Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) and the Political Science department of Kohima College have jointly organised ‘Clean election sensitisation programme’ at the college premises on Friday.
An update from the college informed that ‘Clean election movement’ was launched in 2021 with the backing of the Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) by taking into consideration that the church could be a powerful transformative agent of socio-political change.
The resource persons of the sensitisation programme were Dr. Villo Naleo, convenor of NBCC clean election movement, and Huzo Meru, director of operations at North East Christian University and Trustee of South India Christian Institute, Bangalore. Both the resource persons were alumni of Kohima College, Kohima.
The programme began with introduction of the speakers by Ase Yalie, moderator and assistant professor Political Science, which was followed with an invocation prayer as well a welcome address by Dr. Libanthung Ngullie, principal of Kohima College. While pointing out that the youth continued to be most vulnerable to election rigging, Dr. Ngullie stated that such programme was necessary for educational institutions.
It stated that Dr. Villo Naleo, dwelled on the impact and necessity of clean election movement in Nagaland. He clarified that election politics is not dirty in itself but ascribed to the way it is practiced. As the issue is about socio-political ethics of the participants and voters, he stated that churches have huge social responsibility.
According to him, ‘Clean election movement’ was non-partisan with no motive to govern but to clean election process by following the declared code of conduct to transform the Naga society.
Another reason for the need for such a movement was the dominant Christian quality in both Naga legislators and voters. Citing reasons for stagnation of the movement, Dr. Naleo has attributed to the churches themselves not being clean; indifferent attitudes of other organisations who could garner more support from public; tussle of western democracy and traditional selection of leaders—creating the confusion of ethos between modern and pre-modern values; rising economic inequality and the use of money power etc.
In a nutshell, Dr. Naleo stated that core idea was to salvage Nagaland’s dirty election politics.
Huzo Meru, former candidate from Western Angami, rectified some common misconceptions against clean election movement. Meru recalled that he had not spent even a single rupee or even received sizeable support from the public, who were simply unenamoured by the whole concept.
Meru cited example of the late Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew, whose honest vision for his country brought Singapore to being the top major economy of this world. He further advised the students to know their candidates and choose the lesser evil among the available candidates.
The programme concluded with an interactive session with the students.