Mmhonlumo Kikon
As you drive down to Doyang Hydro Electric Project (DHEP) from Wokha Town, you can see the hills that form the middle range of Wokha district tapering down towards the misty horizon right along the Doyang river course downstream. The road to perdition cannot be too long from here. From a strictly development perspective, as much as ‘development’ is a discourse born out of necessity, the fast fading majestic splendour of the green splash is now the site of a heavy construction of the Wokha-Merapani road. From the present debate raging on in Nagaland over the article 371 A, particularly with regards the ownership and transfer of land and its resources, a trip down this road towards DHEP can be a dampening eye-opener. The technicalities of the recently held consultative meeting can be suitably contextualised for the benefit of the common man by understanding the complexities of road building and Dam construction in Nagaland.
The most advanced technology in hydraulics cannot spare you from the bumpy ride one must suffer to brave through the road downhill. As you reach a village called Yikhum, half-way down, you are bound to have crossed an Assam Rifles patrolling party, a group of migrant labours brought by the Company, Mohan Singh and Sons (contractors for the Wokha-Merapani road) , for the soiling and metalling of the road and also some women carrying firewood on their bamboo baskets. The serpentine road is sprinkled with one too many culverts and according to the locals, some of them have been washed away without even lasting for a year. The extended monsoon immediately came to mind, and one would have even gone to the extent of sympathising with the contractors if the tar had not been washed away without lasting for even a year. ‘Poor workmanship’, is the standard response of even the common man, for once in consonance with the expert. Dig a little further and the Pandora’s Box of development opens up much to the embarrassment of everybody we know as respectable in Nagaland.
The Recent Assembly resolution on the Transfer and ownership of Land and its resources has been packaged in the persuasion of development. On the surface of the earth, extolled one eminent personality at the Heritage Village, Kisama, one must consider the compensation for the land needed for building of railways and roads. “We must be broad-minded and not narrow-minded; Nagas need exposure to the modern world.” Definitely a whole lot of presumptions were at play in the sermon. Terms like ‘narrow-minded’ have long since become obsolete in the civilised world that Nagas have not been allegedly exposed to. When the people were made to listen to speeches after lectures and only 10 percent of the whole discussion was made available for the participation of the public and the traditional bodies in the technical sessions, it was anything but a consultation. Or as someone said, the meaning of consultation has been seriously reinvented by the organisers that the generic meaning of the term must be recast in the oxford lexicon.
The Wokha-Merapani road, to use a live example, also touted as a signpost of development since it is expected to be the economic lifeline of not only Wokha district but also the surrounding areas, has failed to meet the ‘development’ objective. There were some minor hiccups with the landowners, but the government and the contractor were literally given a free hand. Now that some 60 crores or more have been spent on it without a motorable road to show for the money even after extending the estimated period of completion, people have started questioning the ‘development’ that the bureaucrats and the politicians were selling in the open market. The same People who said yes to the road development and cooperated with the Government now wonder whether the development they meant had to do with the corruption that exists. The central argument of the Resolution therefore has to factor in this trend of development that Nagas have been witnessing ever since. The villagers happily say that when the Government shouts ‘development’ they mean the development of their personal assets. If the survey of the personal assets of those intimately involved in the Wokha-Merapani road at the decision making level were conducted, says the people, a whole lot of unwanted skeletons would come tumbling out of their cupboards. So much money, so much land plus the cost of environmental destruction have been wasted in the name of development by the very same people who are now in the process of facilitating the outright sale of the common man’s land and natural resources. What price do people actually pay in the name of development they do not benefit from?
As you go further down the road, the iron structures/ towers erected to hold the electric wires for transmission of electricity generated from DHEP can be seen without the wires. Surprisingly someone form NEEPCO or the Power department forgot that you can’t transmit power without the wires. It comes as a shock when the electricity generated from your land is not benefiting the people who have been part of this land for generations and have been nurtured by the Doyang River for generations. The structures therefore remain untouched and really out of place amidst the growing creepers encircling it. The dam was commissioned after a lot of haggling over environmental costs, compensation issues and also a little mention of rehabilitation and resettlement of the affected people. The people never said no to this kind of ‘development’ either, and this is true for most Naga areas. The promises were aplenty, the sweet tongues that waxed eloquent right from the headquarters to the district contributed towards the manufacturing of consent. Prodding further into the issue, one finds that even those locals who were ‘gainfully employed’ by NEEPCO at DHEP were not given regular employment but still works under contractual employment. There is not much security in such a job for the security seeking Nagas. Any complaints or demands for labour rights, employees’ rights are met with deaf ears in the fortress of NEEPCO right from its Shillong headquarters. The compensation paid did not, and could not, match up with the vast tracts of arable land lost forever in the submergence. You have to swim underwater to see the remnants of the fields that your ancestors tilled. And to top it all, the indigenous populations of this district does not receive sufficient power even after allowing the state and the corporation to generate 75 MW.
These two critical experiences of the kind of neo-liberal models of development really bring to question whether the beneficiaries are the people or the Corporates, the bureaucrats and the politicians. The exposure that the Naga people needs is perhaps a visit to China to see the vast environmental degradation taking place in the name of development. The extractive industries in China contributes to the pollution of their air, water and forests so much so that we have non-habitable areas in China added to their ever-growing population woes.
The jargon of ‘authentic’ development arises from the way in which development doctrine is stated for the people who cannot account for the source of the doctrine itself precisely because they are not part of the neo-liberal worldview. The meaning of ‘development’ becomes jargon when there is both distance and disjunction between the intent to develop and the practice of development; when there is an exercise of power in which the capacity to state the purpose of development is not accompanied by accountability. This is what is happening with the article 371 A. The state uses it expediently as and as and when it suits their purpose. This only reinforces the discussion in the market places that this initiative is not truly representative of the peoples’ wishes.
