Patricia Mukhim
India is surrounded by military dictatorships. Recent developments in Pakistan reveal the chaotic nature of despotic rule. On the eastern flank, Myanmar’s rule of terror where democratic protests and dissent is quashed by the barrel of the gun, informs us that democracy with all its imperfections is still the best bet. Hence attempts to strengthen democratic governance through the deepening and consolidation of democratic principles need to be given due recognition. Democracy creates its own sets of institutions and since people are at the core of democratic governance, they need to ensure that these institutions deliver. In a country like India democracy has evolved and developed into its own form – a form that perhaps no longer resembles those countries from where the concepts were first borrowed. Some of the fundamental tenets however remain unchanged.
One of the fundamental premises of parliamentary democracy is that elections are based on universal adult franchise. Only citizens who have attained a certain age have the right to vote. In India an individual gets her or his voting rights upon attaining the age of eighteen years. The right to vote is precious on two counts. First, it establishes one’s citizenship without any doubts. Secondly, it is a mechanism by which one elects legislators or law makers who will run the affairs of the state or country on a daily basis. Implicit in the principle of universal adult franchise is that all eligible citizens have the right to vote irrespective of sex. This is a guaranteed right and in most states of India this right is exercised by women without any hindrance.
But such is not the case with Nagaland. At a recent conference organized by the Nagaland State Women’s Commission at Kohima, where women representatives from all the tribes were present, one learnt that Nagaland still practices its own archaic, village democracy where women are completely marginalized during elections. Even educated women complained they had never been able to cast their votes because by the time they reached the polling stations someone had already voted in their names. For the uninitiated it seems rather strange that when people elsewhere had been using electoral photo identity cards (EPIC), precisely to proxy voting, this exercise has not succeeded in Nagaland. This is perhaps the only State where the EPIC is still not in use.
There are several instances where the village council arbitrarily decides which candidate to vote for. A diktat of sorts follows and people are simply told to surrender their votes so that someone can stamp all the ballot papers for that single candidate. Women are not even considered important enough for their views to be ascertained during the discussions on who to vote for. It is taken for granted that what men decide is always the best for al concerned. Talk about the political exclusion of women and you have a classic example right here in Nagaland. It sounds like a bizarre form of democracy but funnily enough even the most articulate do not see anything wrong with this system. Such are the dichotomies of Indian democracy! One wonders if Article 371(A) which allows the State of Nagaland special privileges in respect of customary laws and practices, transfer of land and property and such other exemptions are also extended to the conduct of elections. Nowhere in India do we have direct democracy or direct elections as is practiced in Nagaland. Yet successive governors who are expected to point out these anomalies to the Chief Election Commissioner have not done so. Why?
If Nagaland can get away with this democratic indiscretion what prevents other tribal states from asserting their rights to their own indigenous forms of election? Can democracy survive without a fair amount of uniformity in its theory and practice? Election to traditional institutions has always been by voice vote and only by male members of the society. We cannot call this an enlightened practice in this day and age, but, it continues nevertheless. The legislature is a constitutional body. It cannot be equated with an anachronistic traditional institution that has outlived its utility, mainly because of its exclusive nature. Hence elections to the legislature must be conducted on the principles laid out by the Chief Election Commission which runs the entire electoral process in this country.
In states like Meghalaya we are already into our second term of using the EPIC. In Nagaland, one learnt that the task of photographing electors had started way back in the 1990s. But for some reason people never got their EPICs and they never tried to find out why. This is interesting considering that Naga people are well aware of their rights on most other issues. So, one wonders if this is yet another attempt by the people of Nagaland to thwart the Indian state from cataloguing its citizens. If that is so what is the status of a Naga today? Does a Naga traveling abroad do so on an Indian passport? Or does she have a different citizenship status that is internationally recognized and for which sympathetic nations are willing to allow them entry without a visa? Would that not make the Naga issue an international bone of contention then?
Granted that India is still a struggling democracy but there are facets of it which have provided stability to this evolving nation-state. If Kashmir with all its internal conflicts and its disputation about being part of the Indian nation can have elections based on an EPIC what makes Nagaland such a unique case? One is not aware that the so-called national workers (read the NSCN-IM and K) have ever raised their voices against the EPIC. But this might just be a very subversive move, a silent movement that has not attracted much attention. Or it could be a clever stratagem of the ruling government to ensure victory through booth capturing and large scale proxy voting both of which would have been eliminated with the introduction of the EPIC.
One wishes to ask this very direct question to those hundreds of women who constantly challenge the State and keep it on the straight and narrow. Why have women silently acquiesced when their voting rights are violated? Of what use is the State Women’s Commission if women are deprived of their fundamental right to vote. How can women speak of political rights when they are not even allowed to vote? Now, Naga women are already speaking of a separate women’s political party, knowing fully well that established political parties like the Congress, Nagaland Peoples Front (NPF) and the BJP would never allow them to contest on a level playing field. But first things first. Women have always been enlisted to do proxy voting for male candidates. Many of them have done so with a sense of great pride and achievement. To quote Rano Shaiza, first woman Lok Sabha MP from Nagaland, “Nail polish removers are sold by the tonnes in Nagaland during elections. They are freely distributed to rub off the ‘indelible’ ink used by the election officials to identify a voter who has already cast her vote”.
Educated, articulate and informed Naga women need to motivate and educate their sisters to be more conscious of their rights rather than allow themselves to be used as instruments by male candidates during elections. This is where gender sensitization should begin.
