 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends and my dear students. We are meeting once again. We have a very special guest today. And as we have always observed that most of the time, whenever we invite our speakers, we always learn something new, something different. So today we have a guest who is also going to teach us so many things and we are going to learn so many things. He doesn't need any formal introduction. But as a part of the program, please allow me to introduce Mr. Rupin Sharma, DGP, Borders Affairs, Nagaland. Mr. Sharma is a 1992 batch IPS officer born on the Nagaland cater. He served the state in various capacities as subdivision police officer, additional superintendent of police, superintendent of police, deputy inspector general CIT, additional director general of police, law and order, director general prisons, before being elevated to the post of director general of police, deputy of Nagaland in 2017 to 2018. He brought in massive police reforms of the police in rule of law and rule. He has handed anti insurgency operations, both pre ceasefire and post ceasefire and seen the transition of Nagar insurgent groups to the ceasefire and negotiation stages. He served in the United Nations peacekeeping with Nagar Govina and served as deputy regional commander in the ethnically complex Mosa region of Bosnia. While on deputation to the ministry of external affairs, New Delhi, he handled consular issues like welfare of Indians abroad, foreigners in India, investigation abroad, foreign request to India, besides excitation cases both ways. Mr. Sharma has dealt with all aspects of international cooperation and criminal matters from within police to CBI, Interpol, and also from ministry of external affairs to an Indian mission embassy abroad, giving him a unique experience. While in CBI, he served as assistant director, Interpol, responsible for all international coordination, including investigation and extradition matters. Arrest of Mumbai gangster Abu Salim in Portugal was among the better known of his catches. He has served in the NDA, CBI, and Indian Embassy, and has a thorough overview of the entire extradition process and international cooperation in criminal matters. Mr. Sharma, we are here to help you. Today, Sir is going to talk about Policing in Nagaland, the backdrop, observations, concerns, and solutions. Very complex subject, yet we believe we are going to learn a lot. Sir, I request you to take the charge of this work stage and please take your time. Thank you so much, Sir. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Anurad. And also thanks to Kanal Joy Chaudhary for having sounded me in advance about the program and the invite. A few things before I want to start on the topic. Firstly, I would be happy to answer any questions or queries which may crop up in anyone's mind to the best of my knowledge and opinion. I may not necessarily be true in all cases, but it is going to be my opinion. Secondly, it will be good if we can keep the questions towards the end. Although I don't mind anyone intervening me in between to raise any questions, but it will be good if we can keep the questions towards the end. Meanwhile, you could also send the questions in the chat box, write it down in the chat box. However, the only caveat in the chat box is that after the end of my talk, I would have to go back and read all the questions and again answer the queries. I'm grateful to Dr. Anirudh Babar for the introduction. I don't again claim to be an expert, neither on the policing nor on the customary laws and practices in Nagaland. However, if any examples that I'm giving, even if they are like slightly out of context, it's not because I want to malign anyone or cast any prejudices on anyone. But these are examples which would probably help us to explain better things which exist in the society. They are not, say, always true examples, although some of them can be true examples, but some of them would be like sort of fictional examples of things. Policing, as we understand, is a fairly old concept. However, the modern aspects of policing are not very old. Traditionally, historically, policing has existed in some form or the other, ever from the beginning of the inception of the society. Because when people settle down into groups, into families and smaller groups and villages and the clans, etc., there was some form of norms or group behavior which started getting defined. And to implement those forms of behavior within a group, that group could be a family or could be a neighborhood or could be a clan or a tribe or a village or a set of villages to a district or a country or international law. So, whenever there were groups, certain forms of behavior started getting defined and it was essential that those forms of behavior get implemented. So, to implement those behaviors in the society, there was some mechanism which was required. Now, traditionally, there were no mechanisms like a policing. The behavioral norms in a society were regulated by those so-called, quote-unquote, elders in the society, elders in a village or elders in a group. Actually, these were elders. These were not necessarily always the wiser people in the group, but those were elders in the group. Because it was the elders who would be able to impart to people down the generations what was the norm which was originally conceived of and what was the context in which that norm was conceived of. Now, as we would understand that since groups developed separately, most of the groups traditionally like hundreds of thousands of years ago developed in isolation. Most of the groups started interacting with each other to some extent, but they developed in isolation and when they developed in isolation, it was but natural that their norms also developed in isolation. If not in isolation from the rest of the world, but at least in isolation from others which were too distant from them, distant as in geographically distant from them. This also meant that people living in a certain area had more similarity than people living in different areas in different parts of the world or the country. This is where I again say that between people living in Nagaland and the northeast of India, there is more commonality between them and the people living in the Myanmar side of the border. There is more commonality between the Punjabis. I'm not saying Punjabis as in Sikhs, but Punjabis as in the people who speak Punjabi language. There is more commonality more in common between people who are living in both sides of the border in Punjab and Rajasthan and Sindh and Gujarat with their counterparts in Pakistan than they have with their counterparts in Nagaland. So this is how societies have developed. This is how norms have developed. So people who are living in contiguous areas have more in common. People who are living in areas which are closer to each other have more in common than people living in different distinct parts of the world or in the country. This partly also explains why there is a distinctness of cultures. There is a distinct and unique culture and historic identity of people over which people are preserved over a period of time. The preservation of identity in my view is on account of two things. One is on account of the relative geographical isolation of people living in a particular area. And second is the other part of the continuum, the relative interactivity, interaction and exposure of the same group of people with other people in their surroundings or other parts of the world. For example, Nagaland and the tribes in Nagaland have more to share in common with others in the rest of the country. This is particularly again because these tribes have lived in relative geographical isolation. About 150 years ago, say before the advent of the Christian missionaries, probably about 40-50 years before that there was hardly any interaction of the tribes with others. I would actually be surprised if there were interaction of the tribes in Nagaland with any other communities outside Nagaland. There may have been a certain degree of interaction with people within their own tribes and within the Nagaland habitat areas or the tribal areas, but there was perhaps very little interaction with people in other parts of the country. This was one of the reasons why the society grew up the way it is, how the customs and the traditions got preserved and how the customs and traditions and the customary laws exist the way they are now. Historically also, the basic instinct of all human beings including Nagaland was preservation of the self. The preservation of the self gave way to preservation of a community or a group which was initially the family and then it became the village or the clan. Much later the tribe and the district or the country or whatever the state or the country that we think of now. In Nagaland and in most of the tribal societies in India's northeast and perhaps in all the societies world over where there have been tribal societies which have existed much in isolation from the rest of the society around them. These things, these features are common. Most of these societies are very inward looking with the basic instinct of preserving themselves. So the preservation of identity, the feeling of preservation of identity, the so-called will to preserve the identity is most in a family followed by that in a village because it is in a village that people would want to come together, stay together and live together. So in the current state of Nagaland, where we see things that the village identity is still the strongest identity of an individual. It is not a tribal identity. The tribal identity probably comes second. The first is the village identity. I would not be perhaps going too far to say that the primary identity is the village identity. It is not even the family identity in Nagaland. The primary identity is the village identity and this primariness of the village identity is not so only in Nagaland but it is also in most other tribal societies. It is this village identity where it becomes a macro identity which takes the shape of a range identity or a tribe wise identity and later on it takes the shape of a district identity as we call it now. In all these societies the norms have developed as I said earlier but Nagaland is a case in point where the norms have developed but the primary driving force for the norms to develop is the preservation of the group identity as in a village. So the village identity remains the strongest. So it is the village which controls the behavior of an individual. So initially there was no policing. There was hardly any policing worth it as I said in the rest of the society also. Wherever there were kings in Nagaland perhaps we did not see kings at all but in the rest of the country and the world wherever there were kings there too there was no policing. The function of policing was largely absent. Policing I mean policing in the modern sense of the term. The function of policing were largely absent. The function of policing was only to preserve the state. So since it was the function of policing was to preserve the identity of the state or the borders of the state and the king. It was the army and the armed forces which was the most important element for maintenance of law and order because it was not policing but it was protection of the borders of the state and protection of the identity of the state. So if there is any theft or anything it was not the TGP or the IGP or the superintendent of police or the OC who was to be called into a service to catch a criminal. No, it was the Senapati the army commander who would be called in to perform that function. So all crimes were looked upon as crimes against the state which actually still continues in a modern sense of the state of the term. Even today all crimes which are getting prosecuted one of the parties is the state. The state has taken over the role of the individual once the person gets caught. So that thing is preserved however the only difference is that in the ancient times in the earlier times all crimes were dealt with by a different mechanism which was the army. It was not the police. So the first sort of roots of policing started getting established in say around 13th century where some sort of a Kothwal started getting established. The first police stations in India started getting established in the 17th century like around 1650 to 1680 which was in Chennai and Mumbai. It was only later after the first war of independence which the practitioners call it the mutiny. It was only after 1857 that offenses started getting defined and policing or police as we saw it as we see today started getting any shape. It was in 1861 that the first formal mechanism of policing started getting set up with the inaction or the legislation of the Indian Police Act in 1861. Now coming closer home to Nagaland, policing in Nagaland sort of precedes policing in some other parts of the country and even the Britishers although it is not of the same nature. The Treaty of Yandapo in 1826 gave rise to some sort of a civil police mechanism, some sort of a mechanism although it is not the mechanism that we see today. And then again closer back home the first police station in Nagaland as we see today, the first police station was set up in 1933 which was in Kohima. The north police station Kohima is the oldest police station in Nagaland which was set up in 1933. The second police station probably was the one in East Polistation, which was in 1961. Now in the rest of the country police stations or Kothwali's were set up in 19th century which is like 1861 onwards there were some police stations set up. In Nagaland it was in 1933. So we are quite recent and imagine that now that in Nagaland we have almost 81, 80 odd police stations but about 70, 80 years ago, 80 years ago there was only one police station to look after Nagaland. So things were different then the population was less, areas were far flung so there were many reasons that policing was non-existent in Nagaland. But there was only one police station and therefore the function of policing is new to Nagaland. With this as the background of policing in general and touching upon how it came to Nagaland when it came to Nagaland. Another factor which is important is the rules for administration of justice in Nagaland. The Assam government in 1937 formulated these rules. Most of the rules continue. In those rules since they were made pre-independence period and there was the old criminal procedure court some of those have not been revised to bring them in conformity with the existing laws. So there are some gaps which still exist. But along with that there is the aspect that those rules provide for a definition of police. As per the rules for administration of justice, Nagaland police in Nagaland or the Nagahils is divided into two parts. It is the urban police and the rural police. The urban police interestingly comprises of police as well as the Assam Rifles. And the rural police comprises of all the Ghaubudas and Mazaradas and Chokidhas etc. Now this was again a revelation to me that Assam Rifles is categorized as police in Nagaland. However I am not on this count that it is police but we must understand that the backdrop of policing in Nagaland is slightly different. Except for the first police station which is 1933, all other police stations or police sets in Nagaland were actually started to counter insurgency in some form or the other. Whether it is through Assam Rifles or through the Assam Police they were all through armed police. So therefore we have seen that there is a burgeoning in the growth of the armed police battalions. And the presence of armed police in Nagaland is much more than the presence of the civil police. This probably is the trend throughout the country but in Nagaland this is very different. And the armed police battalions take the cake, the larger piece of the cake in policing in Nagaland. My considered view is that armed police battalions throughout the country wherever they exist are just to aid the civil administration which is the civil police and the district administration. They do not do any policing as such on their own. Their powers of policing sometimes they are defined, sometimes they are not. Their powers of policing and their effectiveness is limited by the extent to which the civil police and the district administration is able to extract work from them. In Nagaland this explains why there is a lot of Assam Rifles in Nagaland traditionally. This also explained why there are 15 armed police battalions in Nagaland and there are lesser number of people posted in the police districts in Nagaland. Now part of the reason could be besides fighting insurgency could be that there have been clashes between people, between villages, between two villages, between groups of people where you would need a higher quantity of armed police to counter the, what should I say, the rebels or the rioting parties, you would need a higher quantity of police there. So that is why you would need armed police but armed police just goes in there whether it is armed police of the state government or the armed police which is the Assam Rifles. Because I have seen through my experience in Nagaland that it is the Assam Rifles which is having a very good hold on people which is having a very good idea about the population in the area and they are very quick to intervene because their resources are better than the Nagaland police. So Assam Rifles is of a lot of help to all of us in Nagaland but because these clashes can erupt anywhere therefore we traditionally had a higher number of armed police battalions. But you know this is, this is slightly unfortunate where we send in larger number of people, holds of people, holds of people by way of armed police battalions or by way of Assam Rifles to well disturbances whether it is between villages or between communities or just between two groups of people without any affiliations to any village or anything. These are just bandaid measures, these are just temporary measures to bring peace to that area. The real strong arm of law is not the armed police, sorry. The real strong arm of law is not the armed police, the armed police is only the danda. It is only going to instill a temporary degree of fear and separate the warring parties or the warring groups from each other so as to temporarily bring peace in a rightist situation. The real policing is going to come in there between two warring groups or two combatant groups of people where the police station, where the SP and the courts get hold of the people who initiated a riot or created a problem or committed a crime and they are punished for that act so that there is a lesson drawn by others also. To the best of my knowledge, I haven't heard of any instances where people involved in a riot in Nagaland have ever got a punishment. I may be mistaken but I have not seen of any documented cases where people involved in riots have got punished for instances of rioting between two villages or two clans or between two tribes on account of any issue whatsoever. I have been witnessing riots or clashes between Angamis and I had been witnessing in the sense that when I first came to Nagaland in 1995, there were large clashes, huge clashes almost erupting on a weekly basis between my SEMA and Angami friends in the Rangabahar forest area just because one of them would want to take the land which other things that it belongs to him historically. So the Angamis used to think that that land in Rangabahar area is Angami traditional land where the SEMAs would want to have it for reasons that are known to the SEMAs. We used to go there and intervene and separate the two groups. We used to intervene and destroy the houses or the hut meds built by both the communities. We used to arrest a large number of people. Now when I am saying we, it means police and that police includes police station staff as well as the CRPF. We used to have a large number of CRPF people those days. We used to have Nagaland police, Nagaland police also, but we used to have a large number of CRPFs. We used to catch the Angami and SEMA settlers, settlers if you would call them in those words. We used to call, catch them, bring them to the village, to the police station which was like the Phupar police station those days. Sometimes in terms of hundreds, I remember one day we had caught on almost 200 odd people. And of the day we would catch them, arrest them, keep them in custody for a day, next day they would be produced before a magistrate, they would get bailed out. But even from those cases from 95 to 97, I would be surprised if any one of those who were arrested by the police for either writing or squatting on a property or anything like that. Anything would have been punished for any offense. The result was, since a criminal act is not being taken to its logical conclusion because by way of punishment, the deterrence of the law is not there. So nobody is afraid of getting caught because the repercussions for him in legal terms are very less. So this more or less is spread to the entire state. It's a situation which exists in most parts of the state. There are, even among the Yamchungar and Chang clashes and the Simbisitimi in the Khufri district. Yes, there are people who are caught, but they are temporarily caught as under-trial business and then they get bailed out after a month or two months or three months. And after that, I would be surprised, in fact, I would be happily surprised to know if any trials have started and anyone has got punishment. So what I mean to say is that the armed police which exists has become the face of policing, which actually is not the face of policing. I'm not saying anything against armed police. I'm saying the real face of policing is the real duty of policing is to catch a criminal. One is the preventive aspect. The other is to catch a criminal and take it to the logical conclusion which is to get him punished for the offense which he has done according to the law. So there are gaps and these gaps exist because in our society, again, no casting of aspersions on anyone, any tribe or any person, but in Nagaland, most people are still living in a divided world. Our allegiances are divided between whether we should follow the traditional customary law and practices or whether we should go to the normal codified laws as per the Constitution of India. The Indian Constitution gives enough protection to the safeguards, the customary laws and practices and traditions of Nagas. There is no doubt about that. But there are gaps because of that. There are gaps which have an impact on the administration and on the development of the society as such. There is a need to have a look at how things function. Again, not necessarily by changing customary laws, but by having a system where a dispute resolution mechanism is much better where people start getting punished for the wrongs. I'll give you a very small example. Yes, this can be extrapolated to anything which is a recent case, but let me take it from my days as STPO in Dimapur. So as I said that those days due to the Rangapur forest encroachment campaign, we used to catch a lot of people. So imagine that in over a three months period, we caught around say 700, 800 people from both communities. Now, end of the day, they just start getting bailed, say whether it is within 24 hours or 26 or say 10 days or 20 days or a month, they all start getting bailed out. They all would have got bailed out. None of them would have faced punishment. I am very sure if there were 1000 people who were arrested, at least four or 500 of them would be in the government jobs now. Now, my point is very simple. If the law had taken its course and if there had been an adverse police report against them, they would not have got a job. Once they had not got a job, it would have been an effective deterrent for the rest of the people in the society not to commit that same wrong again. This is where the strong arm of law works in a very soft manner by setting an example that if you do something wrong, that wrong will come to haunt you in due course of time. It is not the danda alone. It is how the law will impact you. So just to make things clearer again on this count only, so 1000 people were arrested over a period of say five months, six months, whatever, or say two months, most of them get bailed out. 500 of them apply for a job and get a job. If we do a police verification and the police verification says that he has been arrested in this case, it is no bar to him getting a job. It does not say that you will not get a job but that adverse police report will serve as a deterrent. This is what I am trying to say. Even the governments will be pushed and prodded to make some rules as to what will be the basic parameters of police and incidents verification for a person to apply for a job or not to be given a job. So this will help and if imagine that if this had happened in 95 to 97 when I was STPO and a similar system would have been followed in the state over the period of next 25 years. Next 25 years, how smooth things would have been because we would have made people more and more law abiding without beating up anybody, without torturing anybody but just by showing them that law is important and there is a need for you to follow the law. This is where I also say that there are gaps in policing and those gaps are because, just one second please, this is where I say that there are gaps but those gaps are not filled because we do not take things to the logical conclusion. We just abandoned things midway. Again, no ill will towards anyone, neither in the government nor to the undergrounds. In the early 1990s drug addiction was at its peak in Nagaland. You know how the people were more afraid of? Were they afraid more of the government or the undergrounds? They were more afraid of the undergrounds. Why? Because the undergrounds had adopted a hard approach. I was told that they were chopping off the ears of people who were drug addicts. They would not have chopped off ears of every drug addict but it was just the message that got sent even if they had done it for 2-3 people that this is something which will not be tolerated and the drug addicts came down. On the other hand, the state which is the software of law, which is the authority, we first were not able to catch hold of the addicts. If we were able to catch hold of the addicts, we were not able to treat them properly. We were not able to catch hold of the people who were supplying the drugs. If we were able to catch hold of the people who were supplying the drugs, we were not able to get them punished for various reasons including forensic reasons or lack of evidence to the witnesses turning hostile and so many other things. The drug addiction in Angolan only came down by a trickle because after a while the undergrounds and the police also started coming in conflict with each other. If the underground chops off the ear of a person who was a drug addict, the police will not keep idle. The police will register a case of grievous hurt or grievous injury. So the underground stopped doing it and the police was only registering a case of a crime against an underground who was chopping off the ear. It was with good intent but it was criminal act in any case. But the police was in a way failing in its job of arresting those criminals and getting them punished. So there were gaps because of these gaps because we were catching less number of criminals because we were not able to get everybody punished. Again the gaps kept increasing. This is where our systems started having gaps. Then there was the issue of which we often say in Angolan where a lot of instances of smaller crimes like theft and all, they get resolved at the village level. So I thought to people that somebody was stolen something and the village council and the Gohan Pudad or the village court sit together and ask him to give say 500 rupees or a gauri or whatever. It gets sorted out. Now I have no problem in crimes being solved in that manner. However two issues. Firstly, what is the amount of punishment that a village court can give? That is the first issue. As per my knowledge and as per my understanding of the rules of justice, the punishment cannot exceed 500 rupees. If it cannot exceed 500 rupees I would be surprised if it is interpreted to mean that the punishment would be one pig because the cost of the pig would be much more than 500 rupees. So that is the first anomaly in the situation. If you were to handle crimes in a traditional manner. The second is, even if a crime is to be handled in a traditional manner in a village. Now with modern developments in communications and transport, what is the guarantee that the same person after committing a crime in one village and having given a pig as repentance does not go to another village and commit a similar crime or the same crime elsewhere. Because after all if he is given a pig as a fine, he is incurred a loss. To recover his loss, if he is criminally minded, he will go to some other place and recover his money. So there are issues. I have no problems about the village court's administering justice if it is according to traditional law. But again, administering justice as per traditional law and as per customary laws is a very tricky subject. One could discuss this topic alone over many sessions. One of the aspects again that I would bring out is like, in which cases would the traditional customary law apply? Would it apply to all cases of theft or only to traditional or only to cases of theft, which are of a traditional nature? Let me explain this a bit. What I mean by these two, if it was to apply to all cases of theft, which is like theft as a concept, then it will also apply to theft of a mobile phone. It would probably also apply to theft of a password. It will also apply to theft of money from a bank through an electronic transaction or a Google pay. It would also apply to theft of money or maybe breach of trust of money by sending a fake Facebook link or a WhatsApp link for them to steal money from their account. That is one aspect. So or would it only apply or should it only apply to theft of articles which were in traditional usage in the past? Which means which were in traditional usage in the village? Which again I would clarify would be household utensils, household goods, maybe liquor or modu if people were making it. No, only things or say baddie or crops or vegetables in the fields, it would not necessarily apply to all cases of thefts. No, my understanding or my request to people in Nagaland and people in say tribal societies like Nagaland elsewhere in the country would be if you apply traditional customary laws to theft as a concept, it will be very, very difficult for us to survive and to progress because this is a concept which is riddled with problems. You cannot apply, for example, you cannot apply the traditional concept of theft as a concept to theft of a password. How can you justify? Yes, it is theft, but there was no password which existed in a mobile phone or a laptop 25, 30 years ago. There was no such thing which existed 35 years ago. Now, how can you apply the traditional concept of a theft to something which did not exist traditionally? So, the traditional concepts of customary law and practices in my view should apply to only items traditionally existing in the society as and when new and more items started getting added, those concepts of theft and of traditional laws and customary laws would at some point of time start getting redundant and that would not be relevant. So, yes, you preserve the customary law, you preserve your traditions, there is no harm in doing that. I am all for preservation of all those customs, but by doing that, by applying those traditional customary laws and custom customs, do not allow yourselves to become museums or laughing stock for others. Or, in another way, allow the miscarriage of justice to take place. For example, in the village councils or the village development boards, there was no money coming in. This village development council's thing is only about 60 years ago. The village development council that we, VDCs that we see today, they were not traditional. They were not traditional in concept, they did not exist through ages in a heritory manner. So, if there is embezzlement or if there is theft taking place or if there is forgery taking place or someone is making money out of that, it will be very difficult for you people, for people in Nagaland to apply the traditional concepts of traditional customary laws and practices to solve those problems. For example, would you solve a problem where someone has siphoned off say 40-50 lakh rupees from whatever XYZ fund in a village to make his own house or to purchase a car or something and he is caught. And then he is given a punishment of only up to 500 rupees or he is asked to give say 200 or he is asked to give say a few pigs. Recently you have seen that on the Facebook which I also saw it on Facebook and WhatsApp. One of the villages that I think Lankum village, a fine impose was 200 pigs. I am not going into the merits of the case, but 200 pigs is a fine which could be easily termed as disproportionate. So, we have to look at things in a different manner. The progress of the society, the change cannot be stopped by me or you. We have to look at it in a progressive manner. So, what I am saying is that there are problems in the way things exist today. The solution lies in looking ahead. All the modern laws which have been enacted, most of the modern laws which have been enacted have not been enacted, have not been made with a view to trivialize anyone with a view to show anyone in a bad light, with a view to harm anybody, anyone in particular. Most of the laws are universal in nature. They are meant to apply to most people, a lot of people. It is not that a law is only made for Rupinsharma. No, it is made for all people who are in the category of Rupinsharma or all people in India. It is not made for Nagal and only there are, yes there are specific laws, but most of the laws are not like that. Then we come to the village level. Let me touch on the last part of it. What can be done? The solutions part of it. What can be done? How do we integrate the policing in Nagaland and make it more modern? How we can do it? Now, there is no doubt that there is a traditional mechanism which exists and there is a modern mechanism which exists. The traditional mechanism has sort of taken over the role of the modern mechanism in a lot of places. A lot of disputes are getting resolved at the traditional level, which is correct, which is not something wrong. Yes dispute resolution, alternate dispute resolution mechanism need to be worked out and should be vibrant, but there should be limits defined as to what they can do and what they cannot do. Another aspect of this is like, have we have people in Nagaland got the faith enough in the police? It would be a very interesting study for someone to do as to what is the proportion of cases registered in Nagaland by Nagas as well as non-Nagas. I have a feeling that a disproportionately higher number of cases with the police are registered by non-Nagas than by the Nagas. I cannot explain the phenomenon, but one of the reasons can be less trust on the police. Traditionally, I am again, it is not because of any leadership or anything, but because there are traditional mechanisms, alternate mechanisms which exist. So one of the reasons is that people think that it is much easier to go to the alternate mechanisms than to come to the police. However, those alternate dispute resolution mechanisms are not sacrosanct. I have seen cases, I know of cases where alternate dispute resolution mechanisms are making money out of dispute resolution, they are not entitled. Whatever resolution of disputes takes place through their interference has no meaning at all in the eyes of law. However, it is done without any value, it is done and it is done by not even consulting or not even reporting to the police or the administration. Now, since I have now come to the point of reporting, one of the easiest ways of sorting out a lot of these problems is especially from the village level courts. Now, the village level courts, the Baishi courts and the Gampuras and all, they have some sort of an official sanctity as per the laws in Nagaland. However, there is no integration mechanism between the village level courts and the policing, the official policing. So therefore, what needs to be done is that all cases and all matters which are decided or referred to by the village courts, they need to maintain records. These records, after proper maintenance, these records and the decisions need to be conveyed to the local police and the district administration. I have visited a few village courts and the DV courts, the Baishi courts and the Gampura courts. They do maintain a sort of a sketchy register where not too many details are written, very few details are written. Sometimes the decision is written, most of the time it is not. So it's working on the basis of the memory of the people who are handling it. Even if the records are maintained, those records are not shared with the local police. Now, this is the simplest thing which can be done in Nagaland is that all the documentation which is being done by the village courts or the village police, which is the Gampuras and the Mozadas and the Chokidas and all, these need to be shared with the police. This will help because this will help create a statewide database of criminals or people who are deviants in their behavior. And as I said, in the Rangapahad case, this will help act as a deterrent for others. Because if a village or an authority knows that people have created a problem in some place, people in other places can watch out for these deviants. In Nagaland, for all these things and a lot of more things to be done, I think there are a few basic things which need to be done among the solutions. I think although the law provides for a lot of powers, the law decentralizes a lot of powers to the village courts and all. However, the village courts and all are not too much aware of their rights and their duties, rights as in what is the power that they can exercise and duties as in what is the reporting structure. Like if something goes wrong, what do they do and whom they have to report to and under what circumstances they have to report matters, either to the deputy commissioner or to the police or to the judicial magistrate. So the first thing is, I think we need to have a training mechanism. We need to train the people in the village courts and the village authorities about how the criminal justice system and the policing structure in Nagaland works. This will help Nagaland police and this will also help maintain a good degree of law and order and peace in the state. The second is rationalization of manpower. This I have also touched upon a bit. We have in Nagaland police, we have too many people in the armed police battalions. We have a decent number of people in the village guards, almost 9000 people in the village guards. And we also have about say 1200, 1300 people in the home guards, which are all auxiliary security forces. I think there is a need to rationalize this manpower. There is a need to strengthen the police stations, which is where the policing should commence from. Along with this is that the village guards, currently the village guards are only from the local villages and most of them perform duty in a very ad hoc manner. I think there is a need for strengthening this village guards organization, giving them more powers, training them on what other duties they can perform. So that they can be used in a policing environment in a better manner. I think there is also a very strong case for giving powers of special police officers under the police act to the village guards so that they can carry out the policing functions in their own villages. Then the requirement for creating awareness among the public in Nagaland, that alternate dispute resolution mechanisms including those which are invoked because of the undergrounds or various unions or tribal hoses or apex bodies or villages or the village bodies are not official mechanisms. They can be useful only to a limited extent. The official mechanisms, mechanisms which are instituted by the state government are the ones which people need to have more trust upon. Basically, the last part of it I would want to say is that in Nagaland, yes, Nagaland is different in the sense that every district is formed on, most districts are formed on tribal lines and there is one particular language which is prevalent. So you would ideally want an officer from your own tribe to be heading the district. However, officers from the same tribe, whether it is the SP or the OC or the SDPO, they have their own constraints because they get swayed by the local emotions and their own allegiances to their own people or their clan or the village, which could actually prejudice policing. In some states in the country, in fact in most states in the country, it is forbidden for a person to be posted to his home district or his home police station. It is just about time that in Nagaland we should start thinking of a mechanism where probably except for Kohima and Dhimapur in all other places, people should not be posted to their home districts or the home police stations or subdivisions. In a capacity where they can influence decisions. I can tell you that in Punjab and Haryana, you can be posted to your own district as a commandant of a battalion but you cannot be posted as a DC or an SP. This is because, again, in those states, it is the SP which is more important than the commandant. A commandant is a subsidiary job. However, in Nagaland it is just the reverse. So if you were to supplant a similar philosophy in Nagaland, you will say that SPs and DCs and commandants need not be posted in their home districts. Similarly, an OC cannot be posted to his home police station. I think these are small things which will help policing in Nagaland. I think I am done now. I would be happy to take any questions if there are any. Sir, thank you so much for your enlightening talk. Of course, there will be questions. So let me take one question which has come in the chat box from Professor S. Elika Assumi. She asks, in the larger context of the nation, the tag of police brutality is now closely subscribed to the police force. Also, today in the context of Nagaland, we find that the long arm of the law is rather a mockery due to the implicit policies corruption, isn't it? Given this perspective, how do you think the reparations and trust with from the community and people can begin? Sir, your technique. Yeah, Elika, see the long arm of law in Nagaland's context is a mockery not probably because of corruption itself. Corruption can be a secondary factor. I think the primary factor is our not being able to assert ourselves. A policeman in the worst case scenario, a policeman will make money, will be corrupt if he does something. If he doesn't do something, if he is not acting against a criminal, how can he be corrupt? In a case where he is not acting, the only corruption that you can expect from him is sitting at home and taking his salary. So on that aspect, yes, you will have black sheep, but there are redressal mechanisms for handling those black sheep. I can assure you that if there are instances of police officers indulging in corrupt practices, if those practices are highlighted, brought to the notice of senior officers, I am sure that action would be taken. Some action would definitely be initiated against the officers. There are departmental proceedings and departmental procedures according to which people can be taken to task. The second part is, yes, how can you bring the trust with the community? Trust with the community again comes with action on the part of police. If police does not act, if there is no work done by the police, how will you expect people to come to the police? Again, nothing against Nagaland police as such. It's the structure of Nagaland, the socio-economic and development structure of Nagaland, where most of the policing in Nagaland takes place in only three, four areas, which is like Timapur, Kohima, Mokokchang and probably Tiansang. In the rest of the state, there is hardly any policing which takes place. Policing is in the manner of crime, dealing with crime and criminals. There are police stations in the state where we don't have more than 10 FIRs registered in a year and there are about, say, 20 people posted in a year, including, say, two sub-inspectors. If there are two sub-inspectors in a police station and there are just 10 cases in a year, you are just having a workload of five cases to be investigated in a year by a police officer. If there are only five cases which are being registered in a police station jurisdiction, which means that the level of his interaction with the public is very, very low. I would not say poor because poor can be misconstrued but the level of his interaction with the public is very, very low. This level of interaction is an account of two things. Firstly, that people do not have the trust to come to him. That lack of trust can be because people are not aware of the mechanism or the police station is far away from the place of occurrence of the crime or there are alternate dispute resolution mechanisms. So those could be some of the factors. There could also be lack of trust because this person, the gentleman or the set of officers or the set of people in the police station are not reaching out to the public. They are not reaching out to the public for either for policing work or for anything else if we do not go around and mix with people as policemen. If we do not go around and mix with people, we will lose out on a lot of information. We will lose out on a lot of vital information which could easily get converted into a larger crime tomorrow. So my request and my suggestion to the public is go and report more and more to the public and to the police. Once you go and report more and more to the public, you will realize that police is not as bad as it is. Even in Nagaland, it is probably Nagaland police that way man to man is much better than policing in other parts of the country. But if you do not go, you will not realize that police is not bad. On the other hand, it is also incumbent on the police officers to go and reach out to the public and tell them that we are there for you, you can approach us and you can trust us with being fair in whatever you do. So I think this beginning can be made more in the rural police station in the rural area where the number of cases registered is very less because it is in those police station jurisdictions where the police officers have the time to go out to the villages and interact with people or students or women various people from various cross sections of the society to handle or to approach them if there is something which is wrong. I think it will take a bit of guided initiative, guided from the top and initiative which is taken by the ground formations in the Nagaland police but it has to be effectively monitored at the top so that people start going out, reaching out to others and interacting with people. I hope I am able to satisfy Elika on this call. Next please. Sir, let me just intervene in your arguments. When we think about corruption, there is a visible corruption and there is invisible corruption. What we normally understand about visible corruption is basically something to deal with monetary transactions. But as you mentioned, when we think about the tribal angle or tribalism or favoritism or having allegiance to the own tribe and which is subsequently having impact on the basic functionality of the police officers. Somewhere I am compelled to understand this entire complex situation also under the term of corruption. Sir, how are we going to tackle that? On one hand it is your clan, on one hand it is your tribe, on the other hand it is the constitution of India on the other hand it is the police act and the manual. How police officer needs to look at the situation wherein he could provide the proper services to the people? Yeah, I understand what you are saying. I would not say those are like those, that is corruption. But yes, on a very larger broader framework, macro thing, it may be corruption but I would call it prejudices. I think those prejudices should be tackled. I have no doubt in saying that those prejudices should be tackled. If you would recollect towards the end of my talk I mentioned about postings and transfers where people should not be posted to their home areas and home jurisdictions. I think that is one point where a beginning can be made. If I am in Nagaland and I am from Himachal Pradesh, I have no stakes in Nagaland. For me and Ao and Nangami and Sema and Konyakas, all of them are the same. But if I get posted to my home district or my home state, I would have deep rooted interest. Somewhere someone will either know me or I will know someone. In such a situation it is very, very difficult to maintain a degree of neutrality. I recollect and I was under training in Himachal as a probationer officer. I used to face these problems. However, you have to rise above the parochial levels. Firstly, it is upon the officer that he should be able to rise above those levels. Now, since in Nagaland our systems are weak in that regard. In the sense that mostly we tend to post officers to their home districts, people doing their own language or their own tribe or things like that. It is not only at the level of officers, at the level of SHOs, OCs and SDPOs and SPs only. Even if it is at the level of the constable or a sub-inspector in the police station, if there is a reasonable likelihood of being prejudiced, I think we ought to have a system where we can overcome this prejudice. So it is just about high time where we start having a system where people posted in a district are a tribal mix of all the tribes and people who are in a position to take decision which can have long-term impacts are not given assignments where they can take sides. So this is where a beginning can be made by devising a good policy of transfers and postings. On the other hand, if someone, administratively, if someone acts in a manner which is prejudicial, there are enough mechanisms within the police manual or the CR person or even in the police disciplinary rules where a person can be prevented from acting in a prejudicial manner. Sadly, we do not resort to taking shelter of these manuals. Again, another thing, Nagaland is a society which is in the throes of change. Those throes of change mean that a person is happier getting posted to his home district or favoring his own clan or a tribe or a village. In any other place in the country, probably this is something which would be looked down upon. In Nagaland, this is something which people are sort of proud to be doing. I am proud to be favoring my own clan or my own tribe. So this again stems from that old age, that ancient mentality that my village is my preserver, it is my giver. So we have to break those shackles some day. That will only come about through more and more interaction and awareness which we create about people. And also building mechanisms where people don't get posted to their home districts or home police stations or important assignments even in other departments, not only in policing. I hope I am able to satisfy you to some extent. Thank you. Thank you so much. We have another question from, this is coming from Dr. Rimay Longmay. He writes, special provision with respect to the state of Nagaland includes administration of civil and criminal justice involving decisions according to Naga customary law. Is this a reason why many cases were dismissed in the later stage? What is the role of the police vis-à-vis the Naga customary law courts? Yes, I would not say that those are the reasons for cases getting dismissed at a later stage. It's in fact the malice is deeper than this. It is the reason that again nothing against customary law. As I said, I have all respect for customary law and alternate dispute resolution mechanisms. But as I said, the concept of theft cannot be applied to theft of say internet time. That is where the problem comes in. Just because it is a theft of a commodity which is modern. Again, customary law in my view cannot be applied to theft of a car because there were no cars customary. This is where that paradox comes in. This is where that difference comes in. This is where people are not able to decide which side you should go on. This is where people find it difficult to sort of repose faith in the modern law. There has to be a distinction between where the customary law starts and where it ends. And where the modern law takes over. That is one aspect that I am very concerned about. Even among Hindus. Again, let me not talk about Nagas. Let me talk about Hindus. We don't have that Hindu customary law of criminal justice or a civil justice as such. Not in the same terms as Nagas have. Yes, we do have but we have our traditions and customs among the Hindus. However, interestingly and probably in a better light, I think Hindu traditions and customs have only started getting applied in the modern sense to our own cultural life. Most Hindus sort of have discarded the customary traditional laws and practices in anything else except cultural life. Our traditions and customs are more applicable in case of a birth or a death or a marriage or a betrothal ceremony or something. The customary law of Hindus is not applicable for a theft. Customarily, a dowry was probably an accepted thing. But no, Hindus realize the dowry is not good so we give it up and dowry has now become a crime. Similarly for Sati. Again, I don't mince words. Similarly for Sati. For many ages, for many years Sati got practice in the country, in some parts of the country and it was like revered. But people realize it is bad and we gave up and it is now a crime. Similarly, I think societies like Nagaland, tribal societies like in Nagaland and elsewhere also need to probably make a distinction between which areas of life of an individual or a society would be governed by customary law and customary practices and where we would start adopting the modern law. This is where the transition will come in. Is Dr. Rimey there? Dr. Rimey? Hello. Yes sir, I am here sir. Listening to you sir. Am I making myself clear to you on this, what I want to say? There are aspects of... Sir, can I just... Sure please. I just want to add one more point sir. I will come to the policing aspect of it slightly later. But till now whatever I have said, if you have anything on that count in my answer to your query, please let me know. Yes sir, I have just one more point sir. Sure, sure please. I am satisfied with the explanation that you have put forward. But one thing that perturbs me or one thing that worries me a bit is a little... I don't know because of my inability to understand or not. But it seems that there is a need to define the contours or the jurisdictions of the customary law. You are 100% correct. I would take the word police out of it in the beginning. I would say firstly it is necessary to define the contours of customary law. Stop. Policing is a subset of that. Policing will come a step later. Firstly we need to define the contours of customary law. And then we need to define what police role is in implementing that customary law. Am I slightly clearer now? Yes sir, now clearer. Firstly we have to define the contours of customary law. What a customary law can address what it cannot address? As I said, I may be incorrect but this is my view. And I would reiterate this view that a customary law can only be applied to a thing which existed customarily and traditionally in a society. That would be my broad definition of the contour of a customary law to be applicable. Whether it is civil customary law or criminal customary law. A customary law cannot... Let me take it as a step ahead into the civil customary law. Nagas are Christians but traditionally Nagas were not Christians. I agree it has been 150 years, 170 years since Christianity came to Nagaland. But before that customary Nagas were not Christians. So you cannot apply customary law to marriages solemnised as per Christian rights. This would be my take. I may be wrong but I am just giving an example. Similarly, a theft of a car cannot be settled by the definition of theft and customary law because there were no cars earlier. This is the first step. The second step is what will be the role of the police. The first way to define role of the police will be customary law and customary law. The role of police will only be limited to what is defined in the customary law. They cannot do anything else. Secondly, to make things better for an ordinary man, that role of the police in a village or in a tribe or in a society would have to be necessarily interlinked to the role of the police as such. And that interlinkage has to be done through the police outposts or the police stations which are an extension of the criminal justice system in the country. This dichotomy or this gap because there are no linkages is the reason why people don't know where to go. Where they don't know whether they want to go to the police or they want to go to the traditional institution which yes they do serve the purpose but they do not serve the entire purpose. So there is obviously as you said there is a need to redefine the contours of customary law. That definition again again is a very difficult thing to achieve because of the diversity in the society in Nagaland. But broadly I would say that define it in a manner that traditionally traditional customary law will only apply to traditional customary items and not to any modern things. I think that will settle things forever. Thank you. Anyone else please. Yes sir, I mean that's absolutely correct because if you see the diversity in our Nagas society. So it is very difficult actually to understand how to define customary law. Oh yes, it is very difficult. Yeah, because for Sanktams, for Changs and for Oyaamis, it's totally different to say what did compartmentalization have been done for thousands of years like that. Exactly, exactly. In the context, so if we take Dr. Rimi's proposition ahead about defining the contours of the customary law. So what can be done considering this diversity, this beautiful diversity. So how it can be tackled? Because ultimately we have to go somewhere, isn't it sir? We have to, we have to see. There are various methods. I'm not an expert on customary law nor do I say that I have too much knowledge. I am a generalist who wants good in this society. Now it is not for me to define what is customary law. No, but I can lay down broad parameters for most societies. The current law as per the rules of administration of justice says 500 rupees. I think that 500 rupees can be adjusted towards the inflationary trend and make it say 7,000, 8,000, 5,000 rupees, something like that. That could be one. But you have to, probably the easiest way is you have to say that customary law will only apply to customary practices. It will not apply to anything to do with the modern concepts of theft and all. You know, one of the ways to go about, again, as I said earlier in my talk that I visited a few village courts and the Washi courts and the GB courts and all customary courts. I have tried to see the records. The records are very sketchy. Yes, they are maintained in some of them. They're very sketchy. I think one of the points of beginning can be to get all those records from all villages and all district courts and village courts. Where the cases have been decided by the DCs or their assistants or the Washi's or village courts. Have them compiled village by village and district by village, subdivision by subdivision, district by district. If you go, if you do that, again, I'm not trying to lay down any parameters. I'm just saying how I could envisage a solution like this. When you compile a list of all this, say, across about, say, 2000 or 2000 odd villages in Nagaland, we will get a list of subjects, a list of topics in which decisions have been taken by customary laws. According to customary laws, you know, those would broadly define the areas where customary laws would apply. You know, customary law will not apply to something which is new. Customary law will apply to something which existed. So we are going to compile, let us compile all those cases. Let us also try to compile the punishments or the resolutions or mechanisms adopted in all that and the resolution. Like whether the fine could have been anywhere between a pig to say two pigs or three pigs or like whatever, giving a goat or something like that. All those could be combined and the lower limits and the upper limits of the fines and the punishments could be incorporated in some sort of a law for various different types of categories. Like for example, the theft of Paddy. So in one village, someone stole, say, one Tina of Paddy and he was given a punishment of, say, he has to return one Tina and say feed someone for five days. Okay, fine, good. You know, in another village, for the same Tina, he was fined, say, two Tinas of Paddy and say feed 10 people. So you can easily say between if for every one Tina or two Tinas. So the maximum limit of the article of theft is two Tinas and the maximum punishment is return of that Tina and the maximum punishment is feeding of say five people or 10 people. You know, so all this exercise can be undertaken, but I am nobody to lay down a limit. But yes, that limit has to be laid down in consultation with everybody with most people in the society, with most stakeholders in the society, taking into account a very important factor, very, very important factor. The most important factor is anyone in the society, whether it is in the customary laws or even now, anyone in the society who is exercising control or power over anything, will not be willing to seed even an inch from what he has already exercised. So you have to be willing to take something away from him by pushing him to the corner that this like this. If he has used that power or someone has used that power once and say 50 years you can easily be taken away because next 50 years he will never use it. So anyone who has exercised any power will not be willing to give away any authority that he has exercised. So there are a few bottom lines which are going to be there. Those bottom lines should be defined and then the rest could be left to the details. The details can be left, you know, you can define that only this much and not one. For example, you can easily say if there is a theft of more than 10 tinnas of rice, it will get reported straight to the police station and the judicial magistrates. So we could have a scaled list of items on how we can define the crimes. And sir, what about the cases of reps and molestations? These are already defined. Reps and molestations and all as per laws of criminal justice are all defined as heinous crimes. They have to be reported to the police. I agree, but my point is something else because, sir, of course, I mean we have provisions for sexual offenses, we have provisions in IPP, you know, offenses against the body. You know, we understand that even for the murder, you know, help people homicide, amounting, not amounting to murder. But my question is that, well, I will not take up the names, but I have traveled quite a lot in Nagaland and I have heard some instances where the molestations have happened, where some rape cases have also happened. But both cases have not been reported to the police and some sort of settlement have been done. So I decided to take up the details of those cases, but this is what I heard. I am sure you must have also come across that kind of, you know, the crimes. So as a police officer and also, you know, as someone who is a law abiding citizen, what would you tell people and how would you make them aware about the law? Why people are not coming forward even to report such cases, like molestations? I don't understand that. I understand what you're trying to say. Firstly, even as per the existing rules for administration of justice, there is something which is called a heinous crime. A rape is defined as a heinous crime. Even in the rules for administration of justice, rape is a heinous crime and it says, if a heinous crime takes place in the jurisdiction of any village, any village officer who may be charged with the duty of arresting criminals shall arrest the person and inform the district authorities. So there is already a duty cast on the villagers to do this. However, this duty is not followed. This is because the alternate dispute resolution mechanisms are strong and the people in the villages, as I said, you know, when I said that there is a need to impart training, the people who are given the duty of village courts or dubashis or village headmen or khel in chahar or gaumbudas, they are not even aware of their duties. If I think the state government should take initiative to impart training, uniform training in all these matters to all the village headmen and the khel in chahar or the gaumbudas and all, this is your duty. If you fail to do this, we will take action against you. You know, one of the actions can be that they could be removed from their positions, which the state government has the power to do it. The other action could be they could be charged with conspiracy for destruction of evidence and for not reporting crimes. So, this is one aspect of it where the lack of training and awareness has created problems, where people should be encouraged to report crimes. The people who are duty bound should report crimes. On the other hand, we come to a situation where a rape is not reported. Now, my question is, as a policeman, what is my duty? Is it not my duty to find out if a crime has taken place? Yes, it is. So, this is where I said that if there are only 5 cases or 10 cases being registered in a police station, is it not the duty of the police officer in the police station to go around to the villages and meet the people? And once in a while, you do it once in 15 days, 10 days, meet the villages, meet the village headmen, meet the village council members, meet the gaumbudas and ask them what is happening in the village. If he goes there and if he asks what is happening in the village, he will have a better understanding of what is happening in the village. He will have a better understanding of the security and crime situation in the village. So, it is a complex question, but here we are in Nagaland, we are in a situation where policing in the modern sense of the word is still taking roots. It's still taking shape. So, there are issues which need to be resolved, but these issues need to be addressed over a period of time. One odd effort to address these issues will not make a difference. Now, if people are not reporting crimes, I remember a case where a murder case had been registered. Let me give this instance to you. There was a case in Peren where I learned that someone has been killed and he's been buried. And I asked my OC, I said, go and check what has happened. And he said, why? He was a drug addict and his family members spent their entire money on his treatment. When they were not able to do it, the village council sat together and decided that this fellow is an idiot. He's a nuisance to the society and we should kill him. So the village council decided to kill him and it didn't get reported to us. Someone told me, we registered a case of murder. Again, what happened in that case of murder would be a different issue. We did arrest a few people in that. Those people got bailed out because the social milieu is different. The village has decided we will kill him and it is finished. No, but it is a murder. So I think the society should be less and less tolerant about crimes being handled. Criminal cases being handled in an informal manner. And this doesn't apply only to Nagaland. It applies to all societies. Wherever there is a crime taking place, it should be handled formally. Thank you. Thank you so much. There is one question from our ex-student, Gukha Chofi. In the context of Nagaland, recent cases during this lockdown, certain cases were triggered brutality by police over the doctors. And the ultimate solution was forgiveness. Sir, should that be an attitude towards the law and order? Why was there no punishment or the crime recorded? Why there is such ignorance in the society? What is your view, sir? Sir, if you could remember that there were two or three cases like this. Yeah, Gukha. Again, I think partly you've answered the question that you put. Why is there so much ignorance in the society? I think part of it is because of ignorance. However, during stress times like these, I think probably forgiveness is a good thing to do. You cannot have police and doctors at loggerheads over issues which are, which could finally turn out to be non-issues. It could just be ego hassles between two people. As I said, anyone who is exercising any power will find it very difficult to give away any of his authority. I don't know exactly what happened in these cases, but the society needs to respect the police. Even if it is a constable and he's a grade three or a grade four employee, when he's in uniform, he needs to be, he ought to be given the respect that he deserves. On the other hand, a police officer in uniform, whether he's a constable or an IG or a DJ or whoever, needs to have adequate respect for the person across, whether it is a doctor or someone else. However, the deciding factor should be who is the violator of the law. If there was a violation by the doctor, I'm not saying, I'm not going into the facts of the case, but if there was a case where if the doctor was drunk or the doctor was driving hazardously or his vehicle was parked on the wrong side or if the policeman stopped his vehicle and asked him to come out of the vehicle and disperse and misbehave. There could be many instances. Those are things which cannot be condoned. The ordinary man needs to know the law as much as a policeman and ignorance of law by a civilian is no excuse. However, all said and done, I think those issues which cropped up, I think got sorted out amicably because ultimately because of the forgiveness, but I think there need to be protocols in place where police officers, in this instance, being a man, I'm myself a cop, so I would suggest something to my police friends that instances like this, I'm not saying with the doctor, but with anyone, any mishap happening with you with a police officer on duty anywhere in the country, you need to report it off the chain. It is for your own safety and security so that there are no allegations. So for a police officer, it is good that anything that goes with you when you are on duty, it should be reported immediately in writing to your next senior so that he reports it up the channel before anything goes wrong. On the other hand, for a civilian, if there is any infarction, any wrongdoing by a policeman on duty, I think the civilian should report it to the next senior officer of the person who sort of misbehaved in writing immediately. There is no other way you can handle these things because once the facts are there, then these issues can be addressed easily. There is no point in having a situation where a doctor's association goes on a strike or wants to go on a strike and the police officers start taking up hard positions over an issue which involves just two individuals or three individuals. It is best to localize incidents like this and handle it at that level other than allowing things to go out of control with these big issues which actually don't deserve the attention they should be. Gukka, I hope I am okay with that. Gukka, I hope you have got your answer. Kenny said you had one question, right? Kenny, can you hear me? Kenny said you? If you have any question, you can ask to sir or anybody else. If there is any other question, you can. Am I audible? Yes. Thank you so much sir for being here today for your insightful talk and your thoughts on policing. It's not exactly a question but I would like to have your view on this. It's quite a revelation that you talk about the primary identity of the Nagas being in the village. I was reading this book edited by Yale JP Reuters, Nagas in the 21st century, which states that the village identity that is attached with the Nagas brings about the social consciousness. Can we derive back all the talks that we have done over here on the issues and problems or the solutions to be addressed at the village level at first so that later on we could bring a think of the development or a sort of solution being implemented at the state level. Thank you. Yes, you are right. Unfortunately for me, I haven't read JP Hill but this is my view based on my observations in Nagaland over so many years. But it's glad to know that JP Hill and I both of us are on the same page. I think you did quite a job of anthropology. No, it's just observation. I was surprised to have to come across that. Yes, but based on observations I have been observing Nagas over a period of time. See, village identity is important. Probably a lot of the dispute resolution can take place at the village. It does take place at the village. However, this needs to be formalized. You cannot leave it the way it is. You mean the government of the day, the governments need to lay down the lower and the upper limits for the categories of cases, whether it is civil or criminal in which the village authorities can exercise their jurisdiction or their powers. If those are not laid down clearly, we will keep having problems. The other thing is we need to bring about some degree of uniformity and the parameters that we laid down. Yes, the degree of uniformity may be very difficult to achieve because most of the villages sort of functioned as independent republics. So there would be differences, but broadly they could be uniformity. For example, punishment can be anywhere between one day, say in 10 villages, for example in Mokokchon, punishment may vary from one day to 20 days. So you can easily have it like one to 20 days from Mokokchon and say 20 days to 25 days for Zonebuto. Something like that and ultimately government can lay down one not more than 30 days. I'm just giving an example. I'm not really quoting any existing law or anything. So there could be upper and lower limits of where the law can be exercised. That is one aspect. Yes, the development thing can be taken out of context, but development is also very important because all these laws and customary practices have existed in the past because of relative isolation of people from each other. That isolation is slowly getting finished. So there is a need to have more and more uniformity and since people are moving and more technology is coming, I think that we need to take more and more things out of the realm of being sorted out at the village level and more and more things to be sorted out in a formal manner. Now, as a go between, what can be done is that we could have a system, as I said, where we could define the lower and the upper limits of what can be at the village level and what should not be at this by the village level. There could also be a situation where certain things which are addressed by the village level do not have a final authority unless they are confirmed at some other level which can be at the district level or a subdivision level. So there are various mechanisms which could be put in place, but the village level is important. The village level is the one where people do listen to even now. Although this structure is with more and more better transport mechanisms coming in, I think these structures will break down quite fast. I think in the next 20 years or so it will break down very fast. And this is not the case only with Nagaland. I often quote my example. I'll give you my example again. I've given this example a few times in a few of my talks earlier, but I will happily quote it again even now. My father is from a small village in Haryana. Till the time my mother, my grandmother was alive which was still late 1980s. We used to visit our village, me and my parents and my brothers and sisters. We used to visit our village almost every year. My grandmother probably, we lost her in 1899. After that, my father and mother used to visit the village once in 2-3 years when there is some function in the family. I used to visit my village once in about 7-8 years or something. And now, since my father is still there, my parents are there, but he's lost his brothers. So we just have our first cousins there in the village. The last time I visited my village was in June 2019, which was after a gap of almost 16-17 years. Now, I don't find it surprising. I think this is the way it will happen in Nagaland also. Where more and more people of the next generation will go less and less frequently to the villages. So the power of the village courts will naturally get reduced. It is also, therefore, incumbent on them to realize this aspect. That means sanity holds in their giving away some of their powers to the normal former system so that the formal system at least gets established. Yes, temporarily, we can continue with the village system, but I think the formal system would finally have to find a place in the society. I hope I've satisfied you with this answer. Kenny. Kenny, I hope you got your answer and you're satisfied. Yes, thank you so much. Sir, one thing I really like what you said. You basically gave a history of human civilization in a very nutshell by saying the fact that one day or the other, your allegiance to the village is gradually going to go down. Same thing happened in my case also. So this is the factual reality. We are now almost at the end of our program. If there is no other question, I will take an opportunity to ask the last question to you, sir. And that is the way forward. Considering the fact that, number one, people are not aware about the laws. Number two, even if they are aware about the laws, they are under village pressures. Number three, relationship between the civil administration, the police administration and the common man. And the fourth important point is awareness. So in this dynamics, where do you see this Naga society can go? And in society like this, what should be the role of academic institutions, the colleges and universities in spreading awareness about the law of the land, about the constitution, about the basic rights of the people. Sir, your take. Yeah, teacher will never fail to be a teacher. So you asked the last question on that topic. Can I ask you something, Dr. Anirudhe? Do you have law? Yes, sir. I was a practicing advocate. No, but that's your college. Are you giving a degree in law also? No. No, sir. No, sir. No, sir. I belong to department of political science. So, you know, since, since you're not having a little be, you know, one of how dearly I would love to do this, you know, it is my dream to do this now how and dream to do this in Nagaland. How well we can do it will all depend on a partnership with educational institutions. And that could be that during holidays, the students do a sort of a program which is about 15 to 20 days. Not at a stretch, but like in gaps, you can, you can even do it in say over the period of say one week in the beginning, where we can, the students or the colleges or the educational institutions in coordination with the Nagaland Legal Services Authority and the state police, we could make PowerPoint presentations and slides on various aspects of law, civil law, criminal law, criminal jurisprudence, criminal acts and everything. And teams of two to three students could travel around to the villages and create awareness among people about the modern law. I think that would help immensely because if you are having about, you know, we can, we can, we can pitch in through the police and we can pitch in through the state government also but these two institutions, they are handicapped because of the work that they are normally doing. But imagine if we have about say 2,000 more students who were only to do this and those students in terms in teams of two to three could go to the villages. So we have like about 700 villages being covered at the same time throughout the state. I think this could be a massive achievement of sorts. We can do this. This would help bring, help create awareness among people. This would also help bring people to the modern side of law, to the, to the formalized system of law. This could also help in teaching people in the villages, the village courts and the Gampudas and the Khel in Charter and all about what are their powers and what they can do and what they cannot do. This could also help unearth crimes like you have said where there is a case of a rape or a molestation which has taken place in a village and it has never got reported. So this could actually be a booster dose for the formal policing and criminal justice system in Nagaland. I wonder if that's your college can do a partnership either with Nagaland Police formally or you want my help, I can personally engage with you. We could draw up a list of about say 15, 20 odd topics. We could develop slides. Since you are a law graduate yourself and between you and me we can do about say 20, 25 power point presentations on various topics. You could at your end train some of the students who would be interested in doing an internship. You could have a separate certificate being issued from the college for this. We could also talk to the Nagaland University and get us a certificate instituted for this for about say 15, 10 days internship program like this. So there could be endless number of methods where we could intervene in this. If I think of anything else and if you have anything else in mind I think we could both work together to achieve something better than we have achieved till now. You actually made me smile. You actually made me smile because this is something that can really create a positive impact in our society. And that's how college is all about creating positive impact in the society in the interest of the present as well as future generation of the Nagar. So I promise you we will definitely work on it. And one more thing is I had one discussion with my director and he also told me that he is also interested in setting up a law school in Tetsuo. So one day this will also be a reality. And for your information a couple of students who have passed out this year the department of political they have joined law courses as well. So somewhere there is a positive message in the society. Sir, thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much. Two long hours sir. Thank you so much. There would be many more questions but unfortunately we could not take more questions because of the consent of the time. No issues. Please do keep in touch and if I can be of any help please let me know. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a great evening. Thank you guys for listening. Thank you everyone for listening. And Dr. Anirudh this is the last thing. Can you get a transcript of this made? I think Google Meet has a facility for transcripting the entire thing. That our IT department will do that. Everything is being recorded properly and everything will be given to you and it will also be used to YouTube. And also a transcript it can all be written down. My wife she is taking online classes and she says that the entire thing can be transcripted. It can be written down in a conversation manner also. So if that facility, if that can be done, if I can have a copy of that also it will be great. I will talk with my IT guys sir and I will get it done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you sir. Bye bye everybody. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Have a great evening. Thank you so much sir. Thank you.