Nagas, we like to boast that we are one of the most forward thinking people when it comes to gender equality. Problems like dowry, sati, female infanticide, rape and abuse of women is not as prevalent in Nagaland as in the rest of the country. There was once a study published in the local dailies that Nagaland is the safest state in India for women and we were delighted.
However around 2008 when our Naga menfolk first objected (very vocally, I might add) to the woman reservation to the Municipal elections, I had the first inkling that all was not 'peachy'.
Now 8 years later, according to the Naga Hoho, apparently we are still "not ready". May I ask why???
Nagaland is home to so many exceptional women who are excelling in every field and making us proud. We have had Banou Z Jamir leading the entire state as Chief Secretary, Mona Lisa Changkija who pioneered the fourth estate in Nagaland as publisher and editor of Nagaland Page, Easterine Kire, a renowned poet and writer who put Nagaland in the literary map, Chekrovolu Swuro who made us all proud by representing India in the 2012 Olympics in Archery and the list goes on.
Come academic result season and the newspapers in Nagaland will be flashing headlines like, "Girls excel over boys in HSLC". Now there are just as many female government officers, entrepreneurs, doctors, artists, scholars etc as there are men in Nagaland. Whether as a farmer or as an IAS officer, women have always had to try twice as hard to prove ourselves, and today I would like to think that Naga women have proved that.
And yet you say that we are not ready? I may be over simplifying the issue here but isn't the reservation put in place BECAUSE we are not ready? Because despite the fact that women make up 50% of your vote bank, we are notwilling still to vote for our sisters?
So then may I ask when will we be ready? Next election? 10 years? 15? And to clarify is it us women who are not ready or you, the menfolk? And if it is the men then why are you not ready when we are? And more importantly, what do we, Naga women, who have persistently and consistently proved our worth to you and stood beside our men year after year after year....; what must we do before you finally admit that yes, Nagas are ready?
Bonnie Konyak
