Pakinrichapbo (Advocate)
Samziuram Village, Peren
The last reported incident of head hunting in Nagaland according to reliable sources happened in the 1970’s, which is not so distant back from now. Time has changed the old beliefs and practices of tribal Nagas, yet time has fail to change and develop Naga people mentality on how to learn to avoid applying certain attribute of old practices in this highly modernized and fast developed world.
Today tribal Nagas are practicing new kind of head hunting in the form of ‘vote hunting’ which has the almost same impact created by past headhunting practices like in terms of extreme poverty in the lives of majority of common Naga people. The result of headhunting is quick death but the result of vote hunting is a long and slow painful death and life full of poverty and miseries for common people. Tragic as it is, common people i.e. the public continuous to sell their votes to the highest bidders, good but poorer candidate are ignored by the public. Supports and respects scale high according to the wealth status of the candidate not the integrity and conviction of the poorer candidate. In most cases candidates with no money or vast wealth are mocked by public from behind. Height of ignorance has no limit with Naga public.
Vote hunting practices were adopted and perfected by Nagas since the imposition of Indian Electoral system in their lands and in the absence of powerful and impartial authority to check the behavior of the people in practicing the new alien system. When election are meant to be a peaceful democratic process to facilitate smooth transfer of power from the incumbent government to the newly elected government to be headed by winning political party in the election for a specific tenure of five years. Democracy loving Nagas has neither intelligence nor conviction to participate peacefully in democratic electoral process; which is believed to be the best ever way designed to choose a ruler as government under absolute monarchy or dictatorship gave no room for the citizens of a state to choose their own representative, democratic form of government after all is a replacement to a absolute monarchy and democratic ideals are best put into practice by an enlightened society who has long suffered under a bad governance of an absolute monarchy for example the European societies and American society. Here in Nagaland, Nagas try to practice democratic ideals under the hidden mask of negative individualism, clan/khel, village and individual tribe basis further adding the practices of accumulating unaccountable wealth in virtue of the hard earned privilege of being a member of 60 member house of NLA, the very reason Nagaland state and its election system is corrupted in the first place.
Chief proponent of democratic ideals among the Naga society first need to shed its clan cum tribal color in order to put democratic ideals into practice otherwise there is no other alternative but to witness the present disturbing trend of self styled Naga form of democracy for the ages to come. Scholars after scholars have maintain that democracy ideals succeed only when the whole population are well aware and well educated while the bulk of Nagaland state populace have attain only college degrees and not well educated nor well aware in true sense to facilitate the success of democratic ideas in Nagaland.
The other disturbing reality is that democracy succeed only when people starts to take responsibility for one thoughts and action while such case of taking responsibility for one thoughts and action will not be happening soon with the people of Nagaland for too many reasons. If people had start taking responsibility this 2018 election will not be a repeat of the past elections. So far the worse is happening right now.
In terms of high literacy rate of Nagaland, any person can assume that Nagaland is composed of educated people or say educated society but the truth is quite the opposite. Its citizens have earned school/college/universities degrees yet it only remain a certificates of certain qualification degree. Educational institution have neither produce an ideal democratic citizens instead young student populace indulge more on unhealthy tribal related activity in and outside of educational institutions. In day to day life, degrees certificates have not make Naga society a progressive society. Only few percentages of people have openly declared that they will not be taking any money during this election such number of person may not even reach few thousands out of eleven lacs plus voters. Tragic as it is.
In terms of number of Church building in Nagaland, any person from outside Nagaland can assume that the people will be God fearing, deeply righteous, peaceful by nature and straightforward, yet the reality paints the opposite picture. The people are still deadly violent, by now almost all the populace from different background in Nagaland are expert double crossers cum liars, words and actions always differ, its people even signed the clean election pledge to mock themselves and the church apex body, rethinking the signing of pledge, it’s like Naga political parties composed of Naga people after signing an agreement with God failed to implement the terms and conditions of the agreement, violating the pledge (word of honor) even before the ink dried up. Naga people are quick to use God name in vain and till today they have no second thought about using God’s name in vain, the main reason why Nagaland is in mess. Clean election will become reality in Nagaland only when majority of Naga populace starts to understand the true spirit of democracy for democratic ideals cannot be practiced along clan and tribal lines which Nagas have been doing from day one.
Till date, Naga people mind by nature are seasonal and function according to its season, climate expert can predict the next day weather where weather reports tally in most cases with earlier day reports. Naga people like seasonal weather function seasonally, now we have come to election season, where no other activity/agendas can sway the people away from it.
During last election season, State and National media houses reported more than 83% voter turnout in Nagaland Assembly Election where National media appears convinced that Nagas are fully integrated with the union of India and likely to give up or support Naga National movement agendas, which in reality, the media fail to notice that Nagaland general public vote in the election only because they had a profit which is the money/material gifts distributed freely by the contested candidates. Majority of Nagas first identity is their unquestionable tribe identity, voting as responsible Indian citizen is out of question in ground reality.
The very reasons, once election seasons passed, new season will arrive making the people engage in activities and agendas as the season prescribed for.
