Nagaland newspapers must be more responsible
Coming across report published in newspapers about the “so call video of two Naga girls being stripped naked in by Assam police” and reading the reactions in connection to that, I being a woman myself feel led to share few thoughts.
I personally have not seen that particular video and I do not know the authenticity of the video and how far this is true? However, there are few things that need to be sincerely considered before we jump into conclusion and make a statement that it is true.
We have a saying “pictures/photos never lie” but One should not forget the advancement of technology and how people can manipulate to make it appear like it is real which was not there in the first place. Since North East people especially Nagas look very much similar to South East Asian people we can be easily mistaken and even framed. Now why am I saying this?
Very often when I travel oversea to South East Asian Countries when I am standing in the queue to clear immigration along with passengers from India, staffs who are there to assist would come and ask me in their language to stand in the queue of their citizens. When I show them my Indian passport they take me to be one of their own people who was born in India and escort me to stand in their citizen’s queue. I am sure it must have happened to many Nagas who travels oversea.
The funny thing is even when I am returning to India and standing in the queue of Indian Passport holder to clear immigration, the officer would tell me “madam, foreign passport holder that side” and point towards the queue where foreigners are standing.
Last month I was going through some of the short video clippings of Chinese martial art movies which has been uploaded in youtube and those movies was dubbed in nagamese, Ao (that too in tone belonging to a particular Ao village), those were funny ones but I was amazed to see the skill of the person who had come up with the dialogue and done this, because it was in perfect tune, perfectly matching with lip movement of the actor/actress.
We all know what Chinese martial art movies are and so far Nagas have not come up with such kind of movies because of that I was able to make out at one go this movie is dubbed otherwise if non Naga sees that clippings they will think it is Chinese and not make out the difference. However if South East Asian porn movies are dubbed it may appear to be quite real, unless it is properly verified.
My thought is if they can do that to this martial art movie why will they not be able to do that to this particular video clipping which has been published in the newspaper? I won’t be surprise if this video has been dubbed. About less than two years ago, short video clipping of a naked woman call “Ao beauty” was widely circulated in Dimapur, I saw it myself in a known person’s mobile who showed it to me with great concern. The young woman in that video was posing in various position and in the back ground in nagamese a man was speaking to her. The man who was speaking in the background was not shown in the video.
The way she was posing so confidently, the way her body looked including her private part which was so well maintained, made us conclude that she is a professional who does this for a living. Working with hundreds of young girls/women from every walk of life for the past 9 years, I personally concluded she is not a Naga but from one of the South East Asian Country.
I have come to know of various incident where women from other state whenever they are in place or situation where they should not be in introduce themselves very smartly as “from Nagaland” whereas they are either from Mizoram, Manipur, Meghalaya etc and the people in India outside of North East cannot make out the difference. Sometimes I really feel bad for our Naga sisters who are most of the time so Naïve. There is a saying in our Ao dialect “chia koya, michia koya” which means “khailibi choha, nakhailibi choha” whether the mouse eats or does not eat, the mouse gets the blame.
The sexual perversion of man kind in this generation is hard to digest and with the advancement of technology which has made itself to be of such necessity in our life, without which it has made it hard for us to go about in our day to day life, the unwanted things just tags along with it is very close “just a click away”.
One of the scene in the movie Mr& Mrs Smith where Angelina Jolie goes with a whip to a man, whips him, verbally abusing and scolding him at the same time just to get him sexually arouse, is one area of sexual perversion. There are men who get sexually aroused and get sexual satisfaction only when they see woman/young girls being abused verbally, physically, tortured, totally helpless at the mercy of men.
Such sadistic wicked nature is unimaginable but it is happening and this wickedness has reached so fast with the advancement of technology here too. Listening to housewives whose husbands forces them to perform what they see in x rated movies, husbands going to prostitutes to experiment their perversion makes me wonder. By the way such men look so divine and gentlemen in nature that when they walk pass by you they leave behind that “wow factor” most of the time they are not the kind of rough and tough so call “ dirty town bolia” you expect them to be.
My question to every human being be it Naga/Non- Naga is…Men/women, if that video clipping is of your daughter/sister would you carry it around in your mobile, pass it around and publish it? Remember she is somebody else’s sister/daughter. Whether Naga or non Naga is not the issue, for me she is a woman/female like me. Or are we feeding our self righteousness by condemning, passing remark, comments and yet not doing anything about it?
I firmly believe in the power of ‘ONE’. One person can make a lot of difference and bring change. You can be that one person to stop this by deleting from your mobile or computer, stop watching such things.
One person’s hobby or exhibition of skill in manipulation, dubbing, or may be just for fun thing has turned out to be very costly affair in terms of degrading Naga women, to be considered and talked about so cheaply. I congratulate this person because he/she has succeeded. My humble request to the media is to be extra cautious in reporting when it comes to sensitive issues like this especially when it is concerns young girls/women. Unless it is verified and confirmed, authenticated to be true, better refrain from such reporting. By publishing such things it creates additional troublesome thoughts in the minds of people where movement of young girls/women are put to greater risk.
We should remember that unlike in other developed countries where internet, Bluetooth has become the medium of reading daily news, in developing country like ours newspaper still continues to be the medium of reading news since majority of the population are not computer savvy which challenges us to be even more responsible about what we publish.
Ms. Moamenla Jamir, Founder Director
Mother’s Hope
