Nagaland: The Safest Place In India For Women

What is it that makes Nagaland the safest place in India for women? Sneha Bhura travels to the northeastern state and finds that reality doesn’t always tally with statistics.

- Sneha Bhura

   

Dimasa seems quite the life of a party. A 28-year-old musician from Dimapur, the commercial nerve centre of Nagaland, he can fire up a crowd of giggly teenyboppers and reserved grownups with his perky singalongs. On this cold December night, he has magically whooshed in to bedazzle a karaoke stall in a rollicking street market along the central square of Dimapur. It’s a road that runs behind ruins of the 13th century Dimasa Kachari kingdom, and is peppered with small stores and clandestine booze joints. Jaunty and self-assured in a Fedora-like hat and a well-fitting beige jacket, Aakki regales a growing posse of young boys and girls—squished around the computer monitor—with a popular Bappi Lahiri number, sometimes leavened with Nagamese. No one seems to be ill-at-ease or jostling for space. The crowd is singing their hearts out, even with a patchy internet connection fouling up the lyrics on YouTube—with Aakki’s liquid movements in the spotlight. He has the air of a local celebrity about him.