Coronavirus is “revolutionary.” Revolutionary in the sense that it not only kills, but it also forcefully and violently demolishes most of our normal life styles and habitual thinking patterns and compels us to adopt the so-called “new normal life styles. We are very fond of shaking hands, especially in the church and friends circle, but now shaking hand is a taboo. We are not at all “mask-friendly” people. Even though our streets and roads are full of dust, we prefer to close our eyes and breathe. But now covering our mouth and nose with a mask is a requirement, even inside your own house. Most of us used to clean our littered hands by simply rubbing against one’s pants or mekhala . But now we need to wash our hands with soap or clean with sanitiser even if we come from the church prayer meeting. We judged the spirituality of a believer based on his or her church attendance. But now we are forced to close the church and encouraged to worship personally at home. Not attending the regular school and college was considered uncivilised. But now opening the school will attract legal action against the school authority. So students attend the school at home online. One of the best ways to regulate government employee’s daily office attendance was through biometric fingerprint reading system. And recently it has been gaining ground in most of the government offices. But now government itself forces its employees not to come to office and give them the option to work from home. And now a small percentage of the workers should go to office on rotation. Most of our Naga men and women were heavily engaged in various society-based activities. In fact, societal duties are heavier than our office and family work. But now we feel like we are living all alone in an island. All these things look very paradoxical, but these have become the reality and are becoming the new lifestyles, which we may call, the new normal lifestyles.
All these new restrictions imposed on us, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, have forced us to stay home, so that we may be safe from the virus infection. People all over the world are forced to return home and made to stay home. An extraordinary time has come for the Nagas too, to stay home together, disengaged from all social and religious activities outside of your home. I have talked with several people about their new stay-home habits and many of them responded very positively. From a Christian point of view, many of them are discovering the value of home life, which was completely missed before. Some respondents told me that during this lock down period, the spiritual life of both the family and individual has been progressing. Family members are getting serious about conducting family prayer meeting ever day, developed regular reading of the bible and prayers, and also watch sermons on YouTube together, which had hardly happened before. One of the most interesting things about the home life issue during this lock down is the discovery of each other’s talents and weakness and also getting to knowing each other better. Thus, it leads to both love and affection and conflicts and complaints. Perhaps, the revolutionary impact of Covid-19 is that we Nagas are realising the value of home life or family than ever before.
Then, how can we keep this momentum of healthy home life going, even in the post-Covid-19 pandemic. Based on my personal observations of the state of affairs for the last three months of lock down, I want to share some suggestions in three concerned areas – social, religious and government. These suggestions can be critically thought over, and improvised by other members also, and then make some action plans in order to strengthening our home life, because home life matters.
Apparently, we Nagas are over-burdened by the activities of tribal unions or organisations. Like the old maxim which says, “Too many cooks spoil the food”, our families’ health are spoiled by the mushrooming of too many societies and local bodies. Once a local union is formed our social obligation to it is overwhelming. We cannot relieve ourselves from its involvement. The village or clan or tribe based society becomes a duty-bound activities. And consequently, the burden is borne by family and it costs the home life dearly.
From now on, we must think of minimising the social organisations in our land. The more tribe based unions or societies is formed the issue of tribalism is intensified in our land. The more our people involved in social organisations, the deeper declination of the value of family. Thus, we must muster our collective wisdom to get rid off of most of our social organisations, particularly tribe-based ones. In my opinion, when our people are freed from the bondage of social obligations then they will become better citizens of our land. Our post Covid-19 objective should be to start a “new normal” social life, a home life free from the burden of organisational duties.
Secondly, we must appeal to our church leaders and pastors that most of the regular church programs and activities must be discarded from the church life in the post-pandemic period. Almost all the Naga people are members of the church. Many attend church with all seriousness. Some are more causal. However, both serious and causal members are all busy for the church activities and programs, in one way or the other. Perhaps, many of the lay volunteers are even more involved and busy than the full time workers themselves. In a way, they are “over-time” workers and pastors are “full-time” ministers. From the experiment of lock time affair I can say that family based spiritual practices appear to be more productive than the church building based programs. I don’t mean to say that we must boil down the church into home based church alone, no! My contention is that in the “new normal” of religious life, the church should avoid taxing too much of its’ members in the forms of church programs and activities. Rather our churches must endeavour to groom the family based spirituality under the supervision of the pastors and other church workers. Indeed, the need of the hour in Nagaland is the Home revival, not the Church revival. Only a healthy home life based spirituality can help the church grow.
Third, the administrators in the government must also critically evaluate the productivity of the employees or government workers in the light of the present Covid-19 lockdown experience. We all know that every department under the government of Nagaland is over-employed or over-staffed. And over the decades, we accepted that fact that this is the best option to solve the socio-economic and political problem of our people. In the government only a few works but all get salary and other benefits. It does not mean that the rest are lazy or useless. Obviously, the work is not sufficient enough to be handled by all the employees. A few percent of the employees can finish the work and thus, the rest of the workers have to spend the office hours idly. It’s such a loss of resources for the family as well as the society.
During this partial lock down time, except a few heads in the departments, the government of Nagaland has ordered the employees to attend the office in smaller number on rotation. So under this directive, most of them get only two to three days in a week to go to office. Some of the government employees happily told me that during this new working system the productivity level of the employees are higher than the over-staffed regular days. The work finishes faster with more efficiency. Moreover, they are also able to do their family works during the break-days. Thus, the present working system in lock down period seems to benefit both the government and the employee’s family.
In the light of the above observation, if the government of Nagaland would think of devising a “new normal” plan for the employees working system then that may increase the level of productivity in the government. At the same time, the health of home life will also be improved significantly, free from stress and tensions. Perhaps, when the health of the home life is improved it will directly benefit the government too. In this way we may see the beginning of change in our working system.
Why am I bringing in all these issues in such a time like this? Because Home life matters. Because family is the foundation of all other units. It’s high time for us to build and strengthen our homes in Nagaland, and not only house buildings. Let us take these revolutionary steps as “new normal blessings” brought about by Covid-19 pandemic.
Tiatoshi Longkümer,
Kohima