That there never has been a woman elected to the Nagaland Legislative Assembly is a known fact. In Naga society, women and youth are traditionally not given the responsibility to occupy positions of authority in decision making bodies. However, as society progresses and traditions evolve with time, women and youth should step up and prove themselves worthy of assuming the responsibility. Women in particular must rise up, step forward and join the fray. Everybody knows that electoral politics is not a traditional business and, therefore, there is no need to argue that women are supposed to be participating in electoral politics. We hear and talk a lot about change but we seldom do anything to be the change. So much has been analyzed and studied about this question but the fact remains that no woman has been elected till date. To put it bluntly, the answer is simple – women must contest elections in order to get elected. It is true that not everything is okay with the manner in which elections are contested in Nagaland and it can be argued that women do not have a level playing field when it comes to electoral politics. However, the same goes for most men as well. The only way to overcome this ‘hurdle’ is by joining the fray and beating the opponent.
It is said that only 15 women have contested in elections to the Nagaland Legislative Assembly as of date. That, if true, is too meager a number and the probability of winning is almost nonexistent. Had there been a hundred women candidates, maybe one of them could have won. In Mokokchung, the last time and perhaps the only time a woman contested in the assembly elections was in 2013. The probability of getting elected is proportionate to the number of candidates. Meanwhile, it would be interesting to see the first woman MLA in Nagaland being elected from Mokokchung, the land that gave the first chief minister.