This is a recollection of memories and incidents that were written a year ago on March 05, 2015 along with my observations as the year progressed after the incident (originally posted back in 2016 in my old website)
It all started amidst the wedding. What I thought were neighbourhood cheers were those of young boys and girls clad in recognizable uniform marching down the road in a protest. Laid back and sombre, I thought them a bunch of young birds flocking together. I left it there. There was a wedding to get back to. The marchers disbanded just as we were packing up the wedding remnants. A voice in the crowd murmured the danger this might turn into and ushered herself along with some names she called out loud back into the house. What had happened?
The day after started as it usually does. The morning hours were lazy and noisy but the evening was scarred. It was when the news started coming in. The student protest that I witnessed was a solidarity march (returning from Deputy Commissioner’s office) against an alleged rape incident on January 26. The victim was a 19-20 year old female student from Jain College, Dimapur. The alleged rapist was then accused of being an “Illegal Bangladesh Immigrant” or IBI.
The incident
On the afternoon of March 5, the central jail in Dimapur had its Bastille moment as a mob stormed in and succeeded rather easily in breaking out a prisoner, the alleged rapist. It is difficult to imagine law and order could be as ineffective but put mob mentality into the equation and that sheer force is unmatched. There were, however, unconfirmed reports flying around about how the police willingly aided the mob in acquiring the prisoner.
Reports said that the crowd had pierced out the prisoner’s eyes. He didn’t last this ordeal along with being flogged and dragged with ropes and he died in that long walk from the jail to the town centre. When the mob reached the town centre, they decided to hoist up the prisoner’s dead body on the clock tower (situated in the town centre). In an insignificant part of the tower’s foundation, they tied him up and they had just begun to lift him up when the police intervened. This was told to me by a young boy on the morning of March 6 when I went to the site of this inhumane act. He said he was there in the thick of it and showed me the exact spot. When the police intervened, the mob began to burn the police cars. He seemed to have been there till the end because he said the police took away the body. Listening to an eyewitnesses account, I asked him a question anyone would’ve ask: “what was going on in your mind?”
His reply was a casual smile.
Read official news reports: BBC World | IBN Live | TIME | Huffingtonpost.in | Firstpost.in | Open Magazine | Scroll.in | Indian Express | The Hindu
Whether this is a politically correct term is debatable. The common slang word for such a person is a miya. These migrants are said to have emigrated from Bangladesh to various parts of the North East and it’s wouldn’t be correct to classify them a ‘minority’ as their population not only continues to increase but also adopt the citizenship of the state that they now inhabit.
I had seen the burning cars the night before. March 5 was a cool evening and my family sat outside discussing the situation. Phones were going off simultaneously with calls conveying information. The cool March air felt unsettling with a full moon and the smoke from the burning leaves moving hazily and haphazardly in the background. I sat there digesting the incident, trying to grasp the situation. Our conversations would fade out as we heard the gun shots. I remember thinking if this place really was home.
I persuaded and pushed my sister to ask my father permission to go out near the site of the incident. He agreed (with heavy-hearted hesitation). The streets were dead but you could feel there was something not quite right in the air. A discontent. Groups of youngsters, men and women, filled little pockets on the streets. As we got closer to the scene, the crowds grew larger and additionally rowdier and we could see that some were drunk. We had initially decided to go till the main Lotha Baptist Church which was just 200 meters away from the clock tower but seeing fire in the distance, we stopped about 300 metres before the church. My sister could feel the blaze of the flames. I think I was much too overtaken by what I was seeing to feel the sensation of the heat. I approached a group of five young boys who informed us that the fire in front of us was the burning of three police cars by the mob. The boys warned us not to get too close especially with the car as the mob was evidently going out of hand. They also reported having seen the police come on to the scene. I walked about ten steps ahead to get a clearer shot and saw of group of older men always standing there. I spoke to them too and they also confirmed the information given by the prior group. From the short conversation I had with them, they wanted no part in this.
We heard some more gun shots before heading back.
In the morning after the ordeal, we saw the scorch marks on the road where the cars were burned. We also saw the exact spot at the clock tower where the prisoner was being paraded. His blood clearly marked the spot. The cleaning process had begun and there was a ridiculous number of shoes being swept up away on site. In the bundle, I distinctly remember pink slip-ons, hundreds of ordinary Bata rubber slippers including those of children, comfortable old men and women canvases and one side of a black Chuck Taylor.
The next few months became a wretched merry-go-round of a “who-dun-it” story. The alleged rape victim was reportedly not 19 or 20 as it as first claimed but in her late-20s and definitely not a college girl. The alleged rapist was proved to be an Indian resident and not an IBI. It also pointed to a tale of extra-marital affair and blackmail with a 2 lakh sum involved. The alleged victim was said to have committed suicide but later it turned out that it was in fact the alleged rapist’s wife who committed suicide. Both were dismissed as lies. Somewhere along the next few months, while the tension was still prevalent, the story about the rape in itself and the victim was lost and forgotten. Whether the rape really did take place is now debatable.
Exactly a year later today (05/03/2016), a headline in one of the major dailies reports “March 5 Inquiry: JIC drawing to a close” and that they are “likely to submit final report to the govt on March 11”.
In all honestly, I expected all three dailies (our subscriptions are to Nagaland Post, Nagaland Page and Morung Express. There are a couple of other dailies out there) to carry a story on the aftermath but only Morung Express carried a follow up. I’m not sure if this is an attempt to forget the incident or if they plan to dedicate all pages of the Sunday newspapers to it, but as March 5, 2016, March 5, 2015 is evidently buried in memory.
That night raised several questions and social media didn’t help. Being part of ‘new media’, I sometimes wonder if it does more bad than good. Call it what you may: ‘online activism’ or ‘citizen journalism’. I like to think of it as an unofficial smear campaign. We hide behind the guise of professions that do real work, that do good work. Of course not all activists and not all journalists are ethical nor do they follow the guidelines but taking it upon oneself and crown oneself the spokesperson of this affair and begin writing foul messages using crude language isn’t entirely the path. That night, I remember going on twitter and reading terrible things.
I am quite detached to Nagaland owing to the fact that I never grew up here so there was no issue of taking things personally. More so, it was also a question of objectivity and having stepped off fresh from the news reporting boat, my focus was ‘facts, facts, facts’. But people were being generic and this is something I battle against social media on a daily basis. We have free will. We have our rights as humans (not just being a citizen of one country) to say what we want without having to worry how it might affect another person because, standard answer: “you know, it’s my opinion. I don’t care”. I wish we did care. Mind you, I am just isolating the March 5 incident but we very well know the power of social media and what it can do. Case in point, the Arab Spring. Period. I may be more of a twitter person but if Facebook were a county, it would be the third-largest country in the world. I always underestimate the power of ‘new media’ because I believe in the ethics of ‘old media’ but unfortunately, the world moves closer to a new media domination.
Thanks to ‘new media’, the story was caught by every form of Media –national and international, real news as well as Daily Mail and it created a frenzy.
I hated that the story was worked up with a religious angle. In general, I hate stories that have religious undertone, especially in India and regarding India. There is already a rift (the current BJP government adding more fuel to fire than subduing it) but because religion causes such high sentiments even among those who claim to be non-practitioners and non-believers, it’s almost becoming a media gimmick. The attention of the national media (every channel) that night was focused on the banning of “India’s Daughter”, the story based on Nirbhaya. It was only hours later that the Dimapur situation was mentioned. Without too much information, it showed up on the rotating headline bevel and that was that for the night. And then it began. Thank you twitter activists from around the country (including neighbouring states) who have never been to Nagaland spreading communal hate. Thank you rumours about the demolition of the 109 year-old Jama Masjid. But most of all, thank you Nagaland for your age-old “Nagaland for Christ” claims and killing a man.
The argument from the side of the Naga’s was of the alleged rapist being an “outsider” and more so, an illegal immigrant. The augment from the rest was that he was targeted for being an outsider and a Muslim. I am not sure who deserves more points for being wrong. Seeing as the religious angle is already attached, I wonder now what the mothers and fathers, uncles and aunts who took children along that night tell the kids. The ethos of the bible is about love and forgiveness. But we are hypocrites and a fair number from that night probably sing the loudest in church and point at everyone else being sinners. But if such acts were met with cheers, it will be embedded in the psyche of the children in days and years to come.
The Muslim community of Nagaland were overtaken with both fear and anger but I’d rather focus on the real issue here: the Nagas. The failure of the Nagaland government and the church as an institution and in turn, the failure of the people.
First, it was about blaming it on the alleged rapist and him being an IBI. Even if that were true, whose fault is that? Why is the influx of illegal immigrants not kept in check? The immigrants are willing to work for menial jobs as well as measly pay. Naga’s on the other hand have too much pride and are overtaken with laziness so these immigrants are their godsend. It also doesn’t help that there are cases of these immigrants being adopted and given Naga names and are shielded for any wrong doings. A social group Survival Nagaland was formed in 2014 “to act as pressure group to address the issue of ‘unchecked’ and ‘unmonitored’ influx of illegal immigrants in Nagaland especially Bangladeshis which apparently hit the 5 lakh figure in the state”. Survival Nagaland, however, was at the heart of the controversy being accused ofinstigating the students that led to the protest on March 4, eventually leading up to the March 5 incident.
It always begins with good intentions but these sensitive issues require government ramifications. But where has the Nagaland government been? Newspapers at the beginning of 2015 was all about the power struggle within the Naga People’s Front (NPF), the ruling political party of Nagaland. Headline after headline featured stories about how each tried to topple the other to take the position of ‘Chief Minister’. It was difficult to keep up with the party players and who else would come up with an offshoot (like that of the NPF – Kaito Group). It was a political joke. But this failure is not recent. Some blame the Rio government while others trace it back to S. C. Jamir. All in all, it is a failure of the institution for not taking into account the philosophy of what the government is supposed to stand for. Amidst political dreams and aspirations, speeches, bribes and campaigns, the cause is lost and it is the status and money (as well as personal favours) that becomes much too important.
I include the church here because they too must be held responsible. I am not going against the church nor am I going against Christian beliefs and doctrines. I am a Baptist Christian by birth and later, by choice and I will continue to be but it doesn’t sit well with me that an institution laid down by God is failing (a state) that has been claiming itself as a state for Christ. What did the church, as individual institutions or as a collective, say after March 5? They dwelled on it for a couple of days before releasing a statement. It may not be easy to understand but for Nagas, having grown up within the dominance of Christianity, it still (no matter how ‘modern’ we may think we are) has a very huge impact on every individual. What is said by the church is important and I don’t think they understands that. The churches are so fixated on theological teachings that they forget it’s a secular world they are preaching to and they need to guide the flock, so to speak.
So there we are, the people. It doesn’t help to just blame these institutions. They are made of people and in the end, its people like you and I that causes the downfall. There is no need to get attached sentimentally. It bigger than ‘my people’, ‘my family’, ‘my state’, ‘my land’, ‘my tribe’, ‘my clan’, ‘my church’, ‘my department’. How much longer can we defend and falsify real facts? The simple truth is we are where we are because of our own errors. There is a lack of respect and nobody is willing to take responsibility.
Basic principles: the concept of right and wrong, justice and law. It all fell apart. The youngsters on the streets appeared to be in a dream-like state, a reverie that had overtaken them for that one night. What does the future beckon for them, for us?
An entire year has gone by but memories from that night still has the chilling effect. Chilling. That is by far the only word I can completely associate with the incident of March 5.