Inheritance Of Hauntings Under AFSPA In Nagaland

Just another day in Nagaland, under the shadow of the gun, cowering under unfathomable State brutality

Updated on: 28 December 2021 11:10 am

Inheritance Of Hauntings Under AFSPA In Nagaland

Where are you headed?
to SBI Main branch
Why at this time?
to pick her mom up
Don’t lie ah, you all are very difficult people
…. Satan, he murmured under his breath. ?

It was early 1995. Dimapur, Nagaland’s commercial capital, was tottering with characteristic fragility that usually comes in the wake of a full-bodied tragedy. A few days ago, the town of Mokokchung, just eight hours away, had witnessed a carnage unleashed by the Indian Army that cost the lives of 12 civilians. Six of them, including a child, were burnt alive. Unvarnished blood had oozed from the cracks on the tempered road and flowed into the drains of the main town. The Indian military also destroyed over 80 shops, burning down 48 houses and scores of vehicles, even as they feasted on the women and girls, taking turns to rape them. After all, no one would be held accountable because the AFSPA had granted to them the gift of full immunity from prosecution. A year later, a tyre would burst in capital Kohima, sending troops travelling in a 63-vehicle convoy into a bloodlust that left seven civilians dead and more than 20 wounded. Similar blood in similar manner would fall on the earth from time to time in the perimeters of our ancestral haven, each time burrowing deep scars that changed the way the heart pounded. ?

My mother worked as a banker, 20 minutes away from our suburban home in what is now old Dimapur, and often, being one of the offi-cers-in-charge of the vault, would end up leaving her workplace after most of her colleagues had left. Father ensured that our car, a navy blue 1991 Maruti Gypsy with a hard top, would go every evening to pick her up after the day’s work was done. The designated driver was one of father’s cousins, Aporo T, a man in his late 20s, who would often go off on tangents about every aspect of the world. And when we lost int-erest in his ramblings and he’d realise he had lost the interest of his unwary audience, he would immediately migrate to ghost stories, brandishing the most terrifying folk demons to our terrified little hearts. He would tell us, for example, that there were short dwarf-like creatures called Nungkumvu who lived in a reversed universe to ours, whose sky was our earth, adding that they studied our lives voyeuristically, scrutinising every action of ours, all the while waiting to catch us off-guard, which they did by mimicking the voice of a neighbour’s and calling out to us at unexpected moments. These Nungkumvu, he would say, also carried a pouch which was the source of their power, and if a human was captured by them, he would live in a trance for up to 21 days and then only be rel-eased and returned to the human world. But what happens to them, Aporo?, I would mutter with counterfeit boldness and curiosity, knowing fully well how the story would empty itself. They would go mad. Zvuvai tsunga ka. Mad, at least for some time.

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On that fateful day, I returned from school by 1.45 pm as usual and started about the rest of the day. By 4.30 pm it would become dusk, and that familiar eerie silence would engulf Dimapur. During those days, one of my greatest joys was going to pick up my mom from work. She would buy me comic books, and occasionally treat me to a bag of chips or ice-cream, so with the motive of satiating these wild indulgences, I would beg Aporo to take me along. The streets were often waylaid by army personnel who would stop our vehicle and quiz us with an array of questions, particularly designed to elicit an adverse reaction from us. Often, if a stand-off between insurgents and the army esc-alated, we would have these unnamed but fam-iliar visitors force their way into our homes, open our Godrej almirahs, remove stocked family heirlooms into a mountain they’d create in the middle of a living room or bedroom. We were accustomed to these interruptions in the ebb and flow of our day, perhaps because they were in-place much before we were born, and beca-use these happened so frequently. Every family in Nagaland had some story to tell, a story that carried the same script, differing from another only in terms of the verse. ?

On that day another verse was being written, but this time it had me in it. I had pleaded with Aporo the whole afternoon to take me along, and after much taunting and begging, he agreed to do so on the condition that father would not be informed. On our way, we had to stop due to a traffic jam in one of the intersections. Aporo, as was his custom, stepped out of the car, boisterous in his red shirt tucked under his brown trousers. Just like us, others too got out of their vehicles. My uncle was gone for about two minutes, or perhaps shorter, when he returned running as if he was being chased by a panther. What was the matter, I quipped? Ignoring my taunt, he swerved to the left to a deserted petrol pump and stayed there, asking me to keep calm and quiet. After a few minutes, an army personnel knocked on the door of the car to ask, “Where are you hea-ded?...” The interrogation went along predictable lines till Aporo uttered the word Satan. I don’t recall the sequence of events that ens-ued after this but I remember Aporo being hit by the butt of a gun, the fury of the moment lashing onto my skin, as if I too was hit. Did my uncle forget his driver’s license at home? Did he do something wrong? Why did he have to say satan? Now we were in trouble. He looked at me as if to assure me that it was going to be okay, but I saw the man in camouflage ready to beat him up even more. I hunched under the weight of this assault and hid under the seat. He groaned once more, and then once more. After profuse pleadings and apologies by Aporo, the soldier said he was letting us go because of the child (me). I wonder what would have happened had I not been there. I carried this short experience with me for a long time, terrified of army trucks that would pass our vehicles, terrified of the ruthless animalistic brutality that the army came to stand for. As for my uncle, he became a bit mad for some time. Zvuvai tsunga ka.

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For those of us who have grown up under the thumb of this terror, the Oting massacre is an awakening of the generationalised trauma that we have internalised. And a realisation of how our personal lives are embodied in the political, and for the new generation, this is the inheritance of hauntings.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Inheritance of Hauntings")

(Views expressed are personal)