Nagas can be quite stubborn once a decision has been taken. So stubborn can we be that we can send our leader to hospital with chest ailments- chided on with our ‘we shall overcome….someday’. And rumours are doing the round in the gravevines that the afflictions aggravated because some members in the august choir sang, ‘we shall overcome…today!’
Jokes apart, after Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh debacles, President’s Rule in Nagaland was something the congress could do without. It may seem right in Nagaland but elsewhere in the country the congress’s mathematics of 2 plus 2 equals four in Goa but 2 plus 2 equals five in Nagaland will continue to haunt the party. And whatever arguments are presented, the bad taste in the month will linger on.
The general mood in the state in 2007 was that the Congress had better chance of returning to power after the Feb/March 2008 elections. It was expected that His Excellency Dr S.C. Jamir Governor of Goa will return to state politics and lead the challenge from the front laying the rest of the leadership struggle that had surfaced in the congress party in Nagaland. And that the Congress will be on the offensive against N. Rio and the DAN partners on law and order situation overdrafts, misgovernance et all. Despite their claims, people were even apprehensive of the role the party would play in the on-going peace process when they came to power.
The NPF and DAN partner were expected to present a platform on development, promoting Nagaland on the national and international arena among other things. The DAN has no dispute on the leadership of N. Rio and that is a credit for the DAN coalition. Still the DAN was going into the elections on the defensive foot with the anti-incumbency factor weighing heavily on them, the charges and counter charges in the paper wars, the defections and the resignation from the assembly not being the least.
However, the situation appears to have taken a diametrically opposite turn after the declaration of Presidents Rule in Nagaland. To the Naga psyche, the central government is the public enemy no 1 of the Naga people. The Nagas take part in elections; take up government jobs etc as unavoidable necessity. The Government of India has not been able to convince the Naga people that they had been fair or sincere to the Naga people’s aspirations. As part of the Naga Hoho team to Delhi in 2004, one had expressed to the Prime Minister of India that he should apologize to the Naga people on Naga soil for the 50 years of army atrocities inflicted to the Naga people, as a step in the sight direction to hold peace-talk for the Naga solution; he had promise us that he will surely do so. We know whether he had kept his promise or not. PR is always considered as an extended Delhi rule. The appointments of three senior bureaucrats who are very eligible recruits for RAW as advisors to the Governor of Nagaland speaks volumes for New Delhi’s version of Naga aspirations. This triumvate will surely be the de-facto power at the Raj Bhavan.
The congress party had done itself a disservice in bringing PR to Nagaland. If they had formed their government, even for two months, the people would have accepted them and they would have emerged stronger. But this “If I can’t have it, you can’t have it, too” attitude had left the party in poor light. Instead of an offensive position they have chosen a defensive position as they go to the polls. They will have to attempt to explain why they could not form a government and why they had to bring PR in Nagaland, till the day of election and maybe beyond. This will be an energy sapping and costly maneuver. Out of thin air, they have given DAN a stick to flog them with. They have also made the likely return of His Excellency Dr S.C. Jamir Governor of Goa that much more remote because the Congress High Command would not prefer to keep the fracas of the Goa Assembly and the Nagaland Assembly in public memory.
As for the NPF and its coalition partners in DAN, they couldn’t have asked for better. They will now be facing the election on an offensive footing. Instead of the oppressor they have now become the oppressed. The yoke of anti-incumbency had diminished and they will in fact, be going to the polls as the victim. The scales appear to be titled heavily in favour of the NPF and its coalition’s allies, DAN. Their strong point is that they have one leader and that there is no dispute about it. This factor alone is enough to bring the fence-sitters and the doubting Thomases home.
Puni Modoli
Moa Colony, Nagarjan ‘B’ Dimapur
