As Nagaland Goes To Polls, Its Complex Socio-political Milieu Takes Centrestage

“Aren’t you going to cast your vote in Dimapur? Your name is registered here, right?” Areno (name changed) asked me, when I told her I was planning to leave for my village towards the end of the month. In her defence, I had told her that I was done travelling all the way to my village every five years to cast my vote and was going to move my address to Dimapur or Kohima, where I actually reside. I had thought long and hard about it and it seemed like an easy, pragmatic decision but when the time of reckoning came, I hesitated. Intuitively, I knew I couldn’t do it just yet. As someone who shared a close kinship with the village, I felt as if I was uprooting myself from my own legacy, one that brought me to where I am.

The culture of politics in Nagaland today is the culmination of historical processes, the type of social organisation(s) that a tribe practices, the nature of political obligations, the effects of other political cultures from neighbouring states and, lastly, the impact of social media. This commingling imbues to Naga political culture a unique process of political socialisation passed down through generations. For people like me who have been brought up with close ties to the village, elections are not only a way of staying connected to and understanding the temperament of the people in the village and my tribe but also a way of shaping my own individual political identity, one that intersects with clan, tribe and village affiliations and histories. The late writer and scholar, Temsula Ao, had once stated: “The allegiance that Nagas have towards their village and, by that token, to their community, is reflexive in the way elections are carried out.” This truly describes the ways in which Naga political consciousness has been defined and sustained.

In order to better engage with Naga political culture, one must also understand the kind of historical and political legacy that the Nagas have inherited. Naga tribes have an indubitable heritage drawn from a primarily oral culture that relies on mythic folklore in the form of narratives, a rich trove of material culture and a socio-political system unique to each tribe, and in some cases, each village.

As far as the ‘villagescape’ is concerned, the mechanism of the functioning of the village council plays a very important and decisive role in mandating participation, any reform or political action, and, to a large extent, even internalising the attitudes, ideologies and value systems of political parties. There is a well-articulated relationship between the village councils or village development boards and candidates intending to contest. Often, the power dynamic present within the village councils paves the way for determining who emerges as the ‘consensus candidate’. This does not imply that individual choice is negated in this scheme but that the clan and village dynamics greatly impact the nature of political obligation. Many times, there have been village conflicts, both intra-clan and inter-clan, when members have voted against a particular candidate whom the clan had decided to support. Even in the last elections of 2018, the village councils played a decisive role in dictating the terms of choice to villagers. Individual equations, then, are contested against the stronger and more solidified community/clan/village loyalties, themselves incumbent upon each other. Contrastingly, in urban spaces like Dimapur and Kohima, which are much more cosmopolitan, clan and village dynamics do not have much say in determining the choice of candidate and the social pressure to vote for a particular candidate is not as strong; the culture of politics in the towns is much more democratic in nature and allows for individual choice. Here, the principles of party ideology play a much more consequential role.

All decision-making positions of power are predominantly male. Women have remained at the periphery. It was only in June 2021, that a Naga tribe elected W. Manni, a woman from Wangti village, to the position of secretary of the Village Development Board. For feminist anthropologist, Dolly Kikon, this situation rests on the fact of prolonged and generationalised militarisation and violence that has rendered women as the “main targets of state oppression,” disallowing them from engaging in social and public spaces. Today, a few women have already filed their nominations. Whether women will be able to shift political patterns and articulate a sociology that is more gender-inclusive and women-centred remains to be seen.

The results of the upcoming election will determine how the major streams of discourse—whether on the prolonged ‘Naga Solution’ which has spanned many decades or the Eastern Nagaland People’s Organisation’s (ENPO) solution, or the draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act—will effect change in Naga society. As more and more youth are initiated into political processes, made aware of their ability to foster change and understand their role in the development of a political consciousness, there could emerge a new pattern of political behaviour. In the words of Rüübino Peseyie, a student at Nagaland University, “The pandemic has really taught me a lot; the way our leaders responded to the Covid-19 crisis was an eye-opener for me. I realised that choosing the right representative is so crucial. So, in this upcoming election, I am determined to know the agenda of our leaders and vote for the right candidate. As a student, to be honest, I don’t know what’s in store for our future, whether or not the problem of unemployment will be tackled, our scholarships disbursed on time and the conditions of our roads improve. But l do know that we can get a better future by showing up and voting and by choosing the right candidate and this can happen only when we realise how important we are to the political process.”

(This appeared in the print edition as "The Slow Cooking Of NAGA POLITICS")

(Views expressed are personal)

Beni Sumer Yanthan is a poet, folklorist and assistant professor of English and Cultural Studies at Nagaland University, Kohima