One day a certain king is said to have slapped his Minister in the palace for no obvious reason. Shocked by the unexpected behaviour of the king, the Minister dared not utter a word back to the emperor. So he transferred his pain and anger on to another Minister seated next to him and gave him a big slap. In the same way the next Minister also slapped another Minister and the chain reaction went on and on. At the close of the day, as the king prepared to retire for the night, a painful slap landed on his face from his wife. In his fit of fury, as he turned around to lash out his anger, the queen smiled back and explained that she was just concluding the game the king himself had started in the palace with his Minister. She told the king that unless he wanted to restart the game, the first round was over. To be fair, the king had to go by the rule of the game. Lesson learnt: “What goes around comes around.”
If the recent poll figure of NBC/Wall Street Journal for the US President Donald Trump means anything, he will go down in history as the most unpopular President in modern American history. The maverick American President has just completed his first year in office, and yet one year is long enough to prove what a person can deliver. Donald Trump is an individual but as the CEO of his country, he represents the expectation and aspiration of the American society. So it only goes to explain that the present American society is the most unpopular electorate in modern history. After all who made Donald Trump the President? His own countrymen!
What about Nagaland? How popular are our elected representatives? If they are popular, they are popular for all the wrong reasons. History will remember the present Nagaland State Legislative Assembly as the most divided house. It is a mockery to claim that Nagaland is run by an opposition less government when in reality the makeshift house under whose roof they claim oneness is nothing but a contingent arrangement purely for personal and political expediency. Come the general state election and they will be shown the mirror.
In democracy power is in the hands of the people. If people don’t vote, there will be no government. If they vote, the kind of government that will run the affair of the people will be the reflection of the wish and wisdom of the people. That is why, on the judgement day, we who exercise our franchise to elect our leaders will be accountable for our own action. Barely a couple of months left in our hands before we go to the poll, if election takes place as announced, one should know that the kind of government that we wish to see is all in our hands. To return to our own vomit like a dog or to start on a clean slate, the choice is ours.
Before we try to point out the dirt in someone else’s eyes like the previous years, this time we should make a point to first remove the log in our own eyes. Whether one is willing to admit or not we only get what we give. Put to an end the old blame game of yesteryears and turn a new leaf as we stand at the threshold of new opportunity. May we be remembered by history as a generation that understood the true meaning of democracy and exercised our birthright for the welfare and common good of the Naga society. God bless Nagaland.
