Decades of American strategic designing and military participation in Iraq, Afghanistan, political cooperation or collision with other Near and Middle East countries and a specially attached interest to Europe has presented a golden but unanticipated opportunity to aggressively emerging China to develop and re-orient its interest in vast expanse of South China Sea and its peripheries, said to house huge reserves of hydrocarbons besides minerals of manifold variants. Obama administration has lately realized this mono-threat which has forced the nation’s foreign policy to redirect and radically redefine its strategic interest to East Asia popularly known as “rebalancing American interest” as the phenomenal development and growth of China has not only disturbed America but also its partner states.
Human is naturally flawed in judgment and vision by essence, either in temporal or in perpetual, while responding to the call of duty that we are fated. Civilisations stretching ages of time had both theoretically and pragmatically attested to this historicity and subsequent remedial measures were adopted so as to correct the wrongs. In many societies, the question of contesting a flawed policy is a major causal factor for conflict of interest where state, semi-state and non-state actors equally participate to vouch for authenticity and upholding of what is generally held ultimate truth and a due right of the people.
A situation presents that a legal battle between the Naga Mothers’ Association and the Government of Nagaland has already, long gone, landed in the country’s apex court. For a majority of layman including this writer, such is construed as an unrewarding attempt to claim a right for the better half of the state’s population. In the name of thirty-three, the majority are inadvertently rendered irrelevant. In addition to withholding of elections and schemes meant for Urban local bodies, social problems are cumulatively accumulated as our attention has shifted from challenging social vices to getting a constitutional berth in a rather an alien institution by election which necessarily revolves around conflict of ideologies, questioning of our own integrity and is technically money-powered.
According to data from the Kohima Police, 126 cases of crimes committed by women were reported from the period 2004 till March 2015 which is equal to the number of crimes committed by men against women during the said period. These crimes covers wide magnitude including murder (6 cases), Arms Act (13 cases), NLTPA (14 cases), Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (39 cases), besides forgery, cheating, theft, burglary, rape, abduction, et al. The phenomenal rise in crimes committed by women and that too pairing with men on equal footing require comprehensive revision in social, political, religious and economical policies to tackle the issues. While categorically not implying that men should commit more crimes comparatively and thus women’s involvement be curbed to give way to men, yet the presence of statistically high number of women in crime scenes in a small state of Nagaland alerted a red signal and heralded a trend that would render the morality and integrity of our future generations at stake.
A question thus resurface as to how women could criminally stand on parallel ground with its male counterpart yet still they bitterly engage with men in a legal fight just to get represented. Biblically speaking, when a man is married to a woman, they are but one flesh which is to signify not just being one body but to mean representing each other in church, in politics, in family, and in principle. Diving deeper to our basic Christian dogma, it is textually explained that if a wife is a minister, a husband is; if a husband is an MLA, a wife is. They, therefore, share same responsibility and same moral obligation to advise, guide, support and offer a refined critique to each other in any forays being undertaken, including decision-making and policy formulation which directly or indirectly have an effect on our social, political, administrative, economical or even religious affairs. Thus, a fervent endeavor to bait for reservation is, for the time being, secondary. Our primary focus should therefore premise on unearthing fundamental cause, comparing and contrasting the present context and mooring for solutions to the issues highlighted as above. Not to place blame on any individual thereto, the period ranging from 80s to early 2000s is transient in nature when Naga women organisations offered stiff oppositions to possession, smuggling, transferring and abuse of alcohol, narcotics drugs or other psychoactive substances. Up to thus far, women groups have been influential in arresting social maladies with their selfless participation alongside the administration. Yet, our failure to adapt with the changing world pattern evidenced in rise in women offenders underlies our response to the challenges that changes have been dictated. The silence of the apex mothers’ body in addressing these major challenges in public platforms and at organizational level is equally saddened. Speculation is also rift that ‘private’ prostitution is escalating in key urban areas in our state. The most recent report being the arrest of a lone ‘offender’ and her nine alleged regular clients in Kohima.
This portrays a situation of our current social trending wherein excessive capitalism perfectly camouflaged in social commune and welfarism. As the slogan of the previous central government of ‘mitigating poverty’ has conversely resulted in accumulation of more poverty in volume, so also our much hype claim of welfare schemes, principle of socialistic distribution and egalitarianism gave birth to asymmetrical sharing of wealth in our state. Here, a new governing class emerged whose mysterious source of income and amassment of wealth drive the already ruled to emulate them covertly. As the politically deemed legal platforms are all frequented by this new class, the marginalized section ventured in areas that are politically ruled illegal, socially tagged ostracized and morally attached to bankruptcy.
Furtherance of acceptance of new social order in haste underpinned our sweeping exodus from good old traditions which escalates deterioration of our self-esteem. Respecting advices tendered by the elders, functioning within our area of operation, discharging our duties accountably, even distribution of wealth (feast of merit), holding members of the society in high regards, special protection being offered to women and children, and collective responsibility inter alia are traditional values that passed down to us inter-generationally. Our logic ruined our very stability when we agree to disagree with these values only to be sacrificed at the altar of post-modern rationalism sans real application of our reasoning power.
To protect our unique social equality backed by self-evolved administration, Article 371-A has been framed and invoked. By our short-term objectives, this article is being challenged from time to time. What good will we gain cumulatively when we lose our real identity? The intensity of crimes in our state will neither be countered by how we successfully offer resistance in court of law nor by questioning the authority of both the sexes. The answer lies in our perfect coordination between the two sexes in jointly catering to a viable overall environment to our people to progress freely. This entails overhauling our existing social institution so that a more responsible citizen is nurtured and tendered at home.
During its early formative years of a child, a mother is regarded as his best teacher. Mothers themselves generally admit that they are in control of home management far exceeding the capabilities of their male counterpart. A child reserves special natural attachment to his mother as a result of a long friendship starting from birth to nursing to dropping and picking as a nursery student. A person’s general intelligence and academic excellence is largely stemmed from how a child is conditioned to be developed, grown and formed including feeding, catering to the needs and giving due attention. Hence, our future rest on how we play our politics – politics of mutual cooperation or politics of perpetual conflict – as navigating the right alternative would tenably set a fitting environment for our children to excel unhindered which would be equivalent to judiciously tapping of human and social capitals. From the writer’s point of view, it would render the fight of NMA more rewarding once the battle is turned against the established authority to accede to legislate spirited policy in favor of our youth, fair delivery of services, sanctioning of more maternity leave (days) in aggregate to working women as well as ethical conduct in health and services sector.
Though Industrial Training Institutes were ambitiously established, dearth of machineries coupled with lack of expert faculties have defeated the very purpose of skilling the youth. The proficient sportspersons were barely incentivize while both sexes of the trainees in sport academy hostels were without separate housing facility (as hostel for boys is frequented by the ‘officials’ as indicted in the CAG report) thus depriving freedom to privacy to female sports-students. Programs for welfare of the child students (eg. Mid Day Meal Scheme), funds meant for girl-child, schemes earmarked for women development and policy relating to caring of old age demand of us a well-designed strategy to check wastage of resources meant for their development. Envisaging laws that would better protect the lactating mothers to ensure a healthy relationship between mother-child for enhance physical, mental and spiritual growth. Considering these facts, we drastically need comprehensive policies across the spectrum of key elements to inclusively revamp our contemporary social pattern that heavily lean towards relative existence.
The yet-to-explore women power could have generated a force to move the government to skill our youths, improve women working conditions, legislate a workable law on abatement and mitigation of domestic violence against women.
The wives even possess a godly power to force their husbands to redistribute their unaccounted wealth to reduce unequal social status. A mother can emotionally read the feelings of her unemployed son/daughter, and as such a collection of mothers can act as pressure group to the government to dutifully adhere to the existing recruitment policies. To rebalance our future is a collective responsibility. Yet as Christ Himself, on the way to Calvary, instructed the women of Jerusalem to shed tears for their people, so also our mothers’ prayer will optimistically bear a positive result for our polluted society where sharp distinction between moral and amoral is dimmed. Women’s power, when thoughtfully tapped to be used, can lay a better structure for our future as this will ensure giving our due attention, time, love and care to our children, women old-age and youth leaving less room for committing faux pas. Nonetheless, the elected members ought to create more space by accommodating views aired by the unrepresented to holistically revamp the existing system. Whereas the Americans had rightly redirected their strategic interest to East Asia, our focus is still hung on miscalculated strategy that our right effort in abatement of rising crimes as well as upholding our interest is yet to take effect.
Nukhosa Chüzho, Kohima
