Nagaland has been unusually noisy lately over forest department controversy, the Nagaland Liquor Total Prohibition (NLTP) Act, and the Naga political issue.
(A Communicative Reading of Present Naga’s Digital Discourse)
A tragedy, a controversy, a government statement, a counter-statement, a social media post, a demand for inquiry, and another response. The subjects change, but the pattern increasingly looks familiar. We are never short of something to say. But there is a more uncomfortable question we should ask: In a society where everyone is speaking, who is listening?
Nagaland has been unusually noisy lately. A liquor tragedy, a forest department controversy, questions about the future of the Nagaland Liquor Total Prohibition (NLTP) Act, arguments over who has the right to speak on the Naga political issue, and disputes over government recruitment and education. Statements are issued, counter-statements follow, organisations respond, social media reacts, and within hours another controversy appears.
The question becomes particularly serious when the subject is human life. In September, Nagaland witnessed the deaths of people in Tuensang and Mokokchung districts following the suspected consumption of spurious or adulterated liquor. By September 26, reports placed the death toll at 19—11 in Tuensang and eight in Mokokchung. Police formed a Special Investigation Team, arrested several people, and seized nearly 3,000 bottles of suspected adulterated liquor. Forensic examination was also being pursued to establish the precise cause and nature of the deaths. The tragedy immediately reopened an old Nagaland question: What has prohibition actually achieved? The NLTP Act has prohibited the possession, sale, consumption, manufacture, import, and export of liquor in Nagaland since 1990. Yet the existence of prohibition has not meant the disappearance of alcohol. The recent tragedy has again brought into public conversation the black market, bootlegging, enforcement, and the possibility of dangerous adulterated liquor reaching consumers.
Even the official machinery has acknowledged the complexity of the problem. At a review meeting in August, the Excise and Prohibition Department identified porous borders, manpower shortages, and persistent demand for illicit liquor among its enforcement challenges.
The public debate will continue. Some will demand stricter enforcement. Others will question prohibition itself. Others will ask why a law that has existed for more than three decades has not prevented such tragedies. All these questions deserve to be heard. But they should not drown out the first question: How did people die, where did the liquor come from, who supplied it, who distributed it, and what can be done to prevent another death?
The same problem of communication appears in another recent controversy. A wildlife-related case involving Vezhoto Hesuh has generated allegations of improper detention and an alleged demand for INR 1 lakh. The Western Chakhesang Youth Organisation and other groups have called for an independent inquiry and asked the Forest Department to disclose the alleged offence, the statutory provisions involved, the case details, and the legal basis for the reported monetary demand. The organisation has also filed an RTI application seeking information.
Here again, social media and public discussion can move faster than the facts. One side says enforcement was justified. Another questions the procedure. Others question whether the reported amount had a legal basis. Still others bring Article 371(A), customary practices, and wildlife protection into the discussion.
These are serious questions. But an allegation is not yet a finding, and a denial is not yet an investigation. What is needed is documentation. What offense was alleged? Under which law? Who was authorised to act? Was the amount actually demanded? If so, on what legal basis? Was it a statutory compounding amount, a value assessed under another provision, or something else? These questions are not attacks on the Forest Department. They are questions necessary for public trust.
Something similar can be observed in the continuing arguments surrounding the Naga political issue. Recent remarks concerning whether particular individuals have the right or authority to speak have generated responses from political figures, village organisations, youth bodies, and student organisations. Once again, the communication environment becomes crowded. A statement produces a response, the response produces another response, an organisation issues a statement, another organisation replies and social media compresses all of this into a few lines, a photograph, and perhaps a video clip. Before long, the original issue can disappear beneath the reaction to the reaction. This is something we need to think about carefully. We often imagine communication as simply the exchange of messages between people. But the environment through which those messages travel also changes the character of communication.
A newspaper report gives us one pace, a public meeting gives us another, a WhatsApp message moves differently, Facebook and other social platforms reward immediacy, visibility, and reaction, a short video can circulate before anyone has established its context. The result is an environment in which speed can easily become more valuable than understanding. This does not mean social media is the problem. Nor does it mean people should stop speaking. Public criticism, questioning, and disagreement are necessary in any healthy society. The problem begins when reaction replaces attention. We forward before verifying. We comment before reading. We choose a side before understanding the allegation. We remember the most dramatic sentence and forget the qualification that followed it. And because every new controversy arrives through the same communication channels, one serious issue quickly pushes another out of public attention.
Nineteen deaths can become yesterday's news. An INR 1 lakh allegation can become another social media argument. A debate about political speech can become an exchange of organisational statements. A crisis in education can become another press release. And then something new arrives. This is one of the most important communication questions facing Nagaland today. Not simply: How much information do we have? But what kind of communication environment are we creating?
A healthy public sphere needs more than freedom to speak. It needs habits of listening, verification, context, and responsible attention. When people die, we need facts before theories. When an official is accused, we need investigation before condemnation. When a citizen is accused, we need due process before public judgement. When political questions are debated, we need space for disagreement without turning every disagreement into a battle over who is allowed to speak. And when information travels through social media, we need to remember that virality is not verification.
Nagaland does not have a shortage of voices. We have journalists, churches, student bodies, tribal organisations, civil society groups, government departments, politicians, academics, and ordinary citizens—all participating in an increasingly dense communication environment. That can be a strength. But only if we learn to do something that the digital environment does not always encourage: pause.
Pause before forwarding. Pause before condemning. Pause before defending. Pause long enough to ask what we actually know. Because perhaps the deepest communication crisis of our time is not that nobody is speaking. It is that everyone is speaking at the same time—and we are slowly losing the ability to listen.
Mughalu T. Kinimi