Nagaland’s Hornbill Festival, launched in 2000 as an all-in-one and one-in-all mother of all Naga festivals, has indeed come a long way from Kohima’s well known Khouchiezie (local ground) to Kisama Heritage village some 12 kms away between Phesama and Jakhama. The very name ‘Hornbill Festival’ conjures a scenario of thousands of people both from within India and beyond, visiting Nagaland during the first week of December. This is the principal objective of the Hornbill Festival- promoting interest to lure interested tourists to visit Nagaland. On its part, the government has been widening the activities at Hornbill Festival beyond cultural, fashion, motor rally, agricultural, music to I&T etc. All these items packaged within a 10-day event is exciting and exhausting. Just like a week-long street market or night bazaar which are quite popular among more than half the population who are in the age group of 35, there has to be a long term vision to promote not only night bazaars but enterprises. In the same manner, the long felt desire for making Nagaland as among the top tourist destinations in the north east, clarity and commitment instead of only mouthing platitudes which politicians are used to. Nagaland has more varieties of flora and fauna including different climates between the hills and plains than Sikkim. However, today Sikkim has advanced far ahead of Nagaland not because it has better ideas but mainly because it has applied its ideas into a robust implemented policy. One of the reasons why Sikkim is peaceful is that democracy is thriving in a vibrant way. Good governance has been the keyword of every state which has achieved the desired level of economic development. In order to create a wider platform for tourism, Sikkim has harnessed its natural bounty for sustainable development through village tourism. Nagaland also has many areas which have acclaimed natural beauty and varieties of vegetation including wildlife. The creation of mini-hornbills involving the celebration of major festival of a tribe in each district can be expanded to promote village tourism. The state government could also introduce eco-tourism with the village involved where tourists resting places and spots can be set up. Tourist villages which are identified can also include promotion of growing organic products as part of the activity. All villages in Nagaland can in the same way be encouraged to be part of the tourism plan and obtain benefits through central schemes. By eco-tourism, visitors can travel to villages of interest to seek the natural areas with the specific objectives of learning, admiring and enjoying nature and its wild plants and animals as well as local people’s cultural aspects including religious monuments, while conserving the natural and social environment, and improving the welfare of the local people. Tourism involves movement of people and for which roads and infrastructures have to be of the desired level to facilitate comfortable travel and stay. Tourism in a broad way is about improving the welfare of the people and their lives, the objective which needs to be understood in the context of the Hornbill Festival. This would also mean less of the VVIP culture that surrounds and suffocates Hornbill Festival into VVIP event and more of people-centric tourism. Perhaps as Hornbill Festival has travelled from Khuouchiezie Kohima to Kisama to other districts(as mini Hornbill) it will ultimately reach tourist villages as the final destination.
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