Nagaland: The Safest Place In India For Women

What is it that makes Nagaland the safest place in India for women? Sneha Bhura travels to the northeastern state and finds that reality doesn’t always tally with statistics.

- Sneha Bhura

   

   

Dimasa seems quite the life of a party. A 28-year-old musician from Dimapur, the commercial nerve centre of Nagaland, he can fire up a crowd of giggly teenyboppers and reserved grownups with his perky singalongs. On this cold December night, he has magically whooshed in to bedazzle a karaoke stall in a rollicking street market along the central square of Dimapur. It’s a road that runs behind ruins of the 13th century Dimasa Kachari kingdom, and is peppered with small stores and clandestine booze joints. Jaunty and self-assured in a Fedora-like hat and a well-fitting beige jacket, Aakki regales a growing posse of young boys and girls—squished around the computer monitor—with a popular Bappi Lahiri number, sometimes leavened with Nagamese. No one seems to be ill-at-ease or jostling for space. The crowd is singing their hearts out, even with a patchy internet connection fouling up the lyrics on YouTube—with Aakki’s liquid movements in the spotlight. He has the air of a local celebrity about him.

I start to relax, watching the frenzy that Aakki seems to have stirred around me on my first night in Dimapur—otherwise one of vacant streets, closed shops and expressionless commuters even at 9 pm. I later approach Aakki to learn more about him; he is strolling around with a bunch of thuggish looking men. I greet Aakki with a cheery ‘hello’, and his companions start joining us one by one.

Aakki tells me that he’s with a band called We Five Brothers, which mostly performs Hindi songs. “I am headed to a party. Do you want to join us?” he asks. I politely refuse, saying I’m too tired, and regret it almost instantly. What am I scared of? Isn’t Nagaland India’s safest state for women?

As I discover, it’s true—somewhat.