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Dimapur Feb. 19 (EMN): In 1991 there was one person— out of more than a population of 12 lakh—in Nagaland then who spoke Sanskrit, an Indian classical language and the liturgical medium of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.
Again, there were seven persons in the hilly Northeast state during that period who spoke Sindhi, another Indic language.
The novel information—at least for the average Naga person—was a digit among figures that were released by the government of Nagaland during discussions in the state’s recent legislative assembly. The information was a fresh input from the otherwise frosty political news that is a common feature of the regional media.
Except for the small elite sections of trading centre Dimapur, capital town Kohima and then emergent towns Mokokchung and Wokha during the 1985-1990 era, majority of the Nagas had not even seen a phenomenon called colour TV and had yet to even hear about an astounding new system called ‘computer.’ The Nissan 4W73 truck of the Indian Army and the clunky Mahindra Jeep were still the only vehicles that cluttered along lonely rural Naga roads.
During the fifth session of the 13th Nagaland Legislative Assembly on February 15, an opposition legislator Dr. Chumben Murry of the Naga People’s Front (NPF) raised an unusual question about a subject that had until then not been heard in the assembly floor in a long time—the legislator sought to known how many non-Naga people there was in Nagaland during three census decades till 2011.
Murry sought from the government recorded figures concerning the Naga and non-Naga populations in the state according to the censuses 1961 to 2011.
In reply, Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, also the minister in charge of Economics and Statistics, furnished the details: In 1961, the state’s population was just less than 4 lakh. Of out it, there were only 126 persons categorised as Scheduled Caste (SC) or ‘Others.’ Three census decades later in 2011, there were more than two lakh (SC) members in the state. See Table-1.
Further, Murry sought figures concerning the breakup of languages spoken by the non-Naga population during the census periods. The government did not have ‘sufficient data’ for the census years 1961, 1971, 2001, and 2011 except for the year 1981 and 1991. The details are in Table-2.
Observers felt that the legislator’s query may most likely have been prompted by ongoing concerns from the public about the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), and the proposed National Register of Citizens, which are being seen as a threat to the indigenous capital.
Leaders of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a major partner in the People’s Democratic Alliance government in Nagaland have often tried to calm fears.
The state’s BJP president Temjen Imna Along, for instance, had said during a students’ programme in January that he was not saying “ILP will completely protect us from CAA but till date, ILP is not properly implemented in the state, and it is our fault.”
Along, also the state’s minister for Higher and Technical Education, and Tribal Affairs, also told news agencies that the Naga people had nothing to fear from ‘outsiders.’
Illegal migrants are a traditionally sensitive topic where mutterings of “non-locals,” “Indians” and “outsiders” are mixed verbal peppers that collectively spice vigorous community conversations. But, never in recent media memory, had there been an instance when curiosity reared its curious head in the assembly hall to ask about ‘population of non-Nagas.’
It is often that media conversations about population economics and industrial structuring in Nagaland often describe legal migrants—who work and engage in business—with the same defining parameter applied to illegally settled populations such as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. This is often attributed to the lack of clear administration of welfare imperatives for legally settled migrants. The state’s nationalist sections’ long history of conflict with the Indian government may also have had an influence on why anyone who is not ‘indigenous’ may most likely be considered an ‘outsider’ by the average Naga.
About 40 ethnic tribes and sub-tribal communities each with its own unique dialect, tradition and customs live in Nagaland. Among it also live what most consider a microcosm of India long forgotten by the larger Indian Diasporas–non-ethnic, culturally daily-wage Indian labourers from Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Punjab, and Tamil Nadu, among other “mainland” Indian states and communities.
However, there are no current data concerning their current population. Population figures from Nagaland about this section are generally based on Census 2011. Officials from the Labour department and the administration of Dimapur district said the offices have no updated data. A response from the Kohima administration concerning the number of unorganised sector workers has yet to be received even after several months of this reporter’s having made a request.
An auto-rickshaw driver in Dimapur, Ranjit Kumar Mandal said there are upwards to ‘lakhs’ of people who have migrated to the state from Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, ‘Oriya,’ and even Tamil Nadu. The state has a considerable population of academic tutors and teachers from Tamil Nadu and Kerala but their population is not known.
‘The government won’t know (about how many people from other states live in Nagaland). Only we will know because they are from our community. Even among the auto-rickshaw drivers (In Dimapur), there must be at least 2, 000 people from my state,’ Mandal said.
36-year old apple seller Shatish Prasadh Jaiswal from Bihar was also queried about how many people from his state might be in Nagaland. He replied there were “many” people from Bihar in Nagaland. More than ‘10,000,’ he estimated.
This article is written by Al Ngullie. It is one of a series of reports published in Eastern Mirror as part of the National Foundation of India Fellowship, New Delhi.