Why Naga feminists spell a wave of hope for the tribal society
Where and how do we begin crystallising the everyday experiences and journeys through a period of militarisation and violence of the last one hundred years or so, starting from World War I till today? The years of the British colonial administration (especially the periods of the WW I and WW II) and the postcolonial administrative period in India (after 1997), as well as the experiences of war and violence in this region have intimately shaped the social, political, and gender relations today. The voices of Naga women demanding justice and equality emerge from experiences of hunger, hardship, and humiliation. As in many armed conflict situations, granaries and paddy fields were burnt down as part of the Indian counter-insurgency operations leading to starvation and hunger across the Naga villages in the 1950s and '60s.
The overwhelming responsibility of the women-headed households in Naga society has seldom been acknowledged in the political and public sphere. Instead, women continue to have no representative rights or visibility in the Naga traditional councils and customary assemblies. Naga women face the danger of being subsumed within an exotic cultural trope as non-speaking subjects, passive development programme participants, tea serving smiling figures waiting to be integrated into mainstream projects to become good Indian citizens.
Perhaps the gendered political distinctions that emerged over the decade were so deep that even movements that fought for freedom and independence deviated from a collective understanding of history. This was present in the Naga national history. Only Naga males became martyrs. Women were always victims. How can we talk about equality as a foundational pillar when justice, equality and freedom in Naga society have remained the prerogative of the few? Can a society be called democratic when a minority have defined such a heroic and masculine militarised past?
Today the Naga poor, which includes orphans, widows, the unemployed youth, old people, and a large section of the disenfranchised public, cannot take part in this debate. These are inherent contradictions. These are flaws that cannot be integrated into the vision of a just Naga society by simply including women who have been excluded. Here, it is important to acknowledge the feminist ideology of what it means to embrace gender equality and justice. Feminist philosopher Angela Davis wisely cautions us that the Black power movements were dominated by male leaders although a substantial number of women were involved as organisers. At the same time, she notes that we cannot imagine incorporating women into a misogynist society and dream of justice and equality. In the Naga context, like any other society around the world, it calls for the transformation of society from patriarchy, economic injustice, racism, homophobia, and gender violence.
If the Naga movement for the right to self-determination, or the civil and political rights movement, or the solidarity alliances have meant anything at all, it is, quite simply, the quest for justice. We must take into account the solidarities of the past few decades, the work done by organisations such as the Naga People’s Movement for Human Rights, the Naga Women’s Union of Manipur, the Naga Mothers’ Association, the Naga Students’ Federation or the solidarity alliances like the North East Human Rights Coordination Committee, Northeast People’s Alliance on Trade, Finance, and Development, the North East People’s Alliance, to name a few.
Of course, justice is not a goal that can be achieved by simply implementing 33 per cent reservation for Naga women alone. It is not a thing to be coveted and possessed alone by individuals – be it Naga men or Naga women. The Naga feminist dream of justice is based on a collective consciousness of a world where male, female and queer will march together and build a just society together. During the agitation against the reservations, instead of engaging with these voices and the particular history of gender violence and injustice in which they are located, there were continuous attempts to discredit them. During a public protest, a Naga male leader said,
The only women demanding change are spinsters and divorced women, other women accept our system in which decision making is done by men. Women can only take kitchen decisions. We take the big ones.
Should Naga women seek permission from the male members to speak about gender justice? The schizophrenic image of the Naga woman remains a fictitious figure that is nurturing, courageous, sacrificing, moral, hardworking, and docile, carrying baskets on her head, feeding the family, or perpetually serving tea and cooking in the kitchen. They would never be fit as political subjects to enter the tribal councils and customary courts. Naga men adorn their proud bodies with colorful shawls, jackets covered in beads, and neckties with tribal motifs whenever they assemble in hundreds of tribal councils across the hills of Nagaland. These fabric and designs are created by women: the yarn spun around the weaving loom, the designs created with the skill and precision of years of work, and the tassels of the shawls rolled by coarse hands that works the fields and chop the cattle fodder at daybreak.*
Naga women remain a token representative ornament in a photo session after public meetings and are not seen as fit to occupy a chair next to male leaders in the tribal assembly.
In the backdrop of these dominant cultural frameworks about gender relations, the debates about justice and equality during the 33 per cent reservation debate in Nagaland were interpreted as attempts to shame society or shame Naga men. How can the cry for justice and freedom from the lips of Naga women be read as shameful? Today, what kind of justice and freedom do we choose at this crossroads in Naga society? One that excludes the poor and speaks the language of exclusive economic benefits for Naga individuals? One that includes the rich and their network of families and friends? One that solely sees people through the prism of class, ethnicity, and entitlements? What is it that we should call for at this moment in Naga society?
To begin with, if Naga women have to be included within the 33 per cent reservation for political participation, then the existing practice of Naga customary law, practices, and processes that are defined as “democratic” or at times “egalitarian” need to change.
What kind of change can we call for? We can begin a process of working towards a Naga democratic system that calls for an end to militarisation, violence, and demand the repeal of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (1957). The existing militarised Naga society we have come to accept as normal is an exceptionally soul numbing system that Naga men and women alike have had to endure every day. During the 33 per cent reservation debate and agitation in Nagaland, Naga youth patrolling the streets with sticks and other weapons, destroying public buildings, and using aggression and violence to humiliate and subjugate voices of dissent, exposed how experiences of militarisation under extra-constitutional regulations like the AFSPA had been internalised by the Naga public to regulate and control their neighbours and friends. This included the fear, digital censorship, apathy of the state authorities, and the charged violent atmosphere across the state. The political crisis witnessed during this period underlined the foundations of Naga militarisation.
One of the issues about the violent protests around the 33 per cent reservation was related to the media coverage. Irrespective of the criticisms against national and international media who covered the issue in Nagaland, we need to recognise that the issue of gender justice did come up. Naga people have to engage with the national and international community as our interlocutors and allies. We cannot afford to push away and ignore the disturbing issues about Naga society that some journalists wrote about.
I would instead argue that the 33 per cent opposition and the culmination of the violent protests in Nagaland made us realise the importance of feminism as an ideology. Naga men and women alike who participated in the debates about gender justice felt the need to extend these conversations. At this hour, we need to recognise the importance of tribal feminism, justice and the need to conceptualise these terms and processes. The debates that have emerged though the agitation should push us towards a political tradition in Naga society that shakes the foundation of inequality and unjust practices that exist under the cloak of Naga culture. This is the time to create a form of Naga gender justice that becomes a norm and ignites conversations about addressing many more political issues such as racism, discrimination, and the rights of tribal migrants in contemporary India.
This is not the time to be ashamed as Naga people because of the crisis.
It is a time to reflect and connect; examine our political foundations, build alliances and solidarities to talk about justice across the region and beyond. To be honest, we cannot expect a radical change in Naga society through electoral politics.
History stands as a witness. Even if we implement the 33 per cent reservation, unless the municipal council as a system embraces the principles of gender justice, includes the Naga poor, single mothers, widows, unemployed youth, and speaks for the old and the marginalised from all backgrounds including the poor non-Naga migrants and traders, the moneyed groups and power hungry elites will continue to dominate Naga lives.
Despite this, I feel that this is a wonderful moment in Naga society when every man, woman, and youth has read the Nagaland Municipal Act, the Constitution of India – especially Article 371 (A), and has knocked at the door of the Bar Council of Nagaland to hold discussions about the legal implications of the act. In every locality, there are small groups of men and women sitting together rebuilding trust and reaffirming their support for gender justice. Imagine hundreds of such small groups coming together to form a joint common vision for a just Naga society!
However, failure to recognise the existing militarisation and violence will obstruct a shared vision for a Naga just future. How can we live under extra-constitutional regulations like AFSPA, have ceasefire camps with stagnant peace talks, and pretend to fix our society? Until we continue our demands for a political resolution of the Indo-Naga political conflict and demilitarisation of Naga society, we cannot rebuild Naga society.
The logic of protecting Naga women from the dangers of politics, public office, reservation, and all kinds of activities cannot be based on an Indian state-like militarised strategy; to impose a cultural and traditional curfew and incarcerate them within the limits of the four walls. Lest we forget, let me remind you of the logic of the Indian state.
Today, Naga women can work for charities, as volunteers, or household heads but purely for utilitarian purposes. As long as the face of the political sphere in Naga society is a Naga male who outlines and defines what constitutes Naga culture and tradition, the patriarchal status quo is observed.
Such hierarches, among other things, define what is “important political work” and all other things, thereby reiterating how understanding of tribal power and authority is extremely masculine in Nagaland. For long, Naga people were defined as emotional, childlike, barbaric, wild, and savages.
Only guns and bullets from the Indian state could tame them. If this same logic is used by the Naga leaders and male tribal bodies on the Naga women/the poor/and marginalised sections of the society to rule them, we have successfully adopted the master plan and replaced the vision of a just future with a broken and violent mechanism.
Today, we are yet to hear the name of a Naga woman who will lead the Indo-Naga ceasefire talks, become an advisor to the Naga Hoho, the arbitrator at a Naga customary law proceeding on divorce, the wise head in a property dispute between two brothers, the head of the Naga Forum for Reconciliation, the Chaplin who prays for the Chief Minister, or the leader of the Christian churches (across denominations).
Naga people (both men and women), scholars, activists, and practitioners across the fields (churches, education, government offices, cultural associations, and women’s bodies including youth clubs) need to recognise that a feminist tribal ideology can achieve a meaningful framework of gender justice and peace. Feminists in the women’s movements across the region have shown us the courage and wisdom to create political alliances across class, ethnicity, race, caste, generation, gender stereotypes, and beyond territorial and nationalist boundaries to dream of a new just world based on equality and a habitable future. As a Naga feminist, I remain hopeful that we are able to resist the money, power, and attractions of authority wrapped in Naga patriarchal and traditional cloaks.
How should I articulate this hope? What is the foundation of this tribal feminist politics?
These questions take me back to the memories of my mother in the kitchen preparing for my departure to Delhi for my undergraduate studies. In the days preceding my departure, my mother would become obsessed with making pickles and smoking beef and pork for me. Roasting chillies and frying the dry fish, she spent a considerable amount of time in the kitchen working and making my food parcel. As a single mother in her '50s who worked at the department of information and public relations, she kept to herself and avoided the Naga public sphere where males and females participated, which was predominately the tribal church gatherings, weddings, and festive occasions.
I read her action as a mark of individual protest. Institutions – be it religious assemblies or cultural bodies – that humiliate the poor, widows, divorcees, and the dispossessed – are best avoided, her actions seemed to indicate. In the last twenty years since then, my mother and I have continued our conversations about what it means to be a Naga woman. Can the kitchen be part of the public sphere?
Domestic work such as making pickles, cooking, and cleaning is not defined as work in Naga society. The labour of Naga women that goes into feeding the family, preparing a feast, or the routine sessions of serving are naturalized as feminine qualities that women ought to possess. Such conceptions of domesticity and labour add a layer to the traditional divide of the private and the public sphere.
For opponents who argue that Naga women should not be allowed to have equal decision making powers in the apex tribal councils, they perceive the domestic world as an extension of tribal femininity and erase it as a site where important decisions and activities take place. But the presence of working Naga women in the paddy fields, markets, public offices, and the professional world of research, engineering, business, and media, means that the public and private divide created and upheld by male members in the traditional councils is continuously blurred.
Instead of rejecting the private sphere as a realm of domesticity and femininity, Naga women have embraced the security and comfort of being at home after a long day at work. In this context, the home has become an important place to locate new political debates about sexual violence, unemployment, livelihood issues, and emerging forms of masculinities and insecurities in Naga society. For instance, the figure of the unemployed male member in the family attracts more negative comments from relatives and neighbours as compared to the female siblings.
In this respect, the assumed expectations of the Naga male members to live up to their traditional duties as prescribed by a dominant tribal patriarchal framework only seem to obstruct a democratic dialogue about gender justice and equality. Therefore, the moral reasoning and values of Naga society cannot be founded on inherent principles of gender inequality. If Naga men and women alike are considered as subjects under customary law, the cultural and traditional argument from their opponents I have elaborated in this essay to uphold the existing practice of all male membership simply falls apart.
(Excerpted with permission from Zubaan.)