National seminar on ‘Challenges and issues of the tribal of India’ underway at Tetso College
Morung Express News
Dimapur | March 24
The Naga community may be the fastest developing or growing tribal communities in the country in terms of literacy rate and degree of change within the shortest span of time.
“Of all the tribal communities in this large country, the Nagas have been recorded as one of the fastest growing community in terms of the degree of change, migration from rural to urban and growth of percentage of population,” Prof A Lanunungsang Ao, retired Pro-Vice Chancellor, Nagaland University stated in his keynote address at the inaugural of the two-day UGC national seminar organized by the Department of Sociology, Tetso College in collaboration with Young Indians (YI), Nagaland Chapter on the theme, “Challenges and issues of the tribal of India” Friday.
This fast expansion standing, according to Prof Lanunungsang also includes a burgeoning female population, and the percentage of the growth of literacy rate among Naga girls/women.
Even in terms of demographic, Nagaland state, though one of the tiniest states in India has recorded showing the highest percentage of population growth during the last ten years, as per the Election Commission of India census, though, this claim of population growth may be debatable owing to a number of reasons, the retired Pro-Vice Chancellor said.
He also articulated that the Nagas as a tribal community, on inclusiveness, should not confined to the 16 tribes living in the state of Nagaland alone. With almost 68 different ethnic Naga groups spread across India and Myanmar, the mention of just 16 tribes in terms of population, geographical area would be too marginalized,” he asserted.
Notwithstanding certain limitations, Prof Lanunungsang said the position of the Naga community as a tribal “is not that bad” when compared with other tribal communities living in India or in other parts of the world.
In some parts of the country, tribal communities have become a marginalized population in their own land with land alienation, displacement against their will, extreme poverty gripping their existence.
This has been due to limitations and exploitations structurally carried out by the government and other elements. Consequently, one of the biggest areas of exploitation is the mismanagement of the funds under different central schemes, which does not reach the hands of the targeted people, he pointed out.
Prof Lanunungsang further pointed out that the continued exploitation of the tribal population, has led to so many unrest, mainly witnessed from the North East region. He cited the instances of the Bodoland movement in Assam and the natives of Tripura becoming a minority in their own land.
Scholars and academicians from Nagaland, West Bengal, Mumbai, Gujarat and Delhi presented a number of papers on issues related to the theme. The seminar will conclude on Saturday.
The focus of the national seminar is to understand the underlying premises of social problems and forces which are threatening the welfare of the tribal society and which bring in disorganization in their society.
Gender inequality exist in the Church too
Gender inequality or discrimination does not only exist in the socio-economic and political realms of the modern Naga societal structure but also unquestioningly inside the hallowed walls of the Church as well.
Presenting a paper on “Gender Politics: Systematic unseen barriers to Naga women rising,” Dr Achingliu Kamei, Department of English, Atma Ram College, Delhi University asserted that even in Christian religion where both men and women were equally valued, there are gender discriminations when it comes to sharing of responsibilities as head.
“When most of the Nagas converted into the new religion, traditional (patriarchal) ways got assimilated into the new religion- Christianity. The top positions in most denominations in churches were reserved for the males only. The women were given mostly secondary roles,” Dr Kamei pointed out.
This is a revisit of the olden times, when women were not allowed to do any of the traditional rites and rituals and priesthood was reserved only for the male members of the society.
According to her, Naga women in most instances were encouraged only to take up leadership roles amongst the women themselves. In some of the Naga communities, women were ordained to be pastors, but were not permitted to lead in the partaking of the lords table, funeral and marriage.
She felt that a drive towards genuine egalitarian society can be achieved only when all sections of the society are genuinely empowered equally to participate and exist cohesively within its ambit, which at present is still lacking in the Naga society in context.
