Once a village union asked me to draft felicitation & send to a newspaper to congratulate the village member who got appointment in a government department. I replied to the chairman of the union and told him - “Sadly I myself write articles about how we Nagas need to do away with this felicitations culture of especially government sector. Hence based on my bizarre principles I will not be able to that. Apology for the same.”
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=1]My point is - If our village unions, parents & relatives want to felicitate and congratulate then they must congratulate everybody irrespective of government or private sector. Because if our society acknowledges & congratulates only government promotions, jobs & lecturers then we are discouraging so many talented individuals who could have become great in other fields; like building a great company employing hundreds of youths or become a great movie producer or a great sportsperson or a world famous musician or a scientist, etc, to instead become an employee sitting in a corner of some department inhibiting him/her from achieving their real calling and unleashing their true potential. They could even become depressed and turn into alcoholics because they were unable to pursue their true calling due to parental and societal pressure.
We ourselves are creating a backward and “dependent” society instead of creating a progressive & “independent” society if we encourage, acknowledge and applaud only government jobs. We need to remind ourselves that Government servant salary is paid by tax payers. Tax revenue for government will increase if we have more businesses, innovators and companies. For the first time, last financial year Nagaland earned around INR 1000 Crore from GST alone. But if we compare our expenditure of around INR 24,000 Crores, then we are still in huge deficit and far from being a self-reliant state. Undergrounds also collect hundreds of crores of tax illegally, but where is this money collected from public going? Is it utilised for public or personal expenditure? There are also several associations who collect tax on behalf of communities but are those revenue used for the community or does it benefit only certain individuals? These are real issues that we must confront frankly and transparently if we want to build a better Nagaland. Tax is collected from public for public development, not for personal wealth. We must mandate Transparency and Accountability when it comes to community or public money.
From an economic standpoint, private sector and companies are assets which generate jobs and revenue for the economy, while Public sector (government) is a liability and consumes the tax revenue to build public infrastructure and pay salaries for government servants. We see that the most advanced and prosperous nations in the world are those which promote and support establishment of thriving companies and businesses. One should not join public service to make money, but to serve the people. If somebody wants to be wealthy then he should do business instead of joining public service. Public service is a noble and humble profession, to serve with utmost selflessness and dedication.
I have also seen parents force their children to quit lucrative jobs in private sector and take coaching or even try for backdoor appointment to join government service since their fellow villagers and clan will not acknowledge them and respect them if their children starts their own business or work in private sector.
It is high time we escape this dangerous trend of over-dependency on government when the whole world is moving ahead by driving their economy with billion dollar companies and enabling thriving corporate sectors. Out here we are becoming like those poor Latin American countries such as Venezuela where 80% of their people work in govt jobs. Their governments are trapped in so much debt in unpayable loans and totally rely on other countries to feed them since they have created a society that should depend only on government for their survival!
Our older generation, our village and clan unions must come out of our small pond mentality to look at the bigger picture and make sure they also learn to understand that there is life beyond only government jobs and also start acknowledging & felicitate our young professionals who work in corporate sector - in banks and financial services, IT companies from Microsoft, Google, Accenture, Wipro, in media and entertainment, retail and private education sectors, non-profit organisations to consultancy, geoinformatics to biotechnology and other scientific research sectors to agritech and healthcare etc
Every small job is dignified! Learn to acknowledge every small job, only then parents will also find pride and dignity to let their children work in jobs beyond only “government”
If we felicitate only government then we over glorify & dignify only those who have govt job and discourage all the others who start their own business or get a lucrative job in private sector!
I myself have worked for multi national companies since the last 16 years but even in my case our people acknowledged my job only when I worked briefly in smartcity mission as a consultant, thinking that I’m doing Government job whereas I was just a consultant.
But when I became an entrepreneur, started my own business ventures and have employed over 130 local youths, not even a single relative, village elder or anybody said “congratulations”, instead some even said “he doesn’t do any job” and this is the reality of our society. Not everybody seeks social validation because we develop a thicker skin in order to achieve a greater calling. However most youths will end up compromising on their dreams and calling in order to impress their family, relatives or village communities or else you get tagged as an eccentric rebel, a misfit or even an outcast in our society.
We earn the respect of our traditional minded majority older generation only if we work as a government employee in some department or do government contract because sadly that is also the limit of their knowledge, imagination & understanding since they have not seen how private sector and companies are functioning in the outside world. The only businesses they are exposed to are vegetable seller, grocery shop or contractor.
Unless this mindset changes, we are headed to a difficult future where we will have no innovators, no scientists, no highly skilled and experienced technical engineers, carpenters & craftsmen, designers, software programmers, researchers, sales and marketing experts, entrepreneurs, media professionals, etc. but our society will only be full of highly educated “unemployed or unemployable” graduates forming hundreds of associations to fight for posts, rights and reservations in some govt department or the other.
Some of them will use those associations to become tax collectors to earn a livelihood thereby creating a society of liabilities instead of creating a society of contributors & assets. Let us all introspect of these trends in our society and carry out a serious reality check for social reformation towards a more progressive future!
(Yanpvuo Kikon is an entrepreneur and a consultant. He has 16 years experience in technology industry working as a software engineer in Accenture, NISG and then as a senior government advisory consultant in EY with Government of Goa, Uttarakhand and Smart cities mission before becoming an entrepreneur. He has founded 3 business ventures in retail, logistics, IT and employs over 130 youths in the state. He is also a social activist and founder of The Naga Blog.)
Yanpvuo Kikon
Officers Hill, Kohima
email address: yankikon.nagaland@gmail.com