As usual after an incident of violence and killing the government has done the conventional thing of ordering a high level inquiry into the June 30 killing of two villagers and injuring two others of “Inavi (Naga United) Village.” There is nothing wrong in ordering a probe especially if we are to unearth those who were involved in the attack or to inquire into the immediate circumstances and causes leading to the incident. The probe committee constituted to look into the incident can therefore at most be limited to finding the culprits, which anyway the police will also be investigating. It is quite ridiculous for such a small committee consisting of serving bureaucrats to (suggest) measures required to be adopted to prevent reoccurrence of such incidents in the future. A hurriedly appointed committee cannot be expected to give its counsel within a month’s time and that too on something as sensitive and divisive as the current Intangki imbroglio. The government instead could have ordered an immediate (short term) probe headed by a senior police officer and to report within fifteen days. What is required at this juncture is quick remedial action to bring down the heated tension and anger especially of the Inavi villagers and those belonging to the community who will demand some immediate answers from the government.
It is a known thing that such an incident was waiting to happen and the government appears to be completely unaware of the conflict situation going on in the Intangki region for quite some years now. It is therefore not surprising at all that the Western Sumi Hoho (WSH) has decided not to accept the high level probe constituted by government of Nagaland to probe the attack on Inavi village stating that “it will not serve any purpose”. Even the Tenyimi Peoples’ Organization (TPO) has blamed the state government for the lawlessness in Intangki. On the same day that the WSH rejected the government probe, the TPO also felt strongly that the government is responsible for the lawlessness at Intangki and even went on “to assert that Intangki should not be made a battlefield amongst the Naga brothers”. And rightly so the WSH has further demanded that the commission report of inter-district boundary between Dimapur and Peren which has been kept pending before the cabinet be taken up on priority basis at the earliest.
It is therefore becoming obvious that the government seems to be sleep walking when in reality urgent steps are needed. The sense that we are getting is that civil society groups including stakeholders like the WSH and TPO want something more than just a knee jerk reaction or firefighting exercise from the government. While it is true that the present government has made attempts to rally consensus (involving Naga civil society) on this particular issue, nevertheless the government was well aware that on the ground this was not working and the continuing status-quo was only going to escalate into something violent, which has now, unfortunately happened. The government should therefore quickly realize that the present status-quo on Intangki is not going to help. If not an immediate but at least a long term settlement of the Intangki imbroglio is what the government should look at and for this it should make an attempt to get into some form of mediation effort or atleast constitute a more serious committee with the right kind of people, preferably from outside the government, to work towards resolution of the Intangki ‘problems’.
It is a known thing that such an incident was waiting to happen and the government appears to be completely unaware of the conflict situation going on in the Intangki region for quite some years now. It is therefore not surprising at all that the Western Sumi Hoho (WSH) has decided not to accept the high level probe constituted by government of Nagaland to probe the attack on Inavi village stating that “it will not serve any purpose”. Even the Tenyimi Peoples’ Organization (TPO) has blamed the state government for the lawlessness in Intangki. On the same day that the WSH rejected the government probe, the TPO also felt strongly that the government is responsible for the lawlessness at Intangki and even went on “to assert that Intangki should not be made a battlefield amongst the Naga brothers”. And rightly so the WSH has further demanded that the commission report of inter-district boundary between Dimapur and Peren which has been kept pending before the cabinet be taken up on priority basis at the earliest.
It is therefore becoming obvious that the government seems to be sleep walking when in reality urgent steps are needed. The sense that we are getting is that civil society groups including stakeholders like the WSH and TPO want something more than just a knee jerk reaction or firefighting exercise from the government. While it is true that the present government has made attempts to rally consensus (involving Naga civil society) on this particular issue, nevertheless the government was well aware that on the ground this was not working and the continuing status-quo was only going to escalate into something violent, which has now, unfortunately happened. The government should therefore quickly realize that the present status-quo on Intangki is not going to help. If not an immediate but at least a long term settlement of the Intangki imbroglio is what the government should look at and for this it should make an attempt to get into some form of mediation effort or atleast constitute a more serious committee with the right kind of people, preferably from outside the government, to work towards resolution of the Intangki ‘problems’.
