Samhita Barooah
Researcher
Nature and women are integrally connected in Naga Hills. Fireflies are most sensitive and it glows in the dark. Women are also like fireflies which glows in Nagaland in some of the darkest hours. They are the care-givers at home, farmers in the fields, weavers in the loom and nurturers in the kitchens, devotees in the church. They are also run pan shops, street food corners, business enterprises and transport agencies. Women in the hills work as vegetable vendors, daily wage earners, firewood collectors, food crop growers, herbs vendors, healers, seed keepers and local brew makers. With education they also run offices, teach kids, hold government positions and address public forums through the women societies and village development boards. They are the connectors of the Naga society through language, alliances, marriage and labour. Women in Nagaland are the owners of their Naga identity and food cultures in the true sense with an inch of ancestral ownership rights and political positions. In fact women resolve conflicts between warring groups and different agencies whose interests create friction in the state. Every village and every family has experienced conflict during World War II and later during Naga insurgency movement from close quarters. So women have been resilient like fireflies in some of the darkest moments of death, destruction and despair. I have met women like Makukona Rongmei in Peren district who developed a local red rice variety in her farmland after four years of constant farm work. This rice variety is popularly called Adampui named after her son Adam is a late sowing variety with great taste. She is a true farm innovator who managed to create a new rice variety in the patriarchal Naga society with her will and hard work. Her contribution is hardly recognised as she may have forgotten to catch the limelight in the process of ensuring food security for her family and neighbours. Another trailblazer in Peren district who I stayed with is Achinpai. A strong woman of substance who worked in diverse livelihood projects to sustain herself amidst severe violence in and around her. She survived with her old in-laws with visual impairment and her children as her husband decided to move out of her life. She became a care-giver and breadwinner after her husband got violent and moved away from her. She struggled hard to pay back her husband’s loan taken from the underground groups in the neighbourhood. She said even the men with arms showed her respect for the struggle she battled with. I also draw my inspiration to work with the most marginalised women street vendors whom I met during my field study in Kohima and Dimapur. These are the women who worked tirelessly braving weather strains and constant public disgust for sitting on the streets to ensure their children’s education and health needs.
On this day of March 8, I salute the struggles of Naga women whose lives are entwined within their kitchen fires, bamboo baskets, pig feed, weaving threads and farming hoes. I managed to stay with some of the most incredible women in a Chakhesang village during my field work days. Atsele, Ase, Awule, Abele and late Amhele sustained their own livelihood through farming, wage work and weaving. They are my fireflies in some of the darkest moments in the village. They have shared some of the most challenging and fascinating moments of their lives when they struggled to live with peace and dignity. Their lives are tales of triumph for generations of women who have found no hope in their lives. These women have seen their fields being burnt in front of their eyes, their men being beaten up without any reason, their children being drawn into the flames of poverty, disgrace and pain. But they continue to rejoice every moment of their life and livelihoods. I cannot forget their commitment to their fields and their families. They are the true binders of society who defines the spirit of a rural woman.
In Longleng district I found another Phom woman leader who struggled to find women’s space in village councils. She was educated and taught in a school but her heart was in ensuring that women have equal representation in the village bodies which were not exclusive spaces like women societies alone. While travelling through the rough terrain in Mon district, I was inspired by the school girls who studied in the international border schools of Longwa village amidst high security structures. The women leader in Mon town who worked in World Vision organisation was indeed a firefly who dared to survive the resistance of rebel leaders and Naga patriarchy in the community institutions for ensuring gender sensitive approach in community work.
Women in their daily lives also enlighten their surroundings without much hullaballoo in Naga Hills. Whether it’s Sinou in Dimapur with her internet cafe or it’s Mesa in Khonoma village with her homestay, Zapami village women with their Thevo weaves or Chizami Weaves women in Phek district, women in Naga Hills have been the most sustainable fireflies I have met. This women’s day and month let these Naga women become our pathfinders as fireflies in a relatively dark hour of women’s history.
