Oken Jeet Sandham
Most of the time, seriously harmful accusations amongst the factions with highly communal overtones appeared in various local papers. In fact, in most of the cases, the papers carried verbatim the underground handouts that are mostly charges and counter-charges. Such publications are doing a lot of damage to the unification and reconciliation move amongst them. Besides, the unresolved longstanding Naga political issue has really caused divisions, hatred, misunderstanding and chasm among the different communities in Naga society. Ultimately, everyone is stuck in a limbo; neither can they go forward nor backward.
The flatteries of politicians are adding up more problems as they keep exploiting every situation for their narrow political mileage, making things more complicated for the mediators and initiators to handle the issue. Therefore, we often say unity amongst the underground groups should come first, but at the same time, the overground politicians should also make understanding amongst them to strengthen the process.
We talk of peace process and have been hearing the same for the last 10 years. 10 years of peace process with the Government of India is gradually drifting into violence. In this period, relations amongst the people are increasingly strained, misunderstanding widened and killings increased.
New Delhi might be holding ceasefires with factions separately. But more or less the objective is all the same. The ground rules of the two ceasefires are also almost the same and their objectives as well. And the truce is mainly for creating conducive environment for taking off political negotiations.
There is no denying the fact that the people of Nagaland have been inflicted by tribalism and the gulf is widening. This dangerous phenomenon is multiplied by the continued factional clashes and killings and the sharp different approach to the Naga political issue by the ruling DAN and the Opposition Congress. For example, the ruling DAN adopts equi-closeness, while the opposition still sticks to their avowed equi-distance. These are political slogans and hardly serve the purpose but our children are yet to know politics. Thus it affects the society and in that environment, children and many youths at their formative years are growing up and made to think how with such conflicting policies and programs would resolve the Naga political issue. They continue to grow in this dangerous environment. They seem to know only tribalism, killing, factional clashes, equi-closeness to all underground groups and equi-distance to all underground groups.
There is something wrong somewhere. The experts in conflict resolutions should find out this wrong. The general public should also ask the factions why they couldn’t go together even after the public’s hue and cry and tell them it is time to really go into the business and find solution. It is time for the leaders to sit across the table and find ways to mend their hardened stands if they mean what they are fighting for.
It is really unfortunate that a particular community vandalized and burnt down 39 houses of a particular community at the Wungram Colony in Dimapur on April 22 last in the wake of skirmishes between a few youth belonging to the above two communities and their using of some communal overtone. Luckily, there was no casualty except loss of properties. This incident should not have taken such an ugly turn, as quarrelling among youth is a normal incident. As such it needs serious introspection as to why it has gone thus far.
The saddest part was the inactiveness of the district administration, law enforcement agencies and paramilitary forces throughout the mayhem, as electronic media continued making breaking news. Had the district administration and the law enforcement agencies of the state intervened on time, things would not have gone to such a magnitude of violence.
Today the youth thinking on the sharply divided opinions of the society must have been vindicated when they realized the inaction of the district administration, law enforcement agencies, and other paramilitary forces leaving everything including those helpless children and women at the mercy of the violent mob.
For immediate dousing of the escalation of violence of such nature, the role of the NGOs and church leaders are paramount. But this is not for a long-term policy. For long-term policy we need experts in the field of conflict resolution, especially from amongst the communities. Many a time people get confused about the issues---unable to differentiate the nature of the conflicts like the one between the state actor and the non-state actors from that of conflicts between the non-state actors. And sometimes, they tend to portray the conflicts amongst of the non-state actors as intra-tribal rivalry.
Therefore, those involving in the conflict resolution should also be someone who knows the problem well and the background. There is also little sense in going around trying to build goodwill mission with neighbors when we cannot to keep our house in order. At the same time, the elders, leaders, youth leaders, Human Rights activists and NGOs should constantly educate our younger generations about the positive mindset and attitude. We continue to talk about our rich customary laws but what our elders fail to realize is these kinds of systems are something to do with respect and integrity. There is no connect between the youngsters and the elders and the former have lost the culture of respecting the latter, and unless we restore this, talking of customary laws will barely have any meaning.
