Aheli Moitra
From 1963 to 2006, the urban population in Nagaland had proliferated 5.3 times. The 2011 census has shown an urban decadal growth (provisional) of 67.38%. While the state has recorded a negative growth rate in its rural areas, its urban growth rate has been at 96%.
30% of Nagaland’s population now lives in urban areas. In the future more than half the state’s population may become urban.
Statistics say a lot. So do politicians. On World Habitat Day, some suggested state-of-the-art infrastructure development in Kohima and Dimapur. Pitching for the Look East Policy, Dimapur was made out to be the connecting haven from which economic goods of the east can be launched into India.
Dimapur was pitched right. But something is wrong with the way it is planned. On second, something is wrong with the way governance looks at urban planning here.
The urban space consists of varying demography. Its nature doesn’t allow for it to cater to one ethnicity, religion, tribe, caste or class. Unless forced, as in New York or London, the poor survive with the rich within inner city limits. The Muslim with the Christian. The Ao with the Sumi. However, the same urban space allows for pockets, or nations if you like, to form as subsets of itself. The larger urban plan is duplicated in some of these pockets and completely ignored in others.
With increasing polarization among people of this century, they like to stick to their flock. The migrants live huddled up in their pockets, and the settlers in their. Even if their pockets are separated by a narrow open drain, common in both Kohima and Dimapur, the populations don’t mix unless they come out in the day to work or socialize.
In the lack of any urban planning, these pockets grow independently. The neighbourhoods are all homegrown. This, however, is not the problem. The problem is negligence. Take the case of the ‘colonies’ of Dimapur. Most originated from root villages. Government quarters were made and forgotten. Land rights were transferred to individuals, through private routes, and mansions were made alongside the government quarters. If you go to Notun Bosti, for example, you will notice most of the by-pass roads have been encroached on by private owners. Kohima’s urban sense is exemplary of the squalor this can produce. Immediately, perhaps, this does not seem problematic and the claustrophobia not apparent. But then a fire breaks out…
According to the state’s minister for urban development, this mess can be attributed to “space constraints, improper land usage, dearth of planned and coordinated development coupled with a lack of civic sense” among other “complex reasons”. In this view, space and people have created this problem, not the lack of governance.
From what one can understand of debates over the last week, it is clear that urban spaces in Nagaland are run autocratically and without sensitivity to the roots. Both the municipality and the neighbourhoods are informal—in planning and execution. This is not anarchy, this is negligence. And urban communities are unable to tackle.
For instance, immigrants, mostly illegal, have been allowed to have their way. The state seems to be lost on that count. Of the current population of Dimapur (of a little more than 3,70,000), only half are estimated to be Naga. If the urban planners were actually planning, they would’ve taken note of statistics and controlled a situation that has the Naga Council spinning on its head.
Women are not allowed into urban governance, nor are municipal authorities elected anymore. The same cabinet minister who stands by the sacred thread of Article 371 (A) had called it an “obstacle to the development process” in 2006. Selected representatives, probably favourable to the ministry, continue in and out of office. Even though there is a dire need to break out of old models, the noose is being tightened. Despite all the inclusion-of-stakeholders talk, common sense is excluded.
Given the statistics, another decade, and the urban spaces in Nagaland will be found hanging by their neck, the governance loop thick on their trail.
