Towards a Shared Future

By making Naga communes more inclusive, dependence on the State would be reduced, ushering in an era where women (and men) shape the sovereignty that Naga people have aspired for

- Aheli Moitra

In October 2005, the Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) government at the helm of affairs turned down a proposal for setting up of a Nagaland State Women’s Commission. In a letter to the editor of The Morung Express, a local daily, a reader felt ‘necessitated’ to thank the DAN government. ‘…such a Commission is highly necessary only in a Hindu society (or a Muslim society sometimes)… the equality and uniformity that is found in Nagaland has nothing to do with the caste system/Hindu culture or other systems which discriminate against women and other weaker sections of the society’.

Nevertheless, the State Women’s Commission was set up in 2007 with considerable effort by the women of Nagaland. Though it continues to be ignored by the State machinery at large, the Commission has organized gender sensitization programs in all the districts of Nagaland as well as in several colleges, took up institutionalized documentation of the political, economic and social status of women in Naga society, and also got women to start speaking up, or take action against domestic violence—a not so rare occurrence that is tolerated in the name of peace and unity of the family.

But none of this has amounted to much as a decade later, men are still repeating the mantra of imagined equality, using the same old traditional and customary laws crutch.

Looking Beyond the Indian State

In a situation where standing up for gender justice amounts to getting hounded and humiliated, there are little avenues of protest open to Naga women.