Electoral violence has become an unwelcome fixture in Nagaland’s democratic landscape. Recent reports of pre-poll violence in Longkhum and Mangmetong villages, under Mokokchung district, paint a disturbing picture - the death of a young father, damage of 12 vehicles, and two to three houses destroyed.
While such incidents are often framed as political battles between rival candidates, the true burden falls elsewhere on ordinary citizens whose only involvement is the exercise of their democratic right.
When violence erupts during elections, it is not the candidates or party leaders who bear the brunt. Their names may appear in headlines, but their bodies remain safe, their homes unscathed. The damaged vehicles belong to common people. The destroyed houses shelter families who may have little more than a voter ID connecting them to the conflict. The injured are often bystanders, party workers at the lowest rung, or residents caught in the crossfire of rivalries they did not create.
A stark disconnect exists between those who plan political campaigns and those who suffer when campaigns turn violent. Candidates, protected by layers of party-workers, may remain entirely unaware of the activities undertaken in their names. Yet the consequences of violence are borne by individuals who will never sit in the halls of power.
The electoral politics in Nagaland is layered and complex. Between a candidate and a voter stand numerous stakeholders - party workers, village-level coordinators, clan representatives and supporters whose influence shapes outcomes. This structure serves political machinery to mobilize support, distribute resources and amplifies reach. However, it also diffuses responsibility to the point of deletion.
When violence occurs, accountability becomes impossible to trace. The candidate points to supporters. The party leadership blames local rivalries. The stakeholders redirect to clan tensions. And at the bottom of this chain, those who carried out the acts or merely happened to be present, face legal consequences, social ostracism or physical harm, while the architects of the system remain untouched.
This layered structure is not accidental. It disconnects power while distributing risk downward. The tension between rival political groups is often manufactured not at the top, where candidates may barely know each other’s workers, but in the middle, where competing stakeholders clash over influence, resources and prestige or just for a title of being the “supporter.”
Forces found nowhere else shape the political dynamics in Nagaland. The village council, the clan, the tribe - each layer carries weight that can override individual conscience. When a village or clan declares support for a candidate, dispute becomes more dangerous. The practice of “consensus candidates,” though repeatedly condemned as illegal and unconstitutional, persists because the social cost of defiance is too high for most to bear.
This concentration of collective decision-making power means that electoral violence is rarely a clash between individuals. It is a collision between groups, villages against villages, clans against clans, where personal grievances are subsumed into collective action. An attack on one household becomes an attack on an entire community’s honour. Retaliation follows a logic that has nothing to do with democratic competition and everything to do with older codes of collective identity. The result is a political environment where violence is both normalised and impersonal. Those who commit it may feel no personal animosity toward their targets. Those who suffer it may have no personal quarrel with their attackers. Both are caught in a system that uses people as instruments while protecting those who benefit most.
If the current system distributes harm downward while concentrating benefit upward, the corrective must begin at the base. The people most affected by electoral violence, ordinary citizens, low-level party workers, families whose only stake is their community’s welfare, must be equipped with information that allows them to see the system clearly. This means understanding that the call to “support our candidate” may originate far from the candidate’s knowledge. It means recognising that the “stakeholder” demanding loyalty may be pursuing personal advantage dressed in communal clothing. It means knowing that prohibitory orders exist, that booth capturing is a crime, that proxy voting carries penalties, and that no village council has the legal authority to dictate how any citizen votes.
At such a time, education at the grassroots is not merely about legal literacy. It is about cultivating a perspective that distinguishes between genuine community interest and forced obligation. When a person is told that clan honour demands participation in an election-related confrontation, the ability to question, whose honour? at what cost? decided by whom? becomes a form of protection.
Electoral violence in Nagaland requires a shift in the culture of political participation itself - a recognition that the current system affects common people the most. Such a shift cannot be imposed from above. It must be grown from below, through sustained engagement with the communities most affected. Churches, civil society organizations, student bodies and women’s groups have roles to play in creating spaces where the costs of electoral violence can be honestly assessed, where the mechanics of political manipulation can be exposed, and where individuals can be supported in exercising genuine choice. The alternative is a continuation of cycles that have become grimly familiar: prohibitory orders imposed after the damage is done, arrests of foot soldiers while architects go free, expressions of condemnation that change nothing. The people of Nagaland deserve a democratic process that serves them rather than one that uses them. Achieving that outcome will require information, organization and the courage to see clearly what the current system truly costs.
