Morung Express News
Dimapur | February 19
Nagas, who claim to be egalitarian and progressive, should have had no reason to oppose the 33 percent reservation for women in local bodies, but the current unrest was stoked by the opposition Congress and the Church to dislodge the present government, Swarajya, a right-wing weekly magazine maintained in a report last week.
Titled, “Nagaland Unrest: It’s A Diabolic Congress-Church Conspiracy,” filed on February 7, Jaideep Mazumdar, whom the magazine said writes on “politics, society and many other subjects from North, East and North East India as well as Nepal and Bangladesh,” cited reports by central intelligence agencies that “the protests against women’s reservation have been orchestrated by the Congress, which is still smarting from the mass desertion of all its eight MLAs from the party in November 2015.”
Swarajya, which was started as ‘conservative’ voice in 1956 under the patronage of C Rajagoplachari “Rajaji,” folded in 1980s but was revived in 2015 and claims to be “an authoritative voice of reason representing the liberal centre-right point of view.”
“We are trying to build a new young, liberal, Right-of-Centre voice,” Sandipan Deb, an Editorial Director of the magazine had told The Hindu in 2015.
“The Congress has, traditionally, been close to the Church, and the intelligence agencies believe that the Church co-opted itself into this plot by the Congress to create a crisis in the state and force the Zeliang government to step down,” it further maintained.
The crisis was created to jeopardise the alliance between the NPF and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, who are part of the ruling Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN), it implied.
Narrating the chain of events that preceded the current imbroglio in Nagaland, the report augmented its assertion by adding that, “It doesn’t take loads of intelligence to fathom that reservation of seats for women in urban local bodies (like municipalities and town councils) does not encroach upon Naga customary law or the religious and social practices of the Nagas.”
Accordingly, it alleged that the newly-formed Nagaland Tribes Action Committee (NTAC) leadership was made up “almost entirely of Church elders.” “The Church has never been happy with the NPF joining hands with the BJP and forming an alliance with a party it considers to be a Hindu party.”
The Church is extremely powerful in Nagaland and openly dictates terms to the government, it further stated adding the even the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN-IM), currently engaged in protracted peace talks with the Government of India, “also fished in troubled waters and took the side of the Church.”
The NSCN has also been displeased with the NPF for allying with the BJP, it said. Faced with the continuing belligerence of the NTAC, the state government bent over backwards once again by resolving to approach the Union Government with a request to take Nagaland out of the purview of Part IX A of the Constitution dealing with municipalities and their composition and Article 243 T that makes 33 per cent reservation for women mandatory, it pointed out.
Unsatisfied, the NTAC has resolved to get the Hohos of different tribes to apply pressure on the MLAs of the respective tribes to resign from the ruling DAN Government, it said.
Consequently, the report argued that women’s reservation issue was just “a cover for the conspiracy hatched by the Congress in league with the Church” was evident from the fact that the NTAC has been “proclaiming that nothing short of the resignation of the council of ministers would do.”
The Congress revealed its hand by demanding that not only the government resign, but the assembly also be dissolved and fresh polls held in the state and the Church has “given enough indication, both in private and publicly, that the government ought to meet the NTAC’s demands,” it added.
The report also quoted anonymous minister that trouble last month-end “was cleverly planned.” “Enough evidence of the Congress and the Church guiding the agitators has emerged. Chief Minister Zeliang and other leaders of the NPF have been meeting powerful clergymen and leaders of the tribal bodies to resolve the issue,” the report further maintained.
“Some Church leaders have obliquely hinted that the demand for the resignation of the Council of Ministers would be dropped if the NPF snaps links with the BJP and withdraws from the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), a non-Congress political group formed by the BJP last year,” it added.
Thus, the report concluded that it exposes the “Church’s vicious anti-BJP stance” and the "ugly truth" about the Church involving itself in politics in Nagaland.”
The Congress reduced to an “utter political irrelevance in Nagaland,” has found in the Church a “natural ally to get back into political reckoning,” it added.
With the event aftermath the report turning into several twist and turns, with the handprint of the Centre quite visible, the magazine’s assertion stands negated. However, the position it took seems to be solely based on its ideological inclination.
As a media watchdog The Hoot wrote in its analysis that though the magazine claims to be ‘a fiercely independent, big tent of right liberal ideas’ and not ‘politically partisan,’ Swarajya’s tagline of “Read India Right” is an open declaration of its ideological moorings.
