Development and politics are two different things. But shamelessly, those who are in power always beat the drum of development. While addressing the people, strangely they forget that development is an ongoing process. No one or no political party can alone claim the credit. There are numerous instances where one will find that the foundation stone of a development project was laid by someone and it was inaugurated by someone else. Government may come and go. But development will always go on.
But as three north-eastern states will go for polls in February, as usual political parties and its leaders are not missing any opportunity to claim that how much development they had ensured to the populace while in power. Sadly, more often than not, all these claims are not true. More interestingly, sometimes our leaders argue like children to take credit for certain projects. They did all these just to garner few more votes. They do not realise that such false claims belittle their images. They do not realise that they are duty-bound to provide development to the people. If fruits of development do not reach to the people, they will cease to be in power. Any amount of beating own drum will not be able to remain them in power as the people are well aware who has delivered the goods and who has failed.
How greedy the politicians are to take credit for development can be judged from this incident. Once, someone had mentioned about a mini cement plant to a politician. The politician was quick to respond that the plant was built by his efforts. But when reminded that it was not wise to build such a plant in such a remote place from where the nearest market is at least ten-hour drive, the politician fumed and ended the conversation abruptly. In this regard, the more recent example is the claim of the Prime Minister that his government has ushered a new era of development in the north-east. Yes, one cannot deny the fact that these days the region is getting more attention from the Centre. But the present government at the Centre alone should not be credited for this. Efforts to bring the region at par with other mainland states started long ago. For example, ongoing Naga peace talk was initiated in mid-nineties by the then prime minister P. V. Narsimha Rao. Since then India has got five prime ministers. All of them worked hard to find an amicable solution of this vexed problem. We all are waiting for the final solution. The solution may come during the tenure of the present regime or we will have to wait little further. May be by then the country can be under a different regime. But no matter under which regime the Nagas get the final solution, credit should go to all of those who made efforts to bring back peace in this region. Neither any individual should be credited for the solution, nor anyone claim to be the architect of peace in Nagaland. So, it will be better if political parties and its leaders make public their plans for development instead of claiming credits for simply being associated with the process.
