Videkhono Yhokha
Research Scholar JNU, New Delhi
Though I do not feel the gravity of the current situation in Nagaland from ground zero, I do get a little bit of the heat and enthusiasm when I get a phone call or read about it; I do know what it feels like. The election fever hits everyone, even the most apolitical person in Nagaland. This is the time when your solidarity towards your tribe or village is at its zenith. As one keeps thinking about it, one is never clear if the politicians are playing the tribe card for their selfish ends or the public using the politicians to meet theirs. Well, despite the loud cries for SOLUTION BEFORE ELECTION, it is ELECTION HE ELECTION and one is not sure if there will be a SOLUTION AFTER ELECTION.
Election campaigns and Nagaland
The recent videos of NDTV covering the election campaign in Nagaland have been widely circulated and many of us indulged in the “samankinega” humor. Yet, there are undercurrents to such humor and depravity. With the election fever heating up in all forms, we have student leaders flocking home on the pretext of attending to domestic problems. We also have people who received their payment in advance and did some “all-brands” shopping in Delhi. One has to admit none is more conscious of brands than Nagas, despite not producing anything. I remember teaching Sociology at a school in Dimapur and the relevance that struck the students every time I use brands as examples. Our events are marked with extravagance; pompous or subtle. These are just specks of the conspicuous consumption among the Nagas. We were proud head hunters surviving on a barter system and an indigenous system of education and suddenly we have KFCs, international brands, mushrooming cafes, bourgeoning entrepreneurial associations, imported cars, name it…even before we could produce a thing.
We have the ongoing construction of four lane-roads before catering to the problems of the annual landslides, drainage systems and potholes. The manifestos of political parties are now heading to free education for women when most of our male population are dropping out of school and performing relatively poor in comparison to girls. It doesn’t make sense to me. If our politicians would at least just even lie about improving the conditions of the government run schools, looking into the quality of education and the basic facilities that still lack in most rural areas, it would have sounded near to clever. I do appreciate the participation of women in the 2018 elections; however, I am not sure if their participation makes any difference to the lower echelons of the society, keeping in mind the increasing rich-poor disparity and growing class consciousness. I dread the possibility of such class consciousness evident in the social networks, marriage and friendships among the Nagas getting institutionalised someday into a caste-like system with all social, economic and cultural capital in the hands of a few, marred with obvious oppression of the lower echelons.
Clean election and the common man
Keeping in mind the dominance of the capitalist and consumerist culture among the Nagas where there is constant pressure to be in trend or possess the latest gadgets or to dress well or look good, and one’s identity defined by them, clean election is not a viable option at the moment. The pressure is not just on the urban population but the rural too. Now, for some of us, it is matter of catching up with people to fit in, while for the poorer lot it is a matter of making extra money to buy something that we normally have. The stories of theft in churches and children borrowing huge sum of money only validates the culture that dominates in Nagaland. Thus, to exercise one’s right to clean voting in a place like Nagaland remains a farce. One, because people have the same options every election. Two, because honesty is a luxury only some people can afford.
I appreciate the church for initiating the clean election campaign and voicing out against those ideologies that ridicule the Christian faith or Jesus. However, I feel we could start with voicing against the injustice persisting in Nagaland; against corruption, for the basic health and educational facilities, for better roads, for a more egalitarian Nagaland….getting on the streets, beyond social media, poster campaign, hash tags and appeals, or else there will remain a separation of the spiritual and the social which makes Christianity incomplete. This I state keeping in mind the extent of influence the church or religion (in this case Christianity) has on people in Nagaland. One observes how a politician can stand up in church and get away with some monetary contribution and lines like “I am not a good man, but I fear the Lord!” while almost all of the write ups in our local dailies, ranging from a student to bureaucrats to political groups to anyone, has some Bible verse attached to it, like it would lack validation if it did not. Social justice has to be part of the church or else it would seem as though people are equal in the eyes of God, but only within the boundaries of the church building.
Now, it’s natural for a church to grow and multiply and in the process we need bigger buildings and to catch up with the world we need updated facilities, and to attract people or youths we need to put our best game with the latest gadgets, modernised aesthetics and social media. Most preachers now use laptops for the sermon, LCD projectors and lights what not, which are, to admit, very convenient for the congregation. However, one does not observe how alienating it is for the mass. May be one should be grateful for all these facilities, I don’t know, but it deprives the mass of a sense of belongingness and unconsciously promotes capitalism and consumerism with the pressure to keep up. The competition to set up extravagant buildings and facilities also becomes an opportunity for corrupt officials, politicians and Godfathers (as Prof. Kedilezo Khikhi puts it) to gain stronghold in the church’s action and autonomy.
On the Naga Solution and right to self determination
Looking at the present status of Nagaland the people seem to care less about solution. One wonders why such apathy prevails among the Nagas of Nagaland. This has been a bone of contention and remains so in the conversations with Nagas from beyond Nagaland. But as one from Nagaland, and as much as I disfavour the apathy, one also has to keep in mind that the lack of knowledge of the movement’s history and the people’s disillusionment stem from a past marred with violence and suspicion. Going back to the school I mentioned earlier, I conducted an exercise with the students. The task was to contextualise Marx's Class theory in the case of Nagaland. The results were interesting. Some of the students came up with the idea of labelling the Naga political groups as the Bourgeois and the shopkeepers as the Proletariat. So much to think of in that statement. Before we talk about solution and the right to self-determination we need to rebuild our trust in each other, trust in our leaders and trust in ourselves. Without knowing what our rights are or what the solution really contains, one cannot exercise one’s right to self-determination. Believe me, most students studying outside have battled about the Naga struggle or movement in their classes or with friends in the most articulate way our education system could make us to. As much as we honour the battles our leaders fought, we have also fought battles in our own ways. Every Naga has paid for this struggle and has a right to be part of it. But a movement cannot retain itself without the people having a sense of belongingness to it.
The election campaigns have shown how Nagas in Nagaland are yet to counter the vices within, and unless they do so I do not see either a revolution or a solution in the offing. But with all the hope that I can gather, and since we are not a producing/industrial society, let me end with the line “All angry Nagas, Unite!”
