Nagaland’s Hornbill Festival: Entrepreneurs feel the pinch as pandemic plays spoilsport

Our Correspondent
Kohima, Dec. 3 (EMN): The pandemic has forced a temporary relocation of Hornbill Festival to virtual platform this year, which in turn has left many local entrepreneurs — mostly women — without one of their dependable means of income: a 10-day exposure event to vend their products to a larger set of potential buyers.

The president of North East Women Entrepreneurs’ Association Nagaland chapter, Yangerla Jamir, told Eastern Mirror that the adverse effect has been felt by entrepreneurs, particularly women.

An owner of a stall called ‘Native Beads’ in Dimapur, Jamir said: “As entrepreneurs, we have high expectation from the Hornbill Festival every year, being an international event where preparations are made year-long to sell our products during the festival. It is the only opportunity for us to sell our products; if not, in Nagaland, where do we sell our products?”

She said that it is difficult to participate in expos held outside Nagaland, and finding an opportunity within one’s state is priceless for entrepreneurs.

According to her, most of the vendors who set up stalls at Kisama Heritage Village in the previous years were women, selling their locally-made items such as handloom, jewelry and other crafts.

Jamir recalled how tourists used to say that the stalls at Hornbill Festival were unique and different from other festivals or those in neighbouring states ‘for the complexities of designs’.

Despite the lockdown, she said, there was enough time to prepare the items to sell during Hornbill Festival. She jested that the entrepreneurs won’t object to holding the festival twice or more in a year.

Jamir shared that her business partners and colleagues have been discussing how their businesses and their cluster of dependents have been affected this year; she was however hopeful that things would get better.

She pointed out that the e-commerce platform launched by the government was a late initiative ‘which didn’t give sufficient time for entrepreneurs to prepare’.

“Suppose, if they are going to initiate that way, they should have informed at least two months ahead so that the entrepreneurs could prepare accordingly; but it was so sudden,” she said.

Another vendor who has been running stall at Kisama since 2009, Besusayi, shared that the network he has managed to build over the years has ensured that he gets orders for his wooden plates and craft items even during the pandemic, with or without Hornbill Festival.

Zalekhrulu Lohe, another entrepreneur, said that she hadn’t prepared anything, unlike previous years, ‘seeing the prevailing situation’.

She maintained that there was no regret as safety of the people comes first, and expressed hope that things would get better ‘so that our gateway to business is opened again’.