By Yarangchang Imchen | EMN
When Shri. Narendra Modi said his government mantra is to reform, perform and transform I was really impressed with his mantra slogan. Indeed, this kind of mantra is really meant and suitable for our current stagnated Naga society and the government should also focus on reforming, performing and transforming our society. I’m referring exclusively to our current trend of shaky society despite so many shortcomings existing in politico-economic-religious-cultural mess up in Nagas way of life. When all the chain of corruption is checked, everything is possible to change from sick society to a transparent and prosperous society. The recent exposure by ACAUT relating to fund mismanagement in terms of crores of rupees by the concerned department is really heart breaking moment that every right thinking Nagas denizen must voice out and lend out unflinching support in order to make our state into ‘corrupt free state’. We must work cohesively by supporting such organisation like ACAUT who are trying to change our suffering society into vibrant state. In short, ACAUT is a Messiah to us to fight against corruptions.
Famous words coined by Ja A. Jahannes says “Unless we learn to know ourselves, we run the danger of destroying ourselves.” We always blame the society but we are the society who is blaming ourselves. Concomitantly, we blame the Government being corrupt but it is us blaming ourselves because we ourselves had created the VIP culture and the middle men culture in our society leaving ourselves entailing in utter state of dooming society. The term ‘democracy’ is equally important to us to know and Abraham Lincoln said-Democracy means “The government of the people, by the people and for the people”. Since our government is a system of democratic set up we have every right to protest democratically for the good of our society. Current corruption in our society is not all of a sudden but this poisonous corruption had root cause from before and has been succeeding by our successors from our predecessors and the venom is inflicting everywhere. In this frantic state of affairs the general public shall be compel to nurture and nourish already dying state and ACAUT is spearheading the movement to eradicate corruptions. Hence before it’s too late the government should stitch carefully the torn part of our state. As the saying goes- ‘A stitch in time saves nine’. The policies and programs by the government and equally the role played by the government are very important in transforming the state into prosperous society. But one thing for pretty sure that we cannot always depend and blame on government only but it is our bound duty and every naga intellect must participate in a positive way by reforming, performing and transforming our society. For instant there are so many places in the world that developed from backward state into vibrant city- states without government sanction and support.
Humans have desires, wants and greed to achieve something in one’s lifetime otherwise without this principle he/she could be a miser who chooses to remain idle without visions, dreams, versions, goals and aims in one’s lifetime on earth. Now the point is who wouldn’t want to be a powerful and respected person in the society. Of course everybody wanted to be but it has certain limitation in our life. This is the reason why Alexander the Great on his deathbed as a last wish had said that when he died he want his hands to be let loose, hanging outside the coffin for all to see. It means when he died he want his hands to swing in the wind, so that people understand that we come to this world empty handed and we leave this world empty handed after the most precious treasure of all is exhausted. Concomitantly, when we die, we too will go empty handed leaving out all the precious jewels, diamonds, gold, silvers and crores of rupees leaving everything on earth as we cannot take anything beyond death. Therefore the principle of resisting obsessions which is unethical and threat to our existence should mend and check instantly by reinventing our mindset towards transformation and vitally embarking upon new avenues for a better manifestation of our society.
Our current political, social, economic and educational system is at the worst and stood at too lowliness. Politically, we have been witnessing political turmoil in our state with bloodless coup d’ e‘dat for a three consecutive chief ministerial post in one term from the ruling NPF party. For the first time we have two NPF president both sides claiming to be real and legitimate ruler. Now the law and the constitution of the party will decide accordingly as we all believe in the law and the constitution. Again, the ugliest chapter of election are vote rigging, vote bank politics, proxy voting, rampant prevalent of proxy voters name, booth capturing politics are some practices prevailing in our land. Socially, the government policy of reservation for backward tribes in government job is for the sake of giving equal opportunity and representation to the deprived section in our society in governmental affairs. I’m not against any tribal’s or such reservations but one day this may lead them to ‘spoon feeding culture’ unable to compete with the rest of the world. Let us set a motto that we as a naga family by blood “everyone is equal before God and everyone can do and perform well”. Instead of using the words ‘backward tribes’ better use the word ‘economically weaker section’ because the word backward is too harsh and alien for us and it’s clearly a sign of dividing the society. Our society is clearly divided on tribal’s line and area wise such as eastern nagas, tenyiemia family and the recently formed CNTC comprised of Ao, Sumi and Lotha. Economically, our state’s coffer is empty and the state’s exchequer is running fully in deficits for some years. Being a dependent economy state and with less economic activities and siphoning of money meant for public, the culture of executing the work seasonally especially renovation of black topping of roads during hornbill festival time only is not appreciable. Like other metropolitan cities such as Mumbai, Delhi etc. even a tiny potholes or craters were used to renovate overnight in order to avoid facing trouble by the commuters or traffic congestion. Our economy is also looting away because we don’t encourage working with dignity of labour and lack of Naga entrepreneurs in our own land is a vivid consequences of our economy/wealth been draining away. Educationally, the government school is giving poor percentage of result annually despite hugely spending on salary by the government. The education system needs urgent revamp in order to produce excellent performance in the future.
Our land is moving towards dooming state of affairs whereby nepotism and high handedness is clearly prevalent with everything manipulated by the elite section of the people. The high level contractors, technocrats, bureaucrats and the powerful ministers constitute the first class citizens and they are the one to take first privilege in every angle. If the trend continues like this in our land then there can be a great possibility of starting a popular proletariat movement to stand for the poor, exploits, unreached and underprivileged. Our society is vividly dividing in the line of rich versus poor; rich are becoming richer and poor becoming poorer. This is the outcome of unequal participation in state affairs unable to repent the old system and firmly manipulated by the stronger elite section in Naga society.
It is an imperative need of our Naga brothers and sisters to come out from the comfort zone/ backstage and stand truthfully in front of sick society and voice out for changes as an embodiment of our life by reforming the outdated system, method and concept and explore out for new system which is compatible and adaptable to Nagas. At the same time we must perform harder to where and what we have reformed for in order to transform our society into vibrant society.
