As contentious as it could be, the 74th amendment which provided 33% reservation of total number of seats in urban local bodies to women, is also as controversial with regard to the situation in Nagaland. The Nagaland Legislative Assembly had, on various occasions passed contradictory resolutions to the Nagaland Municipal Act 2001. The Act was later amended in September 2006 to insert the 33% of reservation of seats for women in accordance with the requirements of the 74th Amendment Act. Contentions cropped up when the state, with Article 371A safeguarding its cultural, traditional and religious practices, and land and its resources, was exempted from the 73rd Amendment vis-à-vis the Panchayati Raj institutions, but when Parliament passed the 74th Amendment for setting up of municipalities in the same year, Nagaland was not exempted as its town administrations were not part of customary practices. Elections could not be held in 2010 due to litigation in the courts. The matter was taken up to the Supreme Court by the NMA and the PUCL against the 2013 judgement of the principal bench of the Gauhati high court. Elections to municipal towns and councils, could not be held in 2010 on account of objections from tribal bodies and subsequently in September 2012, the state assembly passed a resolution to exempt Nagaland from Article 243T of the Constitution relating to women reservation. Another resolution was passed by the state assembly in November 2016 revoking the earlier resolution of September 2012 and general elections with 33% women reservation to constitute the civic bodies were notified in December 2016. The NMA had been spearheading the demand for inclusion of 33% women reservation. Unfortunately, women groups in mainland India including rights groups, attacked those against women quota as being purely out of gender bias but not understanding concerns of majority of Naga men and women over concerns that the 33% women reservation imperilled clauses under Article 371(A). Unfortunately, the NMA were blamed for worsening of situation due to their “stringent” demand for implementation of the 33% reservation. Various tribe organisations including the Naga women and mothers groups went as far as to ask NMA members to disband the association. The apex tribal bodies of each tribe also ordered women’s groups of their individual tribes to de-federate themselves from the organization, which since 1984 has been working untiringly to bring the warring factions of the Naga movement to the negotiating table and bring to the fore the impact of the violence on the women, youth and children. The apex Angami women’s organization, Angamimiapfu Mechu Krotho(AMK), the backbone of NMA also withdrew its membership and was followed by other tribes, such as the Watsu Mungdang of Ao women. The Ao Women, it may be recalled was ostracized by the apex Ao Senden for holding a procession in support of 33% reservation for women in 2006. Even the eastern Nagaland apex body the ENPO also followed suit in asking its women to de-federate from NMA. The flip-flop over NMA by the then DAN-III opposition-less government fuelled suspicions and resulted in agitations and violence in Dimapur and Kohima. This forced the government to declare the process to conduct election null and void in February 2017. The DAN-III on December 15,2017 passed a resolution unanimously revoking the provisions of 33 per cent reservation for women in urban local bodies and effectively did a 360⁰ turn in revoking the earlier November 26, 2016 resolution that allowed reservation for women in the urban local bodies. Immediately after winning the 2018 election, the NDPP-BJP government announced the date of the ULB elections with 33% reservation for women even before the dust of the just concluded assembly election has settled. What happened in 2017 when the state was thrown up in turmoil over this issue could revisit and to prevent it, the government should take all on board.
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