Imkong Walling
The Lamhainamdi incident of November 7, 2022, exposed two things. One was an all too evident and deficient governmental conflict management. Secondly, a perceivable but obscured fissure within the Naga relational chain-link.
The Nagaland state government has been known to play the wait-and-watch game, and last Monday’s security lapse, proved this very fact once again. It was well aware to everyone that the land dispute has claimed lives already, and the recent surge in paper war was not helping the situation get any better. It was set for spilling over into open violence one day or the other, which eventually did, but one which could have been preempted had the government acted timely.
The ultimatums and the accompanying exchange of aggression between the two sides, verbal they may have been, should have been warning enough for the state government to set in motion tactful measures alongwith the requisite security arrangement in the conflict zone.
There was police deployment on the ground but how the belligerents managed to bypass the supposed security ring is a question that needs explanation. There were reports of groups of people preparing to head to the disputed site but it was clear from how November 7 played out that no serious effort was made to prevent their movement and the subsequent arson, exchange of gunfire and the reported wounding of around 11-12 individuals. From a security point of view, it was a clear debacle, an avoidable embarrassment for the government.
The incident further bared open a Naga social skeleton called polarity, fronting as lovey-dovey communal attachment. This flimsy display, sadly, comes in the shape of mutual disdain, belying all the overt display of camaraderie and the professed “Naga oneness.” The shared condescension arising from deep-rooted distrust for the other ‘tribes’ or peoples beyond one’s social construct, that can be traced back to the isolated village worldview of yore.
While one would be loath, as well as, loathe admitting, the symptom of distrust plays out in the way the contemporary intra-Naga power play has gotten itself structured. From singular ethnic entities to pan-ethnic collective, to the rise of blocs in recent times; while the affiliates themselves barely ever coming to terms with preconceived notions about one another. Enter political ambitions and local geopolitical interests, it makes for just the right environment for a simmering toxic social soup; the lid going off on any given opportunity, as witnessed recently and similar other land conflicts dotting the state.
Over and above, absence of wholehearted community effort, especially that of the Naga civil society organisations was glaringly felt. In such an environment, it is expected of the civil society rising above tribal affiliation and activating peace-building endeavours, but unfortunately, it was missing. Another was the role of the media, which allowed an otherwise preventable inflammatory exchange to persist between the disputing parties.
The writer is a Principal Correspondent at The Morung Express. Comments can be sent to imkongwalls@gmail.com
