Thoughts on Naga Self Reliance

We Nagas can no longer continue to make policies for ourselves in our state, our tribal ranges, districts and our villages on the basis of whatever Union of India gives us- this concept can no longer be applicable. Our responsibility is to charter a path which is all about how we can develop our state on our own as a full-fledged federal unit. It is not right for a state like ours 57 years after statehood to still have it’s health, education and infrastructure budgets getting financed on the basis of the generosity and charity of the Indian tax payers. By now we must have been able to stand on our own feet and raise appropriate revenues to finance our basic needs ourselves. If we are going to look at the upcoming years as a period of ‘transition’ where we can stand on our feet, our perspectives shouldn’t be what the Indian tax payers decide to do. Whatever surplus they have in Indian mainland, whatever interventions of the Indian tax payers through the central government to make us are welcomed and appreciated. But we should no longer be a gift horse in their mouth but this contention that existed is still capturing our mindsets today! We have a repository of a commendable percentage of rich resources among Indian states. We are a state with vast arable and fertile lands, and a huge quantum of forest and mineral resources, in addition to our possessing a young and prosperous Naga population. So it has both the energy and dynamism. We are the Nagas.
The Naga youths are showing so much resilience and ingenuity in crossing the barriers and finding a way out with dynamism across the Indian mainland. We want those people to have it in our own state working inside our own native lands and we’re going to have these energies working in our state only if we begin to build a system that tells the youths of the state that there are hopes and opportunities right here with us.
Migration and movement of the people is being presented in a manner that we suggest as an old phenomenon, it is as old as human civilisation. It is always associated with failures of native land to provide opportunities for survival and prosperous living. The biggest wave of immigration during the 19 century Europe and latter part came from Ireland and Italy. Waves and generations of Italians and Irish left their countries to seek the American paradise blossom because their countries were not working. But today we don’t hear it anymore. Italian youths love to be in Italy and the Irish in their own land.
We want young Nagas to stay in Nagaland but how can they do that? It means that we need to get away from this mindset of “DEPENDENCE”, the mindset about what will Indians do for us? India will do whatever it needs to do for it’s own sake and if It co-incides with us we seek (favour)”EHSAAN” is what Indian people say. But our main responsibility as indigenous citizens is that we need to build our own state. The institutions that work will allow us to have good governance, accountable government in the state to ensure that the public money is spent and properly utilised for the welfare and upliftment of citizens but never for embellishment of leaders and bureaucrats. We must have proper systems and guidelines that allow for accountability and diversity of people to be able to express themselves and contribute to fashioning the public will and public interest. Our concern should be within what we need to do in this 21st century to win Nagaland away from being a cap in hand and begging for aid and charity for handouts at the doorsteps of the union government.Having assessed our resources, zeal and potentiality in our own state, we need to build up a mindset that says, “We can do it, others have done it, and we can also do it”. Once we acquire such a mindset we shall witness a liberating feeling for ourselves. I strongly believe that if we could change the notion of Dependence, which is contingent on aid and charity, we shall witness in forth comming decades a full flowering Nagas as a well productive community. New generation of Nagas shall self-propel and create a condition as would allow our youths to forego their hazardous thought of dependency. It is strongly hoped that they shall move ahead with enthusiasm for self reliance.