Our Correspondent
KOHIMA, JANUARY 7
The 69th general conference of the Chakhesang Students’ Union (CSU) clubbed together with the 62nd general session of the Chozubami Students’ Union was held at Chozuba village on Thursday.
Nagaland Legislative Assembly (NLA) Speaker, Chotisuh Sazo who graced the occasion, in his address called upon the younger generation of the Chakhesang community to work hard and try to obtain the best education so as to enable themselves in liberating the community from the “backward” label.
Stating that educationally, the Chakhesang tribe comes under ‘Backward Tribe’ category among the indigenous inhabitants of the state and this, he maintained, is because the people of the tribe had late access to modern education and the number of educated people still remains low. He feels that two significant causes of the slow growth of education among the Chakhesang people could be attributed to non-acceptance of Christianity and western way of life earlier and the Indo-Naga conflict in which the community was deeply involved with, giving less importance to modern education.
Sazo pointed out that the Chakhesang community still has a long way to go in the field of education, however, people from other tribes argue that the Chakhesangs should no longer be under the ‘Backward Tribe’ category because they have made some significant progress in the last few years.
He said that backwardness is a state of mind and the wheels of revolution that can transport the community out of it are in the hands of the younger generation. To this, he urged upon the student community to strive to obtain the best from the education so as to equip themselves to lead the society in the future.
The Speaker also stated that the main source of economy and employment in Phek district is the agricultural sector, but lamented that the income generated through agriculture is negligible as there is no mechanized farming. Besides, he said, there is hardly any venture in cash cropping although attempts were made in the recent years.
He said the Chakhesang community is no less advanced than others in cereal crop cultivation even though rough topography of the land limits vast cultivation of cereal and leguminous crops. However, he said they have an advantage of growing fruits, vegetables, medicinal plants, bee keeping etc. and as such they need to change attitude towards professional and commercialized farming to improve the agriculture base economy.
He asserted that the main focus of every nation in today’s world is economic independency, and with the advancement of science and technology, he underscored the need for the people to improvise the traditional technologies and upgrade them for their own benefit. Towards this end, he called upon the youth to move on to specialized education rather than the approach of getting mere general education.
Sazo also expressed concern that many Naga youth have taken up cultures that are destructive in nature because of the easy access to social media and internet. He said that there is a lot that they can give to the world through the good side of the Naga traditional culture, such as respect for the elderly, honesty, dignity of labour, sincerity etc. He rooted for a revival of these virtues and to encourage the younger generation to learn to appreciate them.
