peace agreement. This enabled talks to be held at the highest level, addressing the long drawn out conflict and issues relating to Naga sovereignty. One of the preconditions for this peace agreement was the recognition by the Vajpayee government of the “uniqueness of Naga history” as a political issue; previous Union governments had treated the “Naga problem” primarily through security and military perspectives. This recognition gave the NSCN-IM some leverage but it also became the basis through which a consensus between the two parties was achieved. The question that occupied the popular mind during Modi’s visit in 2014 was: what have 18 years of peace talks accomplished? Would Modi continue Vajpayee’s recognition? They wanted an answer from Modi. But the Prime Minister was silent.

When addressing the crowd in Kisama, the site of the Hornbill Festival, Modi spoke to the audience in English, departing from his normal practice of speaking in Hindi, even during foreign visits. As one commentator put it in the local daily Morung Express, “ …he made an exception to address the Naga public in English. Given that the Hindi language is quite alien to the Nagas, it was a welcome gesture on the part of the Prime Minister to respect the Naga people’s sentiment, their history and culture”. Moreover, the most striking element at the end of his speech was the use of the Naga nationalist slogan “Kuknalim”, meaning “victory to Nagalim/Nagaland”. Like a front man in a rock concert, he encouraged the crowd to participate in the chanting, in place of the characteristic nationalist chant “Jai-Hind” (victory to India).

For many in the local audiences, Modi’s visit was nothing but exemplary in the way he handled himself. There was no enigma to unlock. The subsequent headline in the local Morung Express — “Modi has done his homework well” — echoed this perspective. Analyses of his speech in the Morung Express focused on how he avoided interfering in the Naga nationalist struggle, viewing it as an internal matter rather than one requiring outside intervention. He was thought to show intelligence and foresight into the economic situation. He hadn’t fallen “for the feather dances and the songs but wants the State to revisit its achievements and failures”. This is an encouraging sign from Modi, suggested one of the commentators. Analyses by commentators seemed to indicate that Modi was someone who understood the pulse of the people and wanted mass based organisations and movements to shape the destiny of people’s progress, rather than relying on corrupt officials. The message, at least to some ears, was clear and loud. Modi wanted positive change!

Was this visit carefully managed, or was it a straightforward willingness to participate and acknowledge the unique place of Nagaland in India? Reflecting on this question requires one to ask if there might be more to read into this visit. Do the implications of his interaction with the people in Nagaland and the Northeast point to larger issues that were not immediately obvious in his speech? It is here that the story becomes more interesting.

A more centralised model?
In the larger scheme of things, Nagaland, he said, would benefit, but in the microcosmic world of political sound bites, Modi’s speech signalled the balance of power away from these regional margins to a more centralised model. The larger strategy was in its effect, its intention. One way the speech resonated with those I spoke to was that it was seen as a bruising judgement on the state of affairs in Nagaland. People acknowledged that Modi was completely aware of the economic dependency on Union finances that has enabled a small section of elected officials to become richer by diverting public money for their own benefits, while the poor become poorer. The lack of a specific economic package for the State reflected Modi’s new approach for doing business with Nagaland.

The broader question on many people’s minds was this — would Modi’s approach to Nagaland matter in the larger scheme of political strategising? Would he, for example, visit another State in India with a large constituency and refuse them an economic package? More questionable still was to treat the entire northeast as one unitary economic block. Perhaps size and representation does matter! If one thinks about Nagaland, it is a tiny fiefdom within a larger scheme of territorial politics with one representative in the Lok Sabha and one in the Rajya Sabha, compared with 80 and 31 respectively from Uttar Pradesh, the largest State contributing to the Houses of Parliament.

The inconsequential reality of electoral representation reverberated in some quarters of the intelligentsia, who lamented this fact and deliberated whether Modi was here to teach the Nagas a lesson in fiscal discipline and to crush the Naga nationalist movement by not pandering to its long-standing demands for sovereignty. Perhaps there were political signs to his silence.

While he was thoroughly complimentary about Nagaland in his speech in Kisama, Modi’s off-stage behaviour was puzzling. Indeed, it might be thought to show a certain irritation towards the State’s attempts to entertain him. According to the Nagaland Post and the Morung Express, he did not meet the State cabinet, nor did he have official dinner with the State council of ministers. Even at Kisama he skipped the official lunch organised for him, instead eating, reportedly, inside his helicopter. This ambiguity is interesting in the context of his visit. Why would he reject hospitality, which in the Naga context is associated with honour and custom? One wonders if, for once, Modi’s political antenna was tuned to the wrong station. Contrastingly, he gave an audience to the State Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) members, and curiously to leaders of the Zeliangrong Heraka Association, a non-Christian religious movement with backing from the Hindu right, particularly the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

It is no secret that Modi was an RSS worker before he was elected to political office, so he will be aware of the fact that the RSS network extends even to Nagaland. For instance, the appointment of Padmanabha Balakrishna Acharya as Governor of Nagaland in July 2014 after the BJP’s sweeping national mandate, signalled a larger RSS geopolitical strategy in Nagaland. Acharya isn’t shy about wearing his RSS credentials on his sleeve. Nor did he shy away from controversy, as he demonstrated recently when he imprinted the image of Bharat mata (Mother India), an RSS national symbol, in the official programme held at the Governor’s residence, Raj Bhavan, during the 2015 Republic Day celebrations. Judging from these actions, it may appear that Modi’s idea for India is intrinsically linked to the RSS vision.

Sidelining the Christian narrative
How can these be married to Nagaland and its needs given its overwhelming Christian population, especially in light of its tempestuous history with India since independence?

First, let us look at the notion of sovereignty demanded by the Nagas and how it is understood by the RSS. Unlike the different Naga nationalist groups, the RSS position has always been that Nagaland is an integral part of India both politically and culturally. The imagery of Bharatvarsh, as part of the larger Hindu imagination, an RSS worker said, not only incorporates the subcontinent but also Tibet and Myanmar. This automatically includes Nagaland.

There is no clarity on where the RSS draws textual sources to legitimate these territorial claims, but there is a sense in which the ancient Sanskrit epic, Mahabharata, provides important links. Through the use of different characters and geographical references to existing places, the RSS argues for continuity between the Mahabharata narrative and Nagaland and northeast India.

Second, what is the view of the RSS on the presence of Christianity in Nagaland that comprises, according to the 2001 Census, latest available for religion, around 90 per cent of the population? Christianity, from the RSS worldview, encourages secessionism and foreign intervention (the British and Americans are often the prime suspects partly because the Nagas were administered and missionised by them). Therefore, the current Governor of Nagaland and many RSS workers involved with organisations like the Akhil Bharatiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (ABVKA) have worked to support non-Christian movements to gain strength and to question the dominance of the Christian narrative. In this context, Modi’s reception with the leaders of an indigenous religious movement, Zeliangrong Heraka Association (ZHA), is not surprising but hugely controversial for its geo-religious implications in the region.

During Modi’s visit to Nagaland the ZHA handed a memorandum stating that their leader, Rani Gaidinliu (1915-1993), must be honoured and recognised by imprinting her image on coins; that an independent Rani Gaidinliu Central University be opened in Nagaland with a department dedicated to the promulgation of the “eternal religion and eternal culture of Nagas”, which will also benefit the 287 tribes in northeast India. Other requests included one to rename Nagaland’s only airport as the “Rani Gaidinliu Airport” and another that asked for her portrait to adorn the Nagaland Assembly, the Chief Minister’s office and bungalow, Ministers’ offices and bungalows and the Raj Bhavan. It would not be a surprise if the Governor’s hand — who knew Rani Gaidinliu and wrote a booklet on her — and those of other RSS sympathisers have been behind these sentiments. What is interesting is that Rani Gaidinliu is largely represented as an “Indian freedom fighter” who fought against the British as well as the Christian proselytisation, while maintaining her allegiance to both India and her Naga heritage. Indeed, Rani Gaidinliu is represented as the ideal personification of all that is good about the Nagas. In fact one RSS worker tersely remarked, “do you want the image of the terrorist Muivah [the General Secretary of the NSCN-IM] or that of Rani Gaidinliu the freedom fighter imprinted on the map of Nagaland?” It appears as though RSS activities are meant to sideline the dominance of a Christian narrative in Nagaland by promoting their version of a Naga in Rani Gaidinliu, which is in line with its thinking.

So is there now a way of reading into Modi’s silence over the Naga political problem? Indeed, the local newspaper headline “Modi has done his homework well” can be re-read with questioning overtones. Modi’s concerns about Nagaland are perhaps coloured by his RSS networks and roots, but it also allows him to play the paternal figure who knows best and the Nagas now have a choice to make – either follow the historical path of secessionism, or embrace the new choice that presents India as progressive. One can concede that Modi’s vision for Nagaland is tied in with the different interlocutors and worldviews of people. But it is also important to note that the emphasis on territorial integrity and the privileging of voices other than Christianity is a position maintained for many years by the Hindu right with regard to the tribal areas of Northeast India and is therefore nothing new.

This article was originally published by The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy on 20 February 2015, and is reproduced here with permission from the author and publisher. Online source: http://www.thehinducentre.com/the-arena/current-issues/article6916230.ece

Arkotong Longkumer is an anthropologist, specialising in South/Southeast Asian religion and culture. His research interests lie in the intersection between local religions, Hinduism and Christianities. He is also interested in nationalism, the performance of identity, and the politics of place in India. He is currently Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Edinburgh, UK. E-mail: a.longkumer@ed.ac.uk

India: Sanjib Baruah on the Dimapur lynching and the imagined enemy

The Indian Express

Reimagining Dimapur

Written by Sanjib Baruah | Published on:March 18, 2015 12:47 am

By all indications, the lynching of Syed Sharif Khan was the result of an episode of moral panic about the so-called IBI — “illegal Bangladeshi Immigrant” — in Dimapur. Sociologists use the term “moral panic” to describe heightened public anxiety, triggered by media frenzy, about an individual, a minority group or a subculture seen as an imminent threat to social order.

The media has always been an active contributor to moral panics. But it seems that in a new media environment that includes mobile phones, the internet and social networks, there can be situations when crime and punishment move from the courts and prisons to the street. And the street can turn into a theatre of the absurd, or reality television of a frightening variety. The lynching of Syed Sharif Khan was the mediated spectacle of capital punishment of a person who — it is now believed — may not have been guilty of any crime. It is not accidental that these horrendous events unfolded in Dimapur.

While many in India seem to think of Dimapur as a remote place, historians of World War II know it as an important strategic location. It was the main supply depot for the British 14th Army in its war with the Japanese. That is why capturing Dimapur was an important strategic goal for the Japanese. What made Dimapur so strategic was its railhead.

Thanks to a metro-centric bias, we don’t think of places like Dimapur as urban spaces. However, those who study urbanisation in India deeply disagree with the way urban spaces are officially defined. Concepts like subaltern urbanisation or vernacular urbanism, debated among academics, give a sense of the issues involved. In the words of Naga journalist Y. Merina Chishi, Dimapur is “a city of villages”.

Even important government buildings like the deputy commissioner’s office are located in “villages”, as are some of the city’s posh areas.

In that regard, Dimapur may have a lot in common with the urban villages of Delhi, where many Northeasterners live. But Dimapur is also a city in the important sense that, like many other cities in the world, it is where people have to live with difference and deal with heterogeneity, both cultural and economic. Escaping to the comfort zones of imagined homogeneity is not an option.

Dimapur is Nagaland’s only plains district. Its topography explains why Dimapur has the railhead, which was the reason why the Dimapur mauza of what was then the Nowgong district of Assam was transferred to the Naga Hills district in the early part of the last century — giving an opening to a district closed off by the Inner Line. The same railhead made Dimapur strategically important in the last World War. Even today, the railhead gives Dimapur its special economic niche. And since it is in the plains, Dimapur has always been outside the Inner Line regime. It is hardly surprising, then, that it is the state’s economic hub and attracts migrants from other parts of the country (and possibly some from Bangladesh), as well as from the rest of Nagaland.

But perhaps it is equally unsurprising that in a state with all other districts closed to settlement by those not from the region, Dimapur should become the focus of fears about so-called IBIs, or about outsiders corrupting Naga society. The growing demographic imbalance between Dimapur, with its growing non-Naga population, and the rest of Nagaland is also a source of significant political consternation.

Dimapur has the only general unreserved seat in the Nagaland assembly. The constituency has an electorate that is many times that of other Nagaland constituencies. In 2002, the Delimitation Commission awarded four additional seats to Dimapur based on population shifts. The commission, however, did not get into the potentially explosive issue of whether those seats should be general or reserved.

Fortunately, an ordinance in 2008 deferred the delimitation of constituencies in Nagaland till 2031, kicking the proverbial can down the road.

Interestingly enough, what worries so many Naga activists and politicians about Dimapur are exactly the things that serious thinkers about northeast India’s economic future find promising. The region’s future prosperity, they believe, lies in the ability to create more Dimapur-like open economic spaces in the hill states of the region. The late B.G. Verghese was a great friend of the Northeast. Something of a futurist when it came to the region — and an eternal optimist — he extolled an implicit Dimapur model in some of his writings. In November 2014, during his trip to the Northeast, Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged off the first passenger train from Mendipathar in Meghalaya’s North Garo Hills district to Guwahati. In a book published in 1996, Verghese had speculated on what this railway link could do to Meghalaya’s economy. Certain areas, he wrote, including perhaps Mendipathar itself, could be de-reserved or made free zones, “like Dimapur in Nagaland, where ‘outsiders’ may freely invest and settle”. Such a step, he thought, would build confidence and attract capital to the hill state. Elsewhere, he wrote of economic spaces designed for servicing the hills, again modelled on Dimapur.

Many of the colonial era institutions that persisted in the Northeast, like the Inner Line, acquired important new functions after the end of the Raj. They have morphed into instruments of protective discrimination. Many benefits have come from these continuities. But the trouble with path dependency is that societies can be locked into dysfunctional institutional arrangements even when better alternatives
are available.

The difficulty with the Inner Line is rooted its very history. As historian Bodhisattva Kar succinctly puts it, the Inner Line was “not only a territorial exterior of the theatre of capital — it was also a temporal outside of the historical pace of development and progress”. The choice is not between keeping those institutions and abolishing them. Verghese seems to have thought that the Dimapur model, in some ways, provides a way out of the impasse.

The hard lesson that Nagaland and the rest of northeast India must draw from the events in Dimapur is that the region must find a way of bringing in a politics that is based not just on the memories of shared ethnic pasts, but on the vision of a common future for those who live in the region today.

The writer is professor of political studies at Bard College, New York
- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/reimagining-dimapur/

India: Old wounds reopened .. Old hurts return to haunt (Patricia Mukhim on the Dimapur Lynching and more)

Old wounds reopened .. Old hurts return to haunt (The Shillong Times, Friday, March 13th, 2015)

By Patricia Mukhim

The public lynching of a man alleged to have raped a Naga girl in Dimapur followed by his being hanged from a pole in a public square after being labelled an ‘Illegal Bangladeshi Immigrant’ – a generic term for all Bengali speaking Muslims – has rekindled old memories of the communal carnage in Meghalaya, more specifically Shillong. Social media is rife with comparisons between the Dimapur incident and the horrors of 1979, 1981, 1992 etc. Those who grew up during that traumatic phase have now taken up jobs elsewhere but the memories remain. They cannot delete memories of their homes being set ablaze; of being panic stricken when stones are pelted on their houses by other young people their age, who probably did not even know why they were doing what they did. That too was mob frenzy. To the Khasi youth of the time the non-tribal (Bengali and subsequently Nepali) was the cause of all his predicaments. The political construct then (and this continues) was that the non-tribal is taking away the women, the wealth, the jobs and the business opportunities of the tribal.
About the women, one can only say that since Shillong had a substantial non-tribal population, the regular social interface was bound to turn into romance and marriage. If the union between a non-tribal man and tribal woman turned sour and the man left to marry one of his own ethnicity it was no different if the union was between a tribal man and woman. Abandonment is endemic, and equally, even among those who were properly married, divorce was and continues to be high. There is no point denying this or pretending that all is well since statistics prove the fact. Meghalaya must have the highest number of female-headed households in the country.
About the job, the wealth and the business opportunities it is debatable if the non-tribals have it easy. Eighty per cent jobs in the State Government are reserved for tribals. Similarly for educational institutions of medicine, engineering and other professional courses! For the non-tribal it has been an opportunity squeeze. He may be a permanent resident of Meghalaya but he could only make the cut as a general candidate which meant that he would have to score very high marks to qualify for the 20% unreserved seats in the general category. Even in central universities, 60% of seats were reserved for tribal students. As far as the wealth is concerned the source of wealth in Meghalaya is nature. There is timber, coal, limestone that has been exploited over the years by human beings both tribals and non-tribals. The latter had to find ways and means to do business to survive economically and that was through the benami route – taking the name of a tribal to avoid the rigmarole of a trading license from the District Councils and also to avoid paying certain taxes. This is an equal game. If someone is willing to sell his name and sit at home and wait for the money to come in while someone does all the hard work, and if no one is objecting to this transaction then it’s a fair game I guess.
In the area of business, the non-tribal was already far ahead of the natives by the time Meghalaya was created. Most of the wholesale trade and stockists for food grains distributed through the fair price shops were run by non-tribals. When Meghalaya became a full- fledged state in 1972 and in the years following that, several tribals also got into this government sponsored trade and contract and supply work. It is not a state secret that many tribals only lent their names and the non-tribals were actually doing the trading. Most of the rice, wheat, sugar etc that came in for supplying to the ration card holders in Meghalaya were sold in the open markets of Assam and Meghalaya and the profits were shared through a system of mutual benefit. It was not possible for a tribal to have the reach in the markets outside their state. The modus-operandi was well-oiled. No one objected. Of course it was benami but unless the Government took suo-moto action no one was going to squeak. The passive tribal business partners became very wealthy and so too the non-tribal collaborators. But this trade/contract could only benefit a few people. Wealth begets wealth. From fair price shop owners, stockists and wholesalers the tribals diverted their interests to other wealth creation activities.
Those who did not have the wherewithal to join the bandwagon of trade and commerce, but who wanted to get rich quick, turned to politics. It was the surest way to wealth through the carpet-bagging route. The politician arm-twisted every contractor for a cut and a deal for every contract work issued by his department and made money just by using his pen. This rip-off continues. Meanwhile the number of poor people has increased because no opportunities were created for them. Governments only gave audience to mercenaries and collaborators in their wealth creation ventures.
The 1979 communal flare-up has nothing to do with the economics and the anguish of the poor who fell through the cracks in the system, although they were promised so much while fighting for a separate state. That was orchestrated by politicians who wanted to upstage the sitting MLAs and ministers and to usurp their spaces. The politicians cleverly used the infamous students’ body – the Khasi Students Union and ignited raw passion in several young men for whom logic did not matter and who knew only the lingo of violence. Like mercenaries gone berserk they launched systematic attacks on the Bengali population and created a fear psychosis never experienced before. Several Bengali teachers, government employees, lawyers, doctors who have served this society had to flee for their lives overnight and take refuge in school buildings which were used as make-shift camps. Their homes had gone up in flames. All their earthly belongings had turned into ashes. Many of them left to settle in Guwahati and Kolkata but I am not sure that they would ever be able to forget or forgive this gross act of inhumanity inflicted on them. There was no government to defend them or take up their cause. It was and still is a government of by and for tribals. The police force was compromised. There were people who were pulled out of buses and massacred or burnt alive. There was Gouri Dey, a pregnant woman from Malki who was lynched by a mob and yes, there were witnesses but the police could never convict a single person. This is a shameful track record for Meghalaya Police although it hardly matters to a force that seems to have taken a vow never to arrest a murderer or to do it so shabbily that the defence lawyers rip apart their charge sheets.
Year after year thereafter, but particularly when the state was heading for an election, tempers would rise and so would the fear psychosis among non-tribals still residing in Shillong. The next bout of violence was faced by the Nepali residents. They too fled into camps and many left the state altogether. What is ironic is that the churches and religious institutions failed miserably to reduce tensions and bring about a climate of mutual trust. Curfews were common and the farmers suffered but no one really bothered. The only people who reaped a rich harvest out of these communal conflicts were politicians.
After 36 years (from 1979-2015) the Dimapur lynching incident has reopened the wounds of those who suffered the humiliation, the hurt, pain and agony of that dark period of Meghalaya’s history. On social media there are people who relive those fearful moments; those curfew-bound hours of uncertainty; the fear of moving around even during the day time and the deep sense of alienation – that of being called an outsider in a place one has always called home – the only home one knows. If home is no longer home then where does one go?
There is as no closure to those terrible moments. Yet there is need for those who have suffered to be able to speak up and bare their hearts. That’s the only way they can move on. For them too forgiveness is important because revenge eats at the human soul and corrodes it. Some are of the view that we must let go off our past. That is easier said by those who have not suffered trauma. That is why we have something called Post-Traumatic-Stress- Disorder (PTSD) and a special branch of medicine to deal with it.
It is important for the tribal community of Meghalaya to provide this platform where those who have suffered can release their pain and move on. We owe them this much as fellow human beings. I know there are some who committed those crimes in 1979-80 who have since confessed publicly because the weight of their sin hung heavy on their souls. But if only they could make that confession in a non-threatening space, where those who suffered would find it in their hearts to forgive and let go of the past, it would be a new beginning for all.

Read more at http://www.theshillongtimes.com/2015/03/13/old-wounds-reopened-old-hurts-return-to-haunt/

India: Editorial in The Telegraph on the Public Lynching in Dimapur, Nagaland

The Telegraph - March 16, 2015

Wicked spell

A shocked nation recently witnessed the public execution of a man accused of rape in Nagaland. In Assam, the government has now drafted a bill in the hope of uprooting another grisly tradition of mob lynching. Since 2002, 140 people have been killed by frenzied mobs after being accused of practising witchcraft. According to official records, 12 of Assam's 27 districts have registered a rise in the number of such murders. The deteriorating ground reality has forced the hand of a somnolent State. The bill appears to have more teeth than some of the existing penal provisions. Terming or accusing someone as a witch or inflicting physical and mental harassment on the victim would be treated as a cognizable offence, punishable with incarceration for a minimum of three years or even for life. The government has thoughtfully inserted a clause to impose a community fine when entire groups are found guilty. Steps have also been taken to compensate victims or their families, and the inclusion of philanthropic organizations and common people in investigations has not been ruled out. The latter provision is of particular significance, given the limited reach of the State agencies in remote areas vulnerable to the malady.

Yet, enlightened legislation is not enough to confront a practice that is the product of multiple, interconnected structural flaws. Several states have passed laws to curb the menace but a survey conducted a few years ago indicated that the killings continued unabated. To break the evil spell, the State, civil society as well as rationalist organizations have to work together to identify the links among related triggers. It is not enough to point fingers at the failure to dispense education evenly, the pathetic awareness levels, and a culture that discriminates against women. India's patchy healthcare system plays a significant role in sustaining the twilight world of superstition. Often, victims are killed in societies threatened with epidemics. There is also an urgent need to reimagine the edifice of irrationality. The murder of Narendra Dabholkar, who campaigned relentlessly against superstition, was not the handiwork of a primitive people. The stakeholders of the irrational include bigoted religious groups and their political patrons.

India: His Name was Khan - Smita Nair (reportage on the Nagaland Lynching , Indian Express)

The Indian Express

The Big Picture: His Name was Khan

A “politically activated mob” had dragged Khan out of jail and lynched him at a public square.
Written by Smita Nair , with input from Samudra Gupta Kashyap | Published on:March 15, 2015 12:35 am

Legend has it that the “best warrior” in all the 16 tribes of Nagaland is the one who protects the women and children of his village. This is “an important context”, says a 36-year-old Naga businessman, to understand the “raw emotions” behind the incidents that unfolded on March 4 and 5, when a mob marched to Dimapur Central Jail, dragged out a rape accused from judicial custody and lynched him in public.

At 10 am on March 4, when students of the women’s college where the alleged victim studied stood outside its gates, it made a powerful picture. “Against the brick red wall of the building were these angry girls in their blue and white uniforms. They just stood silently. Nobody in the press dared speak to them,” recalls a local reporter.

The narrow red lane boxed by the college on one side and a temple on the other was where it all started. But in those early hours of March 4, it was “still a crowd condemning the rape”.
By the next morning, the “obsessed mob” had taken shape. Sharif Khan, 35, was now not just a “rapist” but also the face of an “Illegal Bangladeshi Immigrant (IBI)”, who had taken their land first, then their jobs, then married a Naga woman and now had become “emboldened” to “rape another”.

The protests were triggered by March 4 papers reporting the rape, and at least one calling Sharif Khan an “IBI”. The protests were triggered by March 4 papers reporting the rape, and at least one calling Sharif Khan an “IBI”.

By early evening of March 5, as the sun set in Nagaland, the mob had dragged Khan over 7 km, kicking and abusing him, to finally tie him at City Clock Tower — a poor replica of the Eiffel Tower, at the popular town square —and beaten him to death.

“In Nagaland, a rape and an illegal migrant can be an explosive combination,” says Wabang Jamir, IGP (Range). An IPS from the Gujarat cadre, and a Naga himself, he says to explain Nagaland to an outsider can “still be complicated”. Customary law, police say, runs parallel to the Indian Penal Code.

“It’s a traditional system used mostly in land disputes and sometimes in cases of bodily harm. It’s common to have settlement out of court,” adds Liremo Lotha, DIG (Range).

On March 5, says Jamir, “it’s a sense of proportion” of this alternative dispute resolution system that the crowd appears to have got wrong.

In Dimapur, Nagaland’s commercial capital, there are two identities you hear repeatedly, “plain” and “Nagas”. “We are the outsiders, people from the mainland plains,” says Uttar Pradesh native Bijesh Sharma, 30, who runs a shop that has been with his family for three decades, on Jain Temple Road, very near the college where the protest began.
The owner of this chicken shop is believed to have fled, leaving behind his stock and many nervous migrants. The owner of this chicken shop is believed to have fled, leaving behind his stock and many nervous migrants.

He recalls angry girl students walking past his shop on March 4. “There were a few boys, in college uniform and that of the Unity Education Institute, who kept shouting ‘close the shop’,” says Sharma.

He reopened only six days later. Ask Sharma about the law, and he says, “Yehan kanoon hai, yehan kanoon nahin hai. It depends on which side of the border you are, Naga or plain.”

Sharma also remembers that they heard of the alleged February 24 rape only that day. That morning, at least three big state dailies put the news on their front page. Two featured photographs of Khan prominently, one identifying him as a ‘businessman based in Dimapur’ and another as a ‘married man’. Leading newspaper Nagaland Post went one step further, headlining the report as ‘IBI rapes woman in DMU’.

A joint statement by the Naga Council Dimapur and the Naga Women Hoho Dimapur carried by all the papers said, “We are once again compelled to condemn the rape of a Sumi Naga girl by a suspected IBI. Not only was the girl raped multiple times, she was beaten up and threatened… Unless all Nagas take responsibility to tackle the menace of an unabated IBI influx… crimes against our women and daughters by these people will only increase.”

By March 6, it would be revealed that Khan was a resident of Karimganj in Assam, and that two of his brothers were in the Army and his father had served in it. By March 11, the Nagaland government would tell the Union Home Ministry that Khan and the alleged victim could have had consensual sex, though the Chief Secretary has since denied that such a report was sent by the state, and police insist they are probing rape.
Many fish shops are owned by migrants from Bihar, some of whom came three decades ago. Many fish shops are owned by migrants from Bihar, some of whom came three decades ago.

But by noon of March 4, Khan’s fate had already been sealed. At New Market, 2 km from City Clock Tower, a 25-year-old second-hand clothes shopkeeper, also a native of Karimganj, remembers hiding the trade licence displayed at his shop. A migrant can’t set up a shop or occupy rented space in municipal markets in Nagaland without the paper, and it was the one thing he couldn’t afford to lose if his shop was torched.

The protesting students followed a now familiar drill, he says. “They asked for our identity cards. They looked at our names and slapped us. ‘Sab Miyakani yatepora jaba lagibo (All Muslim illegal migrants get out)’, they yelled.”

Eight days later, every time a Naga walks past the shop he took over from his father and has since refurbished with Rs 8 lakh of own, he tenses up. “I fear for my life,” he says.

Around him are seven other shops owned by men with identity cards from around Karimganj and Silchar, all speaking Sylheti (a Bangaleshi dialect) and all dubbed IBIs by locals.

An IBI doesn’t have to be of a particular religion, the 25-year-old shopkeeper explains. “He comes with a national identity.”
The Nagas across the spectrum, from a policeman and a commerce official to a housewife, also agree that while IBIs may be referred to loosely as ‘Miya’, the issue is not of religion. “The Nagas use this for any IBI as after 1971, most of the immigrants have been Bangladeshi Muslims,” says one.
The Jain temple road from where the protests began. The Jain temple road from where the protests began.

There were cases of kindness as the mob drove on. A vendor who has a small shop of khadi clothes, belongs to Badarpur in Assam and wears a skull cap, was returning from the mosque on March 4 when a group of Naga girls asked him to run home or he might be attacked. “They study in the same school as my daughter, St Mary Montessori,” he says.

Soon, the lane was swarming with the crowd as it made its way to the Deputy Commissioner’s office at Duncan-basti, asking that trade licences of IBIs be seized.

Police say it’s very difficult to ascertain the number of IBIs in the state. “The FRRO (Foreign Regional Registration Office) routinely sends documents to the Assam Police to verify antecedents. We never get a response,” says an FRRO official.

The mob demanded that Khan be handed over to them. When the Deputy Commissioner and Superintendent of Police refused, a section of the crowd turned its ire on New Market and nearby Hazi Park. Both markets have shops owned by the Nagas but run by non-Nagas.

At the corner near G S Road in Hazi Park is a group of men from Bihar selling fish. Some have lived here for three decades and get their stock of salted, dry fish from Gujarat, Maharashtra, Kerala, and an expensive variety from Lucknow. However, since everyone associates meat shops and those dealing in second-hand items with IBIs, they faced the mob’s wrath.

“It’s only today, when I saw men from the CRPF, that I felt safe,” says K Gupta, 26, whose shop was ransacked. He re-opened a week later, on March 11. The CRPF men are from the “plains” too, unlike personnel of the Nagaland Police and Indian Reserve Batallion.

Gupta’s brother too used to live in Dimapur, but early in 2013, he left for hometown Muzaffarpur after he found “the discrimination difficult to bear”. Ironically, Gupta adds, Muzaffarpur is no stranger to riots.
A Nagaland Police constable at New Market. A Nagaland Police constable at New Market.

Yogendra Prasad, 42, whose shed, located next to Gupta’s, was also smashed, has been selling fish for 26 years. “The collective loss is in lakhs, and we do not know if our FIR will amount to anything,” he says.

Prasad has been slapped around earlier by locals over bargains gone wrong, but he had started to feel he had turned the corner. He has some regular customers now, speaks Nagamese (a creole based on Assamese) and his daughter has Naga friends in school.

“Though the attackers have since apologised, we will always be an outsider… Kabhi sochte hain, paristithi (It’s our circumstances),” Prasad shrugs.

On March 4 night, a vendor who doesn’t want to be named got a call that his shop was being torched. “I ran. I was stopped by two youths. I lied, said I am a Hindu from Uttar Pradesh. I got a phone call and they asked me to answer it so as to figure out my identity. I said I won’t, and started walking. I thought if they attack me, I would get better, but if my shop was burnt, everything would be finished,” he says.

While the alleged rape occurred on February 24, IGP Jamir says the case was not made public “on the request of the victim”. It was on March 3, when a police team was seen entering her college premises, that the press got wind of a “possible crime”. On March 4, hours after the newspapers had carried the story, ‘Naga Blog’ and ‘Naga Spear’ blogs picked it up. Soon they were getting a stream of radical reactions.

While Naga Blog administrators tried to filter some of them, Naga Spear made no such effort. Twenty-five of the “core accused” in the mob that lynched Khan and who are now under arrest have said they got incited after reading the blogs.

A week later, even the Nagas are shocked at how things escalated so fast. At the Hazi Park market, Kiyekhe Chophy, a representative of the commerce body, is taking stock of the loss. A Naga himself, Chophy says he feels embarrassed. “It’s still difficult to walk here. I feel helpless I could not protect them.”

Pointing to the nameboards around the market, saying ‘Rangeela’, ‘Shree Ram’, ‘Shibani’, ‘Hussain’, ‘Kushboo’ etc, Chophy says there are no Naga shops anywhere or even a Naga shopkeeper. “That is what killed Khan.”
K Gupta’s shop was ransacked. “It’s only today when I saw CRPF that I felt safe,” he says. K Gupta’s shop was ransacked. “It’s only today when I saw CRPF that I felt safe,” he says.

In the past six months, locals say, there have been a series of episodes indicating “the growing resentment and frustration of young locals”. “The NGOs have failed them, the role of community bodies has become diluted, and the government has not responded to their woes,” says a Naga woman.

An RTI activist who does not want to be named claims that in response to a petition, he found that of the 11,000 government jobs vacated by retiring staff over five years, only a very small portion had been filled through competition. “Those who didn’t get jobs are angry,” he adds.
Many Nagas agree it was this anger that was on display on March 4 and 5. “When an outsider remains a minority, history has taught us it’s peaceful. Anything else is trouble,” says a businessman.

A movement called Survival Nagaland that has quickly garnered support within five months of its formation talks of making the state “free of IBIs”. The Naga Students’ Federation (NSF) launched a campaign recently to create awareness about “the onslaught of IBIs”.

Nagaland politicians have earlier blamed Assam for the IBI “problem”. Former chief minister Neiphiu Rio (now a Lok Sabha MP) had accused the Congress government in Assam of “aiding and abetting” the influx of illegal migrants from Bangladesh to Nagaland.

“There is absolute frustration at jobs going to migrants,” says Khukeugha Tuccu, chairman of the Confederation of Nagaland Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Hokivi Chishi, 48, who represents the Dimapur Chamber of Commerce and Industry, says he could see the anger in the eyes of the students on March 4, and ordered the shops shut. “I know many of them since their childhood, but they wouldn’t be stopped,” says Chishi.
Lashing out at the administration, he adds, “Where have you heard of Section 144 being relaxed for two hours for a protest?”

At the supermarket — on the other end of Dimapur — Naga women sell tribal souvenirs. Nearby, at a traditional market, tribal women sell everything from dry fish and pork to frogs, snails, bee larvae and red ants.

Vihuli Assumi, 39, is a Sema, the same tribe as the alleged victim. “It’s not easy for a local to earn like the migrants,” Assumi says. “There are no subsidies or grants or encouragement from the administration. Traditionally, the Nagas prefer to work in the administration as they feel secure. With jobs depleting and a growing population, it has become very difficult.”

In a complex on the highway to Kohima, with single rooms up for rent, the alleged victim and Khan were neighbours. “Khan lived in the fourth room, the girl in the ninth,” says a nearby shopkeeper who also collects the rent for the rooms on behalf of the owner. The two also knew each other as Khan’s wife belonged to the same village as the alleged victim.

Charles Chasie, a journalist based in Kohima, laments that the incident will perpetuate the image of the Nagas as “head hunters”. “Some vested interests definitely instigated the youth. Every responsible Naga is angry. Yet, it is a fact that the influx of Bangladeshis has created a problem.”

Chasie too blames the administration. “How can a mob take law into its hands? What were the authorities doing?”

By the morning of March 5, fuelled by social media and its calls for “a united Naga response”, the angry protest of the day before had morphed into a “politically motivated mob”. Jamir says a preliminary probe indicates that the vandalism of the previous night had only stopped after students’ representatives were told by the authorities that they would be allowed to hold a peaceful protest the next day. He adds that student group representatives, including of the NSF, had driven down from Kohima and held a late-night meeting in Dimapur on March 4. “They were brought in to bring order to the chaos.”

By 9 am on March 5, all roads led to the City Clock Tower, with protesters coming in from even outside Dimapur. Police say inflammatory speeches followed by suspected representatives of Survival Nagaland among others. When, around 11 am, the crowd was asked to disperse, they didn’t. “Every rally looks for a resolution, and here I believe, there was none. This angered the crowd,” says Tuccu.

The government made some half-hearted attempts, including with tear gas, but the crowd pressed on towards the Dimapur jail. “The NSF or anyone else did not have control. The mob clogged all the routes, seized a national highway leading to Manipur and blocked the way for any reinforcements, using women and minor girls in the front,” says a police officer.

Jakato Sumi of Survival Nagaland says they tried their best to control the mob. “At around 4 pm, a number of us, including from Naga Hohos, Naga Council, church bodies, the Dimapur Chamber of Commerce & Industry etc, met to discuss how to stop them. But then we heard that the mob had already entered the jail,” Sumi says.

At around 5 pm on March 5, the mob dragged Khan out of jail, and then paraded him to the Clock Tower through the markets operated by migrants. “There was nothing subtle about it, it was for all of us to see,” says a vendor.

A social media administrator who is helping the police probe says “extreme elements based out of New Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad played a very important role in making the issue communal”.

As Tuccu sees it, if new opportunities open up, the frustrations would ease. He speaks of a tie-up with the Chamber of Commerce in Maharashtra, a state that faces “similar migrant issues like us”.

At her home, Bano Haralu, 51, a former journalist, was sitting down to watch the banned documentary India’s Daughter on YouTube on March 5 evening when she was alerted about the story unfolding in her backyard. “I find it ironic that in a Christian state, a man was lynched, in many ways similar to what Jesus had to undergo,” she says. “My head hangs in shame.”

In the week since, DIG Lotha says, police, commerce associations and the Muslim Council Dimapur have taken measures to bring peace. The Muslim Council issued a joint statement with Naga Hoho saying it was a “social issue” and not religious or communal.

Breaking down, Haralu says such measures can no longer suffice. “Nothing, no reason can justify what happened. Let the probe take its course but it’s time we addressed our problems. This episode has left us with no face. The only redemption would be if the family of Khan forgives us.”

But two days after the incident, Nagaland Post, that had dubbed Khan an IBI, wasn’t too apologetic in its editorial: “What happened should not have happened… But it is now too late even for an academic debate. For one, the problem lies in the fact that though all Bangladeshis may be Muslims (at least in as far as the issue is involved); yet all Muslims are not Bangladeshis.”

At the camp behind New Market, a vendor from Assam is closing his shop for the day. “I come from Karimganj and there is only one border I know,” he says, “the international border. And a Naga and I are on the same side.”

with inputs from Samudra Gupta Kashyap