Reflections of society

Dimapur, the commercial heart of the state , reflects a social morass- a place where economic energy coexists with social rot. Some years back, studies and seminar reports paint a stark picture-over 2,000 sex workers operate in the city, many driven into the trade by dire need, substance dependence, or coercion. NGOs estimate that roughly half of the state’s sex workers are migrants from Bangladesh and Nepal, a fact that points to entrenched cross-border trafficking and exploitation. The city’s social malaise is compounded by the failed experiment of prohibition. Launched in the name of spiritual reaffirmation, blanket ban on alcohol have not eliminated consumption but have merely pushed it into the shadows. Black markets thrive, spurious liquor sold, prices soar, and organized crime pockets deepen. While the dry law was proclaimed as a moral victory, decades revealed the limits of policy divorced from social reality-and an unwillingness of authorities to confront pressure groups who cast themselves as moral arbiters. This moral dissonance bleeds into the public sphere. Communities that loudly proclaim self-reliance are often dependent on outside funds and projects secured through lobbying and corruption. Public works stall, trust in institutions erodes, and accountability is replaced by extortion and graft. Governance becomes performative; laws exist more on paper than in practice. Sex trafficking, meanwhile, remains endemic. Police raids and interventions by church-linked vigilantes repeatedly uncover underage girls in hotels, lodges, and clandestine venues. Complaints of raucous, all-night revelry in discos and bars underscore a nightlife economy operating with near impunity. Efforts to impose curfews or warnings are reactive and partial; they do not answer the more fundamental questions of who licenses these establishments, who enforces the rules, and who ultimately bears responsibility when the vulnerable are preyed upon?. Disturbing reports suggest that hundreds of college-going girls are involved in the sex trade. Accounts describe girls treated as commodities by truckers, police, hotel owners, businessmen, and affluent visitors from across the Northeast. Nightclubs and discos, many open until dawn, are often alleged to host minors and act as informal nodes for trafficking networks-further entrenching exploitation within the urban nightlife. Compounding these injustices is the emergence of self-appointed parallel authorities. These groups publicly condemn alcohol and vice while privately engaging with traffickers, issuing informal licenses for liquor outlets, and permitting clubs and bars to operate without oversight. Their dual role-moralizing in public, profiteering in private-exposes a governance vacuum; the state watches as its laws are hollowed out by shadow actors. If these realities are denied or normalized, the consequences will be profound. Moral decline seldom announces itself; it seeps into civic life, shaping a generation that struggles to tell values from vices. Recognition is the necessary first step-ignoring the problem risks a moral catastrophe far harder to reverse than to forestall. Confronting these long-tolerated vices, dismantling myths that shield them, and restoring genuine accountability are urgent tasks. Only by insisting on transparency, enforcing the rule of law, and reclaiming public life from corrupt intermediaries can Naga culture and faith be renewed. This is a call to collective responsibility on citizens, institutions, and leaders to act with integrity so future generations inherit a society grounded in dignity and truth.