Avoiding another Sept 1, 2012
The fact finding team appointed by the State government to enquire into the incidents of mob violence and vandalisation of properties that took place in and around Dimapur and Chumukedima areas on 1st September, 2012 is expected to submit its report soon. The fact finding team is headed by NN Walling, Retd Director General Prisons and Home Guards as Convenor. The other members include KN Ngullie, Retd Commissioner & Secretary, LT Konyak, Retd Secretary to the Government and Wepretso Mero, Secretary, Home, as Member Secretary. The team has been meeting a cross section of people in order to complete the task set forth in the terms of reference specified by the government. And as per one of the terms of reference, quote “How such incidence can be avoided in future”, the fact finding committee has been seeking contribution of ideas and suggestions which will be beneficial in avoiding occurrence of such ugly incidents in future. In fact if we can add here, what the fact finding team will recommend will hopefully have a positive impact on social peace and harmony. As such the Morung Express also had the opportunity to contribute ideas to the fact finding team.
The center piece of our suggestion is establishing a Crisis Response Centre (CRC) which can be attached to the Deputy Commissioner’s office in the respective districts. To begin with though, such a CRC should be set up in the State Capital Kohima and commercial hub of Dimapur. This can be incorporated within the community policing project of the Nagaland Home Department. The CRC should become a permanent feature of the respective district administration and it should be officially recognized. It should have its own set of officers and staffs to enable its smooth functioning. However community participation, which will be the key to the success of the CRC, should be incorporated (creatively) into its system. Since the CRC will be in the nature of an emergency response service, availability of requisite information and effective communication should be addressed.
To begin with, the CRC should put together a directory or information bank where the names of all tribal hohos/unions (within that district) should be maintained along with names of functionaries, addresses and proper contacts. Not only this, but in this particular case, along with the parent tribal bodies, every existing youth fronts/organizations of the respective tribes should also be entered. The rest of the directory should have all important names and contacts of other relevant offices, civil society groups, MLAs, villages, students, church, colonies, media etc. Once the directory is complete, it can be printed and distributed to each concern individuals, groups/unions etc and this will become one of the basic tools to enable us to respond to any crisis.
The next important component of the CRC ought to be communication, which will have to be enhanced and improvised upon. While managing hostile or crisis situation, the need for timely communication is going to be crucial. Here we can perhaps adopt the concept and practice of what is called ‘hotline’. The hot line was established by representatives of the Soviet Union and the United States after the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis made it clear that reliable, direct communications between the two nuclear powers was a necessity to avoid a direct confrontation—war. Simply put, it means having a hotline between say one tribal hoho with another or with the district administration etc. The idea is to have timely communication with each other and on the understanding that a call or communication from one to the other should not be turned down but taken as priority. Other noteworthy examples of hotline developed are between the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan aimed at preventing misunderstandings that might lead to a nuclear war. Similarly, the United States and China set up a crisis hotline between their military establishments in 2008.
And so with this two tools—an information directory and keeping the hotline communication, the Crisis Response Centre should be the central point for coordinating a crisis. It is for the government to work on the specifics but the idea is to have the CRC functioning so that there is timely, coordinated and effective response to any crisis like the kind of tribal flare up that took place between August 31 and September 1, 2012. While what happened on both the days has been rightly condemned, the one positive thing that can emerge out of the ugly incidents is better preparedness to avoid such kind of violence and killings in the future and how we can learn to maintain peaceful coexistence.
