Al Ngullie
I must say women who want to be treated equal with men definitely have cheap ambitions. Anyhow, the clamor surrounding the Reservation Bill seems to be cacophony at best: the labors of ‘cultural’ institutions to cling on to the last symbols of feudal supremacy; the pleas of the marginalized to claim what has been given to them and the sophist intellectualism of well-meaning but impractical social commentators. The Naga youth is a confused vegetable today. They may be young but definitely no imbeciles. What are the questions the right-thinking youth ponder on?
• Chauvinism of the Highest Order: In advanced societies, chauvinism is another name for Sexism – the gender equivalent of Racism. Some passionately declare men and women in Nagaland to be “equal” already (for which reservation is needless, even ‘discriminatory’ they say). If ‘equal’, does it also not mean that women are able enough to decide for themselves whether they should or should not be apportioned reservation in the first place? If women are equal with men, why is the latter deciding whether or not women are capable enough to take own decisions?
• The contention that the quota is “discriminatory” is hypocritical, at best: Nagas are categorized as Scheduled Tribes with exclusive dispensations – from seats to percentages, scholarships to academic criteria and we stir up clamor to wrench them; we shout hoarse for our quotas in national entrance competitions and institutions; we have special dispensations under Ministry of Tribal Affairs; even the central and state Civil Services have special dispensations for us and we stir up storm to get them. Perhaps we ought to start reading more so that we are aware of what Indian students and institutions in the mainland are saying about STs over the decade. A recent instance would be the controversies surrounding the reservation system in IIT and IIM in India. Students in India actually say that the STs are depriving mainland students of place without having to compete and secure merit equally with others. Denying women what has been given to them appears tad pompous when we ourselves enjoy the benefits of reservation.
• I am stronger; you are stronger: If women need to first “prove” their capability, does it mean men succeeded a political test at some point that declared them capable? Capable even to the point of deciding whether women should have a future or not? How many men in important policy-making positions in Nagaland today, are 'capable'?
• Personally, I do not ascribe to reservation nor do I oppose it. Yet, if we can claim and enjoy the befits of funds, schemes and the good laws of societies and governments as an indigenous people, isn’t it also just and good that women be allowed to have what has already been given to them no matter whether they are ready, capable, deserving or needing or not?
• If instating women in policy-making institutions is against/not Naga culture, does it mean modern political systems and institution – such as elected governments, municipal institutions and local-governing organizations – are?
• Assuming Naga men and women are “equal,” don’t the latter have as much Right to claim what has been given to them as much as the Naga men who have the Right to claim the special Rights and provisions, funds and schemes that come in the name of development of state, towns, villages, institutions and academia and research?
• What about Christianity? Is it of Naga culture that we don’t oppose it?
• True, women are free to participate in the greater electoral process – to vote or contest in the legislature. True. But we may consider the ground realities that motivated the founders of the Reservation bill: Muscle power, money power and the shadier intrigues only men can devise to control the electioneering process. Women cannot apply intrigues, muscle power or money to their advantage yet. Resources are in men’s control; no matter what the sophists say, women’s voice shall never be heard in the ripples of muscles or the crackling of crisp cash. This is one overriding reason why reservation was instated.
• Defining "Naga Identity": Some consistently tend to claim the mantle of guardianship (and in extreme cases, even the role of “protector”) of “Naga customary laws” and proceed to define them. My confusion is this: Weren’t the very statutory sanction accorded to the protection/preservation of Naga cultural heritage bestowed by an institution that isn’t even Naga in the first place? India. When did the Indian government become a part of Naga culture that some Nagas constantly cite the non-Naga statute Article 371 (A) to adjudicate whether something is Naga culture or not?
• Was it not the Constitution of Republic India and an Indian statute in the form of Article 371 (A) that accorded statutory sanction to the exclusivity (at least politically) of the Naga cultural heritages and her history? Are they Naga culture?
• If a Naga can cite Article 371 (A) of the Indian Constitution to justify opposition to women reservation, isn’t it natural and right too for another Naga to cite Articles 14, 15, 15 (1, 3), 16, 39(a), 39(b), 39 (c) and Article 42, 46 of the Indian Constitution and demand implementation of the reservation? Both are Indian Laws, let us remember that. And both are foreign laws in the first place.
• Political Representation and “Traditional land holding systems": Politics and land are dichotomies at best – the first is empowerment and the second is asset. Devising comparative arguments between the two is like describing oil with water. Climate Change and Global Warming have reduced resources to a liability. Do women – the chief contributors to the greater economic goals of production in small agricultural, rural societies like Nagaland – have no right to decide their destiny? Ages of slash-and-burn have reduced Nagaland’s once-lush green resources and land to a naught (and the practice continues); evils such as ‘jhum’ cultivation and encroachment and issues such as deforestation, encroachment, preservation and conservation ought to be our focuses.
• How far can one – especially a fiercely proud Naga – use the merits of one law (especially an Indian law) to oppose the merits of another by saying that the latter is against/not of Naga culture? Because, I repeat, both are non-Naga laws devised by non-Naga entities and “culture.” If logic has its way, then we should be demanding revocation of both Article 371 (A) and the Articles 14, 15, 15 (1, 3), 16, 39(a), 39(b), 39(c) and Article 42, 46 of the Indian Constitution from being enforced in Nagaland. It feels awkward at best, using an Indian law to define what ‘Naga culture’ is or not. The Indians are probably spilling their innards out smirking at our hypocrisies.
• Aren’t the very form, style, function, establishment and principle of the very system of modern political institutions and ideas (such as municipal councils and village councils), a non-Naga culture themselves? Speaking of “age-old Naga institutions”, wasn’t it only in the advent of the modern chronological decade of the 1880s that GBs or DBs were appointed by the British India government? Wasn’t it merely a few decades ago around 1978 that the village council institution was instated through the Nagaland Village and Area Council Act, 1978 (Act No. 1 of 1979)? What about the municipal (hitherto town council)? Is it of “Naga culture”?
• Also, the institution and purpose of the Gaon Bura and the Doubashi. Please do correct me if I misconstrue but wasn’t the system of the GB and the DB established by none other than the British and British Raj – both non-Naga entities by race, principle and history? So how something a foreign people and government devised could be credited as being ‘Naga’ or of ‘Naga culture’? Further, aren’t the GBs and DBs employees of the government – another institution and system that is not Naga in every way?
• Do we dare use our mighty declarations of resentment and opposition against bigger concerns such as the AFSPA the same way we do against women reservation? If one day the Government of India lifts the AFSPA, it would be Manipur and Assam where the black law would be lifted from, but not so for Nagaland. Watch how Manipur and Assam have been taking on the AFSPA. Here, we are fighting women only.
• Confusion about the idea called ‘Naga culture’ which we passionately pan to and fro: From the very toothpaste we brush teeth with, the very underwear brands we wear down to the very materials we build our houses with, to the currency we use to survive, the political parties and their ideologies we serve, the technologies we utilize, the institutions and philosophies we devise and advocate, the events and exchanges we participate as a part of a billions-strong modern world; the education, concepts and inventions; the opportunities and faiths we chase and profess – are any of these Naga culture? The ethos, principles and intellectual examples of our great forefathers have all vanished – watch the Naga people, their land and situation today. We need no convincing that there is no piece of “culture” left in us. What ‘Naga culture’ has been left in our lives today that we so proudly cite it at whim?
• Imagined Laws or Opportunism: I shall be so profoundly grateful if the men of wisdom from the Naga society help a young, inexperienced, unproven, ignorant young person like me understand what Naga culture and identity is – where would I find proven common tribal laws and sanctions, rules and common decrees that say Naga culture is this and that, this way or that way? My humble understanding of convention is that habit cannot be law. I believe that even the earliest, few intellectual authorities who documented the ancient Nagas’ and their way of life, their “laws” and customs were not even Nagas but mostly British, Anglo-Indians or Indians. A local perspective that is hard and fast and common to all tribes (not conventions or oral traditions) would lend good support to anti-reservation arguments rather than muddling the good ideas of culture.
• Manipulating citizens’ mandate (This is for both men and women): Theoretically, while organizations may “represent the people”, at the end of the day it is only a few members (who lead organizations) out of lakhs that take ‘decisions.’ When one says that an organization ‘represents the people’, that value never meant that the organization’s leaders arbitrate matters that involve choice. To “represent the people” means the organization speaks on issues that reflect the just, good and humanity’s universal aspirations – for example, peace, growth and progress or non-violence or Human Rights.
Conversely, civil society was never mandated to speak for every citizen on issues involving individual choice. Example: In a civilized, well-informed democratic society, an organization can speak for the people against issues concerning, say, corrupt political leaders or political parties, but no organization has any right to say which candidate or political leader citizens must vote for or against, which policy to accept or not. This is where democracy’s most revered method of gauging response comes in – Referendum. So rather than gauge the opinions of the people from what organizational leaders say, a Referendum is another way for every citizen to ‘speak’ his mind through vote. Or would a ‘referendum’ be too prickly an option?
• Bigger worries than vote: The common Naga citizen is dying in bigger worries: what to feed his family or pay for his children’s education with; what to pay the extortionists with; whether he would get shot when the political guns open up; the tainted ministers he voted to power and now sucking the state dry; the rising crime index; the cancerous corruption, deforestation, substance abuse and illegal immigrants and youth unemployment. Shouldn’t we be training our strong, proud and angry declarations against the tainted ministers, cor ruption, the extortions, the bloodshed and violence, the money culture and politics of the hypocrites, and demand a better future for the suffering, common man and his children?
If our organizations had applied the same majes tic, incensed and proud tone of opposition when innocent civilians were falling victim to bullets, when they were/are being robbed and extorted from, when their elected representatives were/are siphoning off public funds to buy lands and build palatial houses in Kohima, Dimapur and Delhi and many more; if they had employed that same justified voice and tone against the ills we the common people suffer every day, Nagaland would have been different. For better.
