SMITA BHATTACHARYYA
Mokokchung, Oct 10 : For this splendid man
of Nagaland’s Ao community, who carries his rifle wherever he goes,
“there is a warrior in every Naga.” The war for Toshi Tsangpi, however,
is not with a gun against a seen enemy. He fights with an armoury of
information against an unseen virus, the deadly HIV.
Fighting a personal battle, Tsangpi
mentally makes a notch on the butt of his gun every time he succeeds in
bringing one infected person out of the closet. The 385th notch had been
made a couple of weeks ago.
Leading the battle from the front in his
home district Mokokchung, Tsangpi was the first person to come out into
the open in Mokokchung with the declaration that he was HIV positive.
Today the tall Naga goes from village to
village in Mokokchung district and holds himself up as an example on how
to lead a normal life despite being infected with HIV several years
ago.
“It was in August, 2004 that I came to
know that I was positive. This was when the government had made it
mandatory for all pregnant women to be given a spot test for AIDS. My
wife tested positive and her status gave me inkling that I may be the
same. My first daughter had already been born at home and we both took
the test. I was devastated to find that we were both positive. We
aborted the unborn child at that time,” he said.
Later, the couple opted for a second baby
in the hope that a medicine, which had to given within three hours after
birth would prevent the baby from developing HIV. “But I am scared to
test her,” he admits.
Though sure that the virus in his case was
spread through sexual transmission, he is unsure about who he got it
from. “Nagaland is a free society and people do indulge in high-risk
behaviour,” he says matter-of-factly.
His battle to prevent the spread of the
disease began soon after, despite the neighbourhood treating him and his
family like outcasts for several years.
“My children suffered for this at school
and were not allowed into the homes of friends and family. My family and
I were shunned wherever we went after we came out in the open,” he
said.
“Four of us — Wapang Jamir, Tongpang
Miren, Pendang Yanger and I — came together and began to educate others
in the district. This was in 2006.”
Tsangpi came to know of the others through
the integrated counselling and testing centre in the district and
through an NGO, which was working in this regard.
However, we became more organised in 2008
after forming the Mokokchung chapter of the Network of Positive, said
Tsangpi, who is president of the outfit.
Sensitisation programmes, however, centred
in and around Mokokchung town as hiring vehicles and arranging
luncheons in far-flung places required money.
Their endeavour got a boost from November
2009, when corporate India, in the form of Bharti Infratel, the tower
wing of Bharti Airtel, lent them a helping hand by providing funds for
holding awareness programmes in 80 odd villages.
Banajit Ojah, circle HR head, said Bharti
Infratel ran a number of schools for the underprivileged in different
states of India under its corporate social responsibility programme, but
the lack of infrastructure here was a hindrance to proceed in this
direction. “We decided to do something different for the people of the
Northeast.”
Perched at an altitude of more than 5,500
feet, Mokokchung district in north Nagaland is difficult to access and
one of the most remote places in the country.
“It’s a place still frozen in time in the
rapidly changing world of today. The people are very poor and mostly
lead a life that is severe and unimaginable. There is no train or air
connectivity to this region and the roads are bad. Further, the state
has a history of insurgency problems, which date back to the
pre-independence era, and so we decided to launch the programme in
Nagaland and took up Mokokchung as the first district,” Ojah said.
Of those who were tested, 3.5 per cent
were HIV positive. So, Bharti Infratel decided to sponsor the
sensitisation programme in all the remote villages in Mokokchung over
the next 24 to 36 months with a sanction of Rs 6 lakh for the year
2010-11 and 2011-12. The first camp was held on November 28, 2010.
“We have covered 41 villages thanks to
Bharti Infratel and now have 385 people in Mokochung who have joined the
network. The 385th member joined a couple of weeks ago. Their status of
being positive was suppressed under a load of superstitious beliefs and
social stigma,” Tsangpi said.
Tsangpi narrates horrific tales of superstition and stigma.
There was one girl who was turned out of
her home by her elder sister and asked to go and live in Dimapur alone
for fear that society would ostracise the entire family.
A student of Class IX hanged herself in
2011, unable to take the constant harassment and snide remarks by her
friends although she was not positive. Her only crime was that her
parents had died of AIDS. Another boy was left alone in a hut built
outside the village and the place where he bathed in a river was shunned
and people of the village started going upstream to take their bath.
Today though, for scores of such
youngsters, there is Tsangpi, forever counting his notches, and his
“positive” friends, all fighting a common war against a virus that
threatens Naga society. Many are out in the open with all their grit,
but many still remain closeted.