Monalisa Changkija
The economic blockade that the Naga Students’ Federation (NSF) and the All Naga Students’ Association of Manipur (ANSAM) imposed on National Highways 39 and 53 for over two months is an offshoot of various factors, which will emerge clearly only with the passage of time. Things are not as simple as they look, and media reports hardly ever portray numerous dimensions of causes, events and results --- perhaps because television reporting demands brief sound bytes and most reporters of national newspapers do not understand the complexities of issues in far-flung forgotten peripheries of a huge country like India. In any case, the media’s shortcoming is that we want instant news and not histories of various communities living in regions that have little or no impact on the larger national psyche, politics and economics. But shorn of the histories, only the news of events doesn’t make much sense except to convey things are not alright in this or that region.
It is difficult to disprove that the NSF and ANSAM imposed economic blockade on national Highways, Manipur’s only lifelines to essential commodities, only because of the Autonomous District Councils elections and later on because Th. Muivah, general secretary of the NSCN (IM), was not allowed entry into Manipur state to visit his ancestral village of Somdal in Ukhrul district of Manipur. Economic blockades and bandhs on these two National Highways leading to Manipur, imposed by various underground groups, as well as other overground groups, are endemic throughout the year for numerous reasons. It is a pity that neither the Central Government nor the Manipur State Government has ever paid any attention to them. It is then not surprising that the Central Government reacted to the over-65-day economic blockade on these two National Highways very late and in a very gingerly manner.
What is more unfortunate and confounding is that the Central Government still hasn’t made any efforts to study and understand why economic blockades on National Highways 39 and 53 are endemic. But it is not too difficult to understand why the Manipur State Government has never asked the Central Government to untangle the ‘economic blockade imbroglio’ over the decades on these two National Highways. What has been happening along the Nagaland-Manipur border over the decades is a complex combination of too many historical perceptions and distortions thereof; overground and underground politics and power struggles thereof; power struggles for economic supremacy to control trade routes; ethnic biases and prejudices and rivalries thereof; turf wars for religious domination, and of course, under-development and corruption and concomitant fall-outs thereof. Then there is the issue of ‘Greater Nagalim’.
All these and many more factors and forces keep the two National Highways under almost constant state of seize by disagreeing groups but this has never attracted the attention of our policy-makers, the media, intellectuals of the academia or even the numerous civil societies to find some way to bring situations under control And here the primary situation that needs to be focused on is the human security of the people, particularly of Manipur, a landlocked state.
It may shock a good many people that as a Naga, I am concerned about the human security of the people of Manipur but if I weren’t concerned I would have no business to write about human rights issues as a journalist. Obviously, I am trying to underscore that issues must be studied minutely and then dealt with as they merit. And as a human being, I definitely do not believe that because of gross anomalies and irregularities of the ADC elections under the Sixth Schedule in the Hills districts of Manipur and because of not allowing Th. Muivah to visit his village Somdal, anyone should starve the people of Manipur by imposing economic blockades, especially preventing the supply of food, life-saving drugs and other essential commodities. For me economic blockades are human rights violations, wherever they are imposed --- on National Highways 39 and 53 or in Gaza.
There is this story of a Naga woman who died in the mid-1990s, at the age of 113. Let’s call her Grandmother. She took to the Christian belief very late in life and even after that, she continued to practice some of the old Naga ways, still she remained a human being. Legend has it that much before Indian Independence probably in the 1920s or early 1930s, there was a conflict in her village amongst the clans. The larger clans ganged up together and marginalized the smaller ones. It so happened that that year the crops did do too well due to scanty rainfall and the smaller clans were on the verge of starvation. The larger clans were gloating over the fact but Grandmother, who belonged to the largest clan in the village, wouldn’t have any of it. It is said that the smaller clans were even barricaded within the village and couldn’t even go to the forest to forage for food. Grandmother put her foot down and declared that she would provide rice to the starving smaller clans. She made the male members of the larger clans carry rice and give to the smaller clans. It took sometime for the issues of conflict to be resolved but Grandmother had the courage of conviction not to mix up issues and realized that starving the smaller clans wouldn’t resolve anything. She had the human-ness in her to appreciate that denying food to vulnerable sections of society didn’t make one mighty. It is this Grandmother, who made me understand what human rights are all about. It is this Grandmother, who was illiterate, uneducated and had never heard about human rights, that taught me never to hit below the belt. To me this is what being a Naga is all about.
In this part of the country there is a lot of mixing up of issues, particularly of political and human rights. What perhaps exacerbates matters is that groups of individuals perceive political issues as human rights issues and form non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and/or civil societies, which sometimes seem to mistake their roles as that of political parties or the government itself. In Nagaland things are very specific --- traditional authority lies with the traditional Village Councils. Although we have NGOs such as the Naga Hoho, Naga Mothers’ Association, Naga Students’ Federation, Naga Peoples’ Movement for Human Rights, Naga Council, Ao Senden, etc., they are not traditional bodies with any traditional authority over the people recognized under Article 371 (A) of the Indian Constitutions. These are NGOs, most of which were formed in the late 1970s and 1980s, and traditional Village Councils have not surrendered their ‘sovereignty’ to these NGOs. Moreover, tribal affiliation to any of these NGOs is not mandatory; in fact, most of these NGOs comprise only a few tribes’ representatives. In other words, these NGOs do not necessarily represent the Naga people nor have they been given any mandate to speak on behalf of the Naga people, especially on matters political. At the most, they can play purely voluntary mediatory roles and as mediators, their contributions have been appreciated.
The above had to be explained and clarified so that people outside the Northeast understand how societies such as ours operate. We allow a lot of opinions to be voiced but that doesn’t mean that those opinions are representative of the people’s opinions or that the people have endorsed such opinions to be voiced on their behalf by any NGO/civil society.
It is very interesting when journalists from outside Nagaland come and say that this or that NGO/civil society said this or that so what will happen now. All NGOs/civil societies may say this or that but that doesn’t mean that the people are behind them. It just means that our NGOs/civil societies have made a space for themselves to be heard and that we believe listening to all kinds of opinions strengthens democracy. Unfortunately, while democracy is being strengthened our state Government is increasingly weakened and the very fact of the aforesaid economic blockade stands testimony to that. On so many issues NGOs call the shots and this doesn’t say much for the state Government. To resolve issues, we must understand the strengths and weaknesses of NGOs/civil societies, as well as of our state Government --- as for the general public’s silence on most issues, now that’s another aspect that needs study. Still, it may be said that silence doesn’t man that the people do not have any opinion(s) of their own. The people will speak only when they feel safe to speak.
The aforesaid economic blockade definitely manifests a mixing up of issues, deliberately by some but interestingly although the Central Government has displayed it’s ignorance of realities here, it has also very quickly played it’s own game of ‘let’s wait and see what happens’. It was only after the national media made a cry and hue about Manipur’s dire economic situation, it decided to come into the scene.
Initially, it looked as if the Centre was totally lost about how to resolve the situation here but it is now crystal clear that it maintained it’s silence for a purpose of it’s own. The Home Minister came to a few Northeastern states during the blockade but didn’t drop in at Manipur or Nagaland. Only the Home Secretary and the Centre’s Interlocutor visited Manipur and Nagaland during the blockade. No doubt, the Centre made a mess of things here but by maintaining silence, it made many other actors on the economic blockade stage make more mess and expose themselves. No one will concede to it but this has also been, and continues to be, a time of embarrassment for many individuals and groups here. As things play out in a few months’ time everyone’s mess would be revealed and such revelations would have quite an impact on the direction, perhaps even contents, of the Government of India-NSCN (IM) talks.
As many communities live in this part of the country, there are that many aspirations. The Central and state Governments of this region must address them at the earliest by studying each issue individually and then interlinking them to the other issues to rescue this beautiful Northeastern region from itself.
(The writer is the editor of Nagaland Page and can be reached at tmchangkija@rediffmail.com, tmchangkija@gmail.com. Nagaland Page can be read online at nagalandpage.co.in)
(Courtesy: Saharatime.com, July 3rd issue)
