Pamreihor Khashimwo
The correlation between politics and development is changing recklessly. Today all Naga leaders and politicians are locked in bizarre, often toxic, conflicts, instead of acting on a growing development and economic consensus about how to escape a protracted period of crippling social and political mess, low and unequal development. This trend must be reversed before it structurally cripples the entire Naga society and sweeps up the emerging development politics. No matter how proper the established administrations or governments and institutions might be, if a big fish could devour a small fish at will, then that must be a patent violation of human justice. Obviously, political infighting in Naga is nothing new. But, until recently, the toxic politics reach its pinnacle in Naga society. Also, many more radical leaders attempted to push a different agenda, powerful forces – whether moral coaxing from governments, private capital markets, or the conditionality attached to illegitimate institutions (parallel government) – would almost always ensure that the selfish profit-making approach eventually won the day.
The present Naga generation, which had risen to power on the back of domestic unease and frustration with mainstream parties – sometimes disagreed with the appropriateness and relevance of the Naga traditional ethos. Particularly, the present leaders demonstrated with a policy pivot in power hungry attitude, that consensus failed largely to prevail and continued to hold sway as recently as today. But after more than decades of unusually sluggish and strikingly non-inclusive political process across the Naga society, thus, the coherence is breaking down. The majority of the Naga citizens are frustrated with an “institution” or “establishment” – including dominant Naga political leaders, for the political misadventure, economic travails, and rampant corruption. As a result, anti-establishment movements and many acquisitive Naga leaders have been quick to seize on this frustration, using inflammatory and even combative rhetoric to win the support of innocent Naga public.
The recent Urban Local Body (ULB) polls dispute is happening for one reason, however, many tribal leaders and institutions in Nagaland feared that they would be unable to secure sufficiently their inherent tribal base in democratic institutions due to 33 percent women reservation blitzkrieg, certainly exposed the division of Naga society. In fact, the ULB polls process itself require proper debate, whether this really infringes and invades inherent Naga’s right, which fundamentally demands time to formulate a coherent social and political strategy keeping in view the changing political discourse of Naga society. Nevertheless, many individual and leaders pandered to anti-women reservation bill skeptics supporters with the promise of fundamental inherent tribal rights, system, and development. The source of anti-women reservation bill and the political disruption caused by the change skeptics people and leaders – these individual, groups, parties and organisations that ended up creating deeply seated fissures and subsequently found itself in logically perplexed argument, approaches, leaderless and turmoil in the society.
Make mistake, but solid and credible policy options are available. After many years of mediocre development performance, there is widespread agreement across Naga society that a shift away from excessive dependence on unconventional political and monetary policy is needed. And yet Nagas have been. Nagaland needs a more comprehensive policy approach, involving pro-growth and developmental structural reforms, more balanced demand management (including higher fiscal spending on infrastructure and education), and better cross-tribal policy coordination and architecture. There is also a need, highlighted by the current ULB polls exposes, to address pockets of severe over-indebtedness, which can have a crushing impact extending well beyond the directly affected. It noted that rebuilding faith in the political process and leaders would be a “difficult task.” In fact, politics framed the bargaining between different groups and social relating to individual identity, beliefs, and values that hold society together. The ULB polls conflicts and debates show how the Naga society is in an existential crisis.
All this tells us that the recent political entente remains fragile in Nagaland; our vulnerable tribal communities are affected by politicking, distracted and overwhelmed. Yet a constructive approach to toxic politics is possible. It would begin with a serious intellectual battle among Nagas and leaders on the threat, necessary responses, and technical feasibility. The tribals representatives should consult fully - not only with ruling and power elites but also with the women. The current leaders, for their part, need to make up their minds: if they want the change, development, and some control, they will also have to bear some of the costs. Mixing theoretical and empirical analyses, the tension reigns in between universalism and particularism in Naga tribal political discourse and narratives and tribal identity. The implications reach beyond political leaders to shed light on the paradoxical relationship between politics, policy-formation, and identity amidst changing conceptions of Naga politics.
The study of current Nagaland politics since its formation show, how different understandings of different identities influence and shape the state policy. Placing the Naga political debates in social and historical context, it identifies major narratives within the Naga grand political policy community from which emerge divergent interpretations of tribal identity. Through a discursive analysis of political debates, how the emergence of a "normal" political policy is caught between competing understandings of the different tribes and the ambiguous role of the state, as both increasingly confront the uncertain trajectories of Naga’s politics. Certainly, toxic politics dominates in Naga society.
The emergence of a new consensus on these points is good news. But, in the current political environment in Nagaland, translating that consensus into action is not likely to happen, even if expected to happen too slowly, at best. The risk is that as toxic politics crowds out good and constructive politics, development, and economics, popular anger and frustration will rise, making politics even more toxic. One hope that enlightened various Naga individual, leaders, women and political leadership take the reins in time to make the needed mid-course corrections voluntarily, before unambiguous signs of development and political crisis force policymakers and leaders to scramble to minimize the damage.
The public does not know who to believe, who to trust and what information is reliable or completely false. Everywhere, politics has become toxic, with bitter infighting, armed conflicts, and even mob justice. The fact of life that across the Naga, there is little support for overall public goods, as individual insecurity tends to blame other for all the problems, “We, Naga are blind to our own blindness.” In reality, the polarization of politics has meant that better development is receding mainly because Nagas are beginning to look inward, alienating both allies and foes alike. The leadership deficit occurs because there is little trust in any of the leaders, what the Naga lacks most is not more economic or politics, but a philosophy about individual and community identity in a society in the grip of radical change. Nagas are all insecure because the present values are challenged by these rapid changes, from fanaticism, extremism and toxic politics to dysfunctional politics, corruption in morality and disruptive technology. Naga needs a new narrative to find our sense of balance; Naga simply does not have a political, social and development philosophy for the 21st century. Indubitably, toxic politics take the shine on a better development in Naga society.
Doctoral Candidate, Centre for European Studies, School of International Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University
