By Imlisanen Jamir
Nagaland likes to describe itself as a land of abundant rain. That phrase appears often enough to sound reassuring, almost defensive. And yet, year after year, the same months arrive and taps run dry. This contradiction is so familiar that it barely provokes surprise anymore.
Earlier this week, The Morung Express published an article examining Nagaland’s recurring water crisis and the range of remedies proposed by the public. The responses showed that people are not short of ideas. What they revealed, more starkly, is that the problem has outlived both awareness and discussion. When a crisis repeats itself without change, the failure is no longer accidental. It becomes structural.
Nagaland’s water governance is built around short time horizons. Every dry season is treated as a sudden emergency rather than a predictable outcome. Temporary pipelines are laid, tankers are hired, storage tanks are installed, and statements are issued. When the rains return, urgency disappears. The system resets, waiting for the next shortage to declare another emergency. This is not planning; it is postponement dressed up as response.
Short-term fixes are attractive because they are visible and quick. They fit neatly into administrative cycles and budget years. Long-term work does not. Protecting catchment areas, regulating construction on slopes, restoring springs, or integrating water planning into urban expansion requires patience, continuity, and the willingness to delay visible rewards. These are not qualities that flourish easily in governance systems trained to think in months rather than decades.
The persistence of temporary solutions would be less damaging if the natural capacity of the land to retain water had remained intact. But it has not. Rainfall alone does not guarantee water security.
Water must be absorbed, stored, and released gradually. When forests thin, hillsides are cut, and surfaces are sealed with concrete, rain turns into runoff. It leaves as quickly as it arrives.
This is the central misconception that underlies much of the public conversation: the belief that high rainfall should automatically solve water scarcity. It does not. A place can receive heavy rain and still fail to supply water if it has lost the means to hold it. In such conditions, the rains create floods downstream and scarcity upstream, sometimes within the same season.
The reliance on short-term fixes is therefore not separate from environmental neglect; it is its consequence. When springs weaken and catchments degrade, tanker water fills the gap. When planning permissions ignore hydrology, emergency supply compensates. Each temporary fix quietly accepts the damage done, and in doing so, makes it easier to continue doing damage.
There is another cost to this pattern that rarely enters official accounting. Temporary solutions normalise uncertainty. They teach citizens to expect disruption and adjust their lives around it. When water becomes something to be stored, bought, queued for, or rationed each year, dignity erodes slowly and almost invisibly. What should be a basic public service begins to resemble a seasonal favour.
None of this requires new explanations or novel slogans. The facts are plain. Rain falls. The land no longer holds it. Governance responds late and temporarily. The cycle repeats.
If Nagaland continues to plan for water one dry season at a time, it will remain trapped in this loop indefinitely. The question is no longer whether solutions exist, but whether the state is willing to think beyond the next emergency. Until that changes, abundance will remain a word we use to describe the weather, not the tap.
Comments can be sent to imlisanenjamir@gmail.com
