The recent gang rape of a married Naga woman by five illegal Mian immigrants in the commercial hub of Dimapur did shake us all from the slumber and given the shock waves that it send across society, concern Nagas came out not just to protest but also to demand concrete measures to be put into place in order to curb the inflow of such illegal immigrants. So while our the Naga public has been now seriously discussing this grave concern, it is somewhat shocking that the recent ten day long Budget session of the Nagaland Legislative Assembly did not find this public concern noteworthy to even spare a few minutes on this topic. At least we had expected that the State government and the elected representatives, irrespective of whichever political party they may belong to, would rise up and do something this time around. As all of us are aware, the Naga public especially in the last few weeks after the gruesome rape incident, they have been demanding for a stringent policy so that a credible system is put in place for regulating movement of immigrants. Whether it was the Naga Council, the Naga Students Federation (NSF) or even the Nagaland State Commission for Women (NSCW), all had been urging the government and elected representatives to come out with a policy. In fact this column had also made an appeal to our legislators to address the grave problem of the continued influx of refugees especially from Bangladesh as this had created a sense of insecurity and apprehension among the Nagas. As we had mentioned before, protecting our culture, tradition, political identity, land and its resource is vital for the sustainable future of the Naga people. But rather then taking up such a matter of urgent public importance, our people’s representative had been busying themselves to suspend the upcoming Municipal Elections and 33% women reservation. At a time when the Naga public had been voicing urgent concern over illegal immigrants, our elected leaders were more concerned about protecting the status-quo—the power equation.
As we all know, the crimes committed by illegal immigrants have time and again disturbed the already fragile security situation in our state and society. Now that the Assembly Session is over—where the illegal immigrant issue was not even raised once—the government should not blame those who may take their own recourse to deal with the problem at hand. In fact no one knows for sure whose writ runs large—the national groups, village councils, civil society or student bodies. In the wake of the concern over illegal immigrants, every one (except the government!) seems to be giving out instruction for carrying out ID drives. Some of the Underground groups already have their own register; the Naga Council has started one; the Naga Students Federation (NSF) is also undertaking its own drive and now a prominent village council in Dimapur has also started its own verification, identification and register. Perhaps the poor illegal immigrant must be as confused as the government with so many parallel set of ID drives going on. At this rate they may need none from the State, a series from the innumerable factions, another set of cards from the so called apex bodies like the Naga Council, NSF etc, then they will surely need one more to stay in their respective colonies or villages. With so many parallels, which one is going to be the valid one for ID purpose? Perhaps the government of the day will have to give an explanation because everything seems to be inconsistent with the earlier stand taken by the State government most notably the Chief Secretary. To recall, the Chief Secretary issued a notification on September 8, 2011 cautioning civil society including students’ organizations pointing out that independent ‘non-local registration drives and issuing identity cards by realizing certain fees’ encroaches into the legal jurisdiction of district administrations and the police. Surely this is one important public concern that the government of the day must clarify and explain.
