It is a matter of great concern that Nagaland continues to see violence against women—sexual assault, rape, incest, domestic violence and even murder of one’s own ex-wife has been reported recently in the local media. The manner in which a woman was brutally murdered by her ex-husband, a retired Village Guards Asst Commandant, is shocking and unacceptable in a civilized society. A few years back in another brutal incident, a mother of two children was found dead inside a trunk box in their house at TCP Gate, Kohima. Other notorious stories have been reported from Nagaland in recent times, something unheard of in Naga society. Besides the increasing violence targeted against women, we are also witnessing other forms of violence and killings. The latest incident is the brutal torture and merciless murder of a Church worker from Toulazouma. This comes against the backdrop of a series of similar crimes being carried out. All this is very disturbing. Our society, Church and other concerned people should wake up to this growing problem, which hitherto was a rarity. There is no doubt about the fact that there is restlessness in our Naga society. The problem seems to stem from our greed for material gain and power. The growing economic divide between the haves and the have-nots is only accentuating the crisis of our times. The question that most of us would obviously ask is this: what do we do about it? The problem with us is that we do talk about it but we don’t do anything about it. Then there is the tendency to simply brush everything under the carpet and pretend as though nothing is wrong. The problem becomes bigger and insurmountable.
There is confusion in our society. The world has overtaken us so much that the family, church or school has lost control over its members. Then another negative thing is that we are too bothered about only our union, clan, village or party. This is also one of the reasons why we cannot fight our common problems. We need to strengthen the common Naga institutions so that they can play an effective role in taking up challenges facing our society. To some extent the Naga Students Federation (NSF) is the only common platform of the Nagas which is having an impact. Though it may have its weaknesses nevertheless the NSF has remained vibrant and effective in taking up certain issues and problems. We need to strengthen and encourage other common institutions of the Nagas to play a more effective role in problem solving besides its other advocacy role/s. Our churches and tribal hohos remain vital instruments for bringing positive changes. A way has to be found to tap into this. The problem with both the Nagaland Baptist Church Council and Naga Hoho seems to be its inability to hold its constituent units together. While by nature and tradition the tribal churches and hohos are autonomous in almost every respect, this has worked to the disadvantage in other things especially when it comes to the much needed dialogue in resolving many of our problems which are common to all Nagas—economic inequality, culture of violence, peace and reconciliation, tribalism, alcohol and drug abuse, land disputes to name a few. Involvement and participation of all tribal and church units through a common platform will be essential to the success of tackling many of our problems.
