Colloquium on legal awareness pushes for Uniform Inheritance Act

Staff Reporter
DIMAPUR, APRIL 30

Opportunity has been placed before Naga menfolk – the traditional custodians of Naga customary laws to help their women take collective ‘first great step towards gender liberation and emancipation.’
The Nagaland State Commission for Women (NSCW), since the past few years, has been pushing for a Uniform Inheritance Act that seeks the right of a daughter/wife to inherit acquired/joint properties. The intention of the NSCW is to meet the Naga Hoho and the ENPO very soon to seek their support, according to NSCW Chairperson, Dr Temsula Ao.
She said that the proposed Uniform Inheritance Act does not seek inheritance rights for daughters/wives on ancestral properties.
Speaking at a seminar on legal awareness about domestic violence in Dimapur today, Temsula said that this proposed Act, if legislated, would represent “the first great step towards gender liberation and emancipation” for Naga women.
“We need the help of the tribal hohos,” she said. To illustrate her point, she cited a case of a widow and her daughters who were forced to vacate their home after the male siblings of the dead husband took ownership of all properties since they had no son.
“Isn’t that a grave injustice? Not only in front of men but also in front of god,” Temsula posed. In this particular case, she said, it was not just denial of inheritance but also of basic human rights of the wife and her daughters.
She reasoned that the relation between Naga men and women doesn’t have to be like that of “India-Pakistan” when it comes to customary laws. There can be enough space for the Naga women without diluting the customary practices, Temsula said.
On incidents of domestic violence in Naga society, she observed that most Naga women do not like to take legal recourse. The law, she reminded, has guaranteed protection for women against harassment, ‘in theory.’
The legal consultant for NSCW, Khriesinuo Kire presented a brief discussion on the Domestic Violence Act during the seminar. She said that domestic violence in Nagaland is a “disturbing topic” because it is something that occurs inside a family.
So the act of disclosing it or “taking it out in the open” is almost immediately seen as an act of betrayal by the other family members including the women, Kire said. As such, she informed, of all the crimes domestic violence continues to be the most unreported case in Nagaland.
She also explained that the Domestic Violence Act covers protection from abuses in the form of physical, sexual, verbal, emotional and economic. It applies to live-in relations as well, Kire informed.