There must be an antidote for the silence that’s slowly, ever so slowly, poisoning the lives of the people of Nagaland. There is a growing stench of calm bitterness within the Naga youth population whose hunger for catharsis is gradually transforming them into potential builders to ‘destructors’.
It is easy to see: their disillusionment has been surfacing in the bare-few mediums they can trust– the internet, personal conversations, and their daily academic existence. They no longer trust their leaders and their media. Yet, even in their self-devised securities, they are as clueless as their lack of empowerment only morally-courageous leaderships can offer.
Imbecile leaderships who squirrel away public resources in the name of progress also look on blinded by power. This time, democracy has offset the state’s resources and undermined the Naga person’s social capital. The very institution of democratic consensus stands prostituted.
The vicious intermingling of institutionalized corruption, administrative incompetence, and stunted police machinery and a failed judiciary has only compounded the tragic Naga comedy. The docile posturing of the old Naga vanguard was not expected to crumble when the people needed them the most. Once represented by apex tribal organizations, the old order of tribal superintendence over the social and political lives of Nagaland has turned into a loose form of resignation flavoured by a strong dose of lawlessness.
If only had the old vanguard resisted the realities and suffering of the common Naga through the many years of assault on his Human Rights, his economic freedom, and his right to free speech! The then-untainted, imposing, and comforting presence of the tribal apexes themselves would have offered the common Naga a sense of security and hope for something better than what he was surviving on.
The ‘perceivers’, the thinkers and the educated minds see beyond the superficial monologues of a frigid media and cowering community leaderships. Yet, even they are in no better position to devise a solution for ailing Nagaland.
In the footsteps of the leader and his followers, the ‘perceiver’ and the educated are also ruminating as much; they have joined the cud-chewing resignation about what might be wrong with the Naga society and their once-venerable lore of strength, prosperity and cultural capital.
The decades of conflict narratives and ignorance about the world outside have begun to create zombies. The cud they have chosen to chew on is feeding the very disease eating at the very soul of the Naga society.
Cattle ruminate on cud all day long but cud has no nutrients. From chewing cud, cattle profit nothing for their well-being except lose energy to the futile activity. In the same way, the Naga plethora–by offering silence–has also given permission to the powers-that-be to manipulate the system and redesign it to serve vested interests.
There are two slow but definite processes working silently in Nagaland:
Collapse of the society
Within ordered systems, societal collapse tends to offer an unconvincing, washed-down image of a system that speaks remotely only about lack of visible corrective processes. However, if one were to muster courage to look into it deeper, societal collapse always carries with it a stage of disintegration that is prolonged. Hence, societal collapse in its strictest term is the fall of the space for conversation.
Hence, again, societal collapse, in the opinion of this column, is the loss of space and opportunity for remedy and redress. Generally, civil wars, and sectarian / communal unrest are two consequences of such a breakdown.
Collapse of the state
A state is said to have collapsed when it failed to employ its sovereign resources and capacity to mobilize positive decisions to ensure the welfare and well-being of citizens. The broad political definition of a failed state indicates the failure to fulfill responsibilities required of a mandated government.
Said failure could mean failure to employ legitimate use of lawfully permissible force, failure to take decisions, negligence of the public’s welfare; loss of control over economic conditions of state and citizenry; inability or ineffectiveness in controlling corruption and criminality, and so on.
Nagaland appears to have come to wear many of these disturbing characteristics. However, if each of her citizens were to play a role, their existence prospect for growth and prosperity wouldn’t have lost the game to the current morass.
But one might ask, ‘What might be my role?’ Playing a role is merely to engage an initiative that one is able to handle.
For instance
* Students have a role to play: They can use their education to educate the people about what ignorance is costing them.
* Doctors have a role to play: Prescribing to the people the antidote to their apathy; warn them about the ailments they would succumb to if they choose to skip their dosage of understanding their rights.
* Journalists have a role to play: Chronicle the heartaches of the people and write down every transgression that the sad system has visited upon them. Write it down in black ink and hold it up to paint the conscience of Human Rights red.
* Student leaders have a role to play. They can use their fresh ideas to teach the younger generation what it means to learn to teach an ancient society new values and hidden truths about new courage, new leadership, and forward-moving changes.
* Church leaders have a role to play: Speak the truth. Use the truth to speak the truth against the pirates, the parasites, and the Pharisees.
* Police officers and judges have a role to play. Do they not hold the assurance of guardianship toward protecting, defending and fulfilling the rights of citizens?
If every Naga, leader and follower alike, were to play a positive role, the game would have been half-won already.
