Capi

Overview

Capi is a daily newspaper published in Tenyidie from Kohima, the capital of Nagaland in north-eastern India. It is described as the oldest existing vernacular daily in Nagaland, and it is widely circulated in Kohima, Chümoukedima, Dimapur and Phek. In a state where English-language newspapers from Dimapur and Kohima dominate public debate, Capi holds a distinct position as the leading print voice in Tenyidie, the standardised form of the language of the Angami Naga and the wider Tenyimia group. The paper is published in print format, is recorded as independent in political alignment, and was listed at a price of six rupees in its reference summary.

The newspaper's registration with the Registrar of Newspapers for India is recorded under the number NAGTEN/2006/17143, as a Tenyidie-language daily published from Kohima. Registration records name Mhalezolie Kire as publisher and editor, and give the publication and printing place as Mewi Press, near the Naga Students' Federation Martyrs' Park in Kohima. Capi is therefore both a newsroom and a Kohima printing operation, rooted in the centre of the state capital.

History

Capi was founded in 1988 by Vikesel Neikha, who served as publisher, and R. Solhou, who served as editor. It did not begin as a daily. In its first phase the newspaper appeared at lesser frequencies, issued variously as a weekly, biweekly and tri-weekly publication. That gradual pattern is characteristic of vernacular newspaper ventures in Nagaland, where small reader markets and limited advertising meant that a new title often had to prove itself at weekly intervals before attempting the cost and news-gathering burden of daily publication.

In 1997 the newspaper was relaunched as a daily, the date from which its modern identity dates. In 2003 it shifted from manual printing to offset printing, a significant technical step for a small Kohima press, improving print quality and the speed with which copies could be produced for same-day distribution. In November 2022 the paper marked twenty-five years as a daily. Coverage of that anniversary in The Morung Express appeared under a headline emphasising the preservation and promotion of language, and Eastern Mirror also reported the twenty-fifth anniversary of Capi Daily. The framing of the anniversary around language, rather than around commerce or politics, reflects how the paper itself is understood in Nagaland: as an institution of Tenyidie as much as a business.

Language and Readership

Tenyidie is the standardised form of Angami, spoken by the Angami community of the Kohima region and used as a shared standard language by the Tenyimia group of tribes. Reference works put first-language Angami speakers at roughly 153,000 in the 2011 census, and the variety of Tenyidie associated with Kohima was the one standardised for school teaching. Nagaland University's Department of Tenyidie leads work on written grammar for the state's recognised languages, an indication of the formal place the language now holds in education. A daily newspaper in such a language does unusual cultural work: it fixes spellings, normalises vocabulary for public affairs, and gives readers a daily model of formal written Tenyidie outside the church and the classroom, the two settings in which the written language had historically been strongest.

Capi's circulation across Kohima, Chümoukedima, Dimapur and Phek follows the geography of Tenyidie-speaking and Tenyimia populations, from the capital through the commercial centre of Dimapur to Phek district. Its readers are therefore not confined to one town. For many of them, Capi is the only daily newspaper available in their mother tongue, since Nagaland's other major dailies publish in English and the state's other vernacular dailies serve different tribal languages such as Ao and Sumi.

The 2015 Blank Editorial Protest

Capi's best-documented moment in national news came on 16 November 2015, when it published its editorial space blank in protest, together with four other Nagaland newspapers: the English dailies Eastern Mirror, The Morung Express and Nagaland Page, and the Ao-language Tir Yimyim. The protest followed a letter sent by the Assam Rifles to editors in October 2015 directing them to stop publishing news related to the National Socialist Council of Nagaland–Khaplang, which had been declared an unlawful association, and warning that publishing its statements could violate the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The blank editorials were reported by the BBC and the Hindustan Times, and the Nagaland Press Association supported the editors, arguing that the paramilitary force's role was to maintain peace rather than to govern what newspapers printed.

Capi's participation matters because it placed a Tenyidie vernacular daily alongside the state's English press in a common defence of editorial freedom. The episode is frequently cited in accounts of press freedom in Nagaland, and Capi's name appears in those accounts as Capi Daily, described in some reports as an Angami-dialect paper. It remains the clearest documented instance of the paper acting collectively on a question of principle affecting the whole Nagaland press.

Ownership and Production

Capi is owned and published by Mhalezolie Kire, according to its reference summary and registration records, which also name Kire as editor. The paper operates from Mewi Press near the NSF Martyrs' Park in Kohima, and the press is recorded as its printing house. The move to offset printing in 2003 was made from this Kohima base. An earlier registration price of three rupees is recorded in the registration data reproduced online, while a later reference summary lists the paper at six rupees, reflecting the gradual price rises common to India's regional dailies across that period.

The ownership pattern — a named individual proprietor-editor-publisher working from his own press — is typical of Nagaland's vernacular newspaper sector, where titles are usually personal or family ventures sustained over decades rather than products of large media groups. Capi's continuity of place and of publishing identity since 1988, through its 1997 relaunch as a daily, follows that pattern.

Place in Nagaland's Vernacular Press

Nagaland's newspaper history in its own languages begins with mission-era publishing: the monthly Tenyidie paper Kewhira Dielie, published from Kohima by the American Baptist missionary George W. Supplee from 1932, is regarded as the first modern newspaper from present-day Nagaland. Against that background, Capi's description as the oldest existing vernacular daily in the state is a claim about survival as much as about age. Other Tenyidie and Angami ventures, including the daily Tenyi Ralha published from Kohima, went out of circulation, while Capi continued. Media studies of Nagaland routinely list Capi alongside Tir Yimyim and Ao Milen in Ao and Sümi Zümulhü in Sumi as the state's surviving tribal-language dailies, a small group that carries the burden of daily journalism in languages with limited commercial markets.

Digital Presence

Capi is recorded in its reference summaries as a print-format newspaper, and it has historically been a print-first publication in a state where the English dailies built the earliest online editions. Nagaland's first newspaper with an online edition was an English title, and vernacular papers have generally reached digital readers more slowly and more informally, through social-media circulation of pages and stories rather than through large dedicated news sites. No separate official website for Capi was recorded in the batch listing for this profile, and readers outside its circulation districts have traditionally had limited access to the paper other than in print.

Community Role and Recognition

The recognition Capi has received is closely tied to language. Its twenty-fifth anniversary as a daily in 2022 was marked publicly in Kohima and reported by the state's leading English newspapers explicitly as a contribution to preserving and promoting Tenyidie. In Nagaland, where each tribal language is a marker of identity and where younger speakers are often educated mainly in English, a daily newspaper that requires reporters, translators and readers to work in the language every day functions as a practical language institution. Capi's community role also includes the ordinary work of a capital-city daily: reporting Kohima's civic affairs, state government and assembly news, church and community announcements, and the concerns of the Tenyimia districts, for readers who prefer that news in their own language.

Availability

Capi is available in print in Kohima and in its recorded circulation areas of Chümoukedima, Dimapur and Phek in Nagaland. It is a daily newspaper registered with the Registrar of Newspapers for India as a Tenyidie-language title published from Kohima. Outside Nagaland, availability is limited, as is the case for most of India's tribal-language dailies, whose distribution follows the geography of their language communities.