Nagaland on Women Day: Contrasting fortunes with hope & pain

Nagaland made history with the election of its first women legislators – Hekani Jakhalu and Salhoutuonuo Kruse – to the state assembly, and subsequently, the appointment of Kruse as the first woman cabinet minister, before the election of the first woman Rajya Sabha MP. Important events of – Phangnon Konyak last year.

However, in the same city as people celebrated making history, there were other women who, at least for now, are looking at a bleak future.
“See my hard work burn to ashes”
Elizabeth, 43, from Kohima, had restocked her shop with Naga traditional shawls and mekhala (traditional veils worn by women) for the pre-Mother’s Day sale. But on the fateful evening of February 27, when Nagaland went to polls, her store, along with around 200 other stores, was gutted after a fire broke out in two popular markets in Kohima city.
For the past five years, Elizabeth has been running a clothing shop that deals in traditional clothes in the NN market, one of which burned down.
The mother of three said in a chat, “I borrowed money from people and started the shop. We are a close-knit family. Somehow, I started building a local customer base. and was recovering from the ravages of COVID-19 when this tragic event occurred.

She helplessly watched years of hard work burn as Kohima saw a great fire that day.
Composing her emotions, she recounted the terrifying moment: “I was helpless. I called for help, but we couldn’t get anything. I just saw her go up in flames.”

A small business owner said she will, for now, rely on her husband, a taxi driver, until she rebuilds her business from scratch.
‘Tough fighting in a man’s world’
Kiara Angami (name changed), a 32-year-old government official led a team of women in a village in Kohima district, one of the 387 polling stations manned by women across the state during the 2023 elections. , shared her experience.
“It is always an uphill battle in a man’s world. As a woman presiding officer, some members of a political party tried to intimidate me for proxy voting. Some threatened me if I did not vote by proxy. (voting) tried to teach me my job. I was well aware of my duties. The government trained me to conduct free and fair elections. But I felt that these people tried to intimidate me. Because I am a female officer,” she said.
She said that managing an all-women polling station was a challenge and a healthy learning experience for her.
“We had to stand up for our rights and explain to people. We also had to deal with a male Block Level Officer (BLO) who tried to equate his role to that of a presiding officer. When I asked the BLO to When I confronted him reminding him of his duty, he threatened me and called a political party worker to confront me. Fortunately, women in my team were as vocal as I was, but we Be patient and manage the situation.
On the polling day, a constant fear was hampering the law and order situation at the polling station. “I am happy that we were able to conduct the elections in a fair manner. Our constant thought that day was to avoid any law and order situation. We were also afraid of losing our lives,” she shared.
She revealed that a female police officer leading a team of male security forces at the polling station was “unheard of”. “Even when the leader of the security team, a woman officer, directed and assigned a specific task to the security forces on duty at the polling station, they did not listen,” she stated.
Polling day was full of challenges for the women’s team. But that was not all, the team that reached the village a day before polling also lacked a “usable” toilet.
“We were horrified to find that we could not even step into a school toilet facility that the village council had prepared for us to stay in. As government officials, we had to adjust with any arrangement. But we only needed a basic and usable toilet as we were camping there for several days to perform our duties,” she said.
She said the team was in complete shock when they appealed to the village leaders.

“Then do not attend to the call of nature,” she vividly recalled and quoted a male village leader who responded to his appeal.
Despite being a challenging learning experience for the young officer, she admitted that the stigma against women as the weaker sex continues in modern times even as women were making history in Naga society.
“I’m not a radical feminist. I accept that women and men are different in many ways, and we respect them where it’s due. I think men should respect women and women. Their masculinity should not be overshadowed,” she opined.