Case-1: Stricken by poverty, a poor Adivasi boy truncated his formal education at standard 12. He then applied for various jobs, including Police service without much breakthrough. His interview for a teacher’s job was played down as he had no money to pay the authorities. He was selected against the post of primary teacher (hired by the panchayats) but politics happened and it had his name blocked in the final list. Back to square one on the field, he was swayed by the Maoist ideologies as his choice to stay mainstream exhausted. He is Pahad Singh, a former dreaded Maoist leader, who had the police of three states in hot pursuit and surrendered to the Chhattisgarh Police in August last.
Case-2: The killing of a Kashmiri militant BurhanWani in July, 2016 incited the youth of Kashmir to indulge in stone pelting and had since been at loggerheads with the law enforcement agencies. Following the trend, it appears that every new state’s action against militants in Kashmir is now inciting more local youth to participate in militancy in the state. The culture of youth in Kashmir indulging in violence against the establishment is largely attributed to decades of the unstable social milieu enveloping the youth mind together with a narrative that glorifies violence, which was further aggravated by state’s insensitivity to the perspectives of the people. The youth killed whilst directly engaged with the state are hailed as martyrs. And the chain of people-State violence remains.
Friedrich Hegel in his ‘Philosophy of Right’ summarised that a person’s viewpoint / ideology is largely shaped and conditioned by his intercourse (by way of socialization) with the individual, the civil society and the state. In other words, a person starts to understand the world around them through these three mediums. These three central elements of Hegel – a strong belief as well as preference of an individual, the action which civil society endorse and the ideology which the State adopt – shall all have a determinant outcome upon the thinking of youth.
CAG report tabled in the last Assembly red flagged loopholes rampant under various establishments. Prominent of which is the diversion of students’ scholarship to meet the unintended overheads. School children are young ever ready to susceptibly conform to any propaganda when uptight. The role of the State, as such, must be directed to ideologically confront infiltration of post-truth politics in young minds. However, the role of the State at present is in reverse, overtly ruffling the uncontaminated minds and at times instigating the youth to take on State head-on. Had the State sincerely devoted to its avowed principle of welfarism, it would not be possibly the first to venture into practice that defraud what legally belong to the students which is certain to upend the relative peace.
For the purpose of regulating and governing recruitment to various positions in agencies run by the State, rules are laid down for due adherence and compliance (where Nagaland is no exception). The State, in this case too, assumes the main character in deconstructing the framework so as to unethically have a greater control on state’s resources. Hence, equitable access to opportunity is heavily asymmetrical even as the proportion of the rich to the poor is deeply entrenching in our society. Those who are at the helm of power had monopolised almost everything. The routine procedure of selection of candidates against vacant positions in various departments in due compliance with the principle of equal opportunity in public employment under the state government exists only on paper, as statistics revealed in the last Assembly has confirmed it. In some instances, recruitments are rooted through departmental exams merely for formality’s sake and hence it hardly resonates with the much acclaimed theory of meritocracy.
What further compounds the problem is the silence of the civil society. The civil society (including the Church) is expected to uphold the rights of those who have been sacrificed at the instance of the State. The civil society innocently abdicates its responsibility as its silence corresponds to endorsing the omission and commission of the State. Furthermore, the expected role to be played by the individual does not transcend beyond the engulfed parameter of favouritism and bipartisanship, preconditioned by the nature the civil society functions and the state that dictates. Under this conditioned environment where the individual, civil society and State concurred on tradition that approve monopolization, our youth does not have a level playing field despite their willingness to compete in open and free competitive platform. The much deserving lots are denied what is due to them. At the end, they are radicalised by the system.
The State had appointed hundreds of its employees through open competitive recruitment from time to time. As a bulk of them (an impasse between a section of teaching fraternity and the School Education Department may serve as an instance) were appointed against certain schemes, they are liable to be terminated, or subject to unpredictable decision of the State, as and when the scheme winds up. Either way, the action will jeopardise the career of our youth. Worse, justice is hardly served to the sincere candidates who toiled day and night anticipating opportunity for open recruitment year after year. Contrastingly, a slew of those who forged relationship with those in power, managed to secure appointments against the regular positions. Their initial illicit appointments are eventually legitimised either by hook or by crook. In such a case, a comparison of career is certain to creep in whereby the ones that earned a position through toils and trials are disregarded and nearly discarded. This, therefore, perpetuates the recurring ideology that does not enable our youth to comprehend the situation beyond unethical persuasion, mutual distrust in State, indulgence in easy-money culture and open confrontation with the State to drive home a desired end.
The above two case studies drawn from the states of Chhattisgarh and Jammu & Kashmir alluded to us the action of the state that is all likely held responsible for youth leaning towards left ideologies, stirring violence against the State. The situation under which our Naga youth reels has resemblance with the conflicting situations in the former two states. Here too, there is very less avenue to generate jobs to accommodate our bulging unemployed youth which statistics put it at 75,000. The number would have a higher projection if the present job holders under various schemes were to be terminated from service on completion of the schemes. Moreover, employment in public offices is deemed a perfect reward to repay the loyalists at the expense of the meritorious candidates. Even so, the State still appears to oversight the aspiration of the youth. The mind of our youth is therefore definitely agitated at the lack of job, taste of maltreatment at the hand of the State and uneven opportunity in public employment.
Will the State own responsibility when the pressured situation explode? Rights are denied. Peaceful democratic protest are either refused or (when permitted) dealt with reactive State’s action. A hardened emotion can be softened by building the ethical standard of the society coupled with the State garnering the trust of the people. A person’s outlook is largely determined by the social environment under which he / she is contemporary to. When both the State and the civil society adopt and endorse the corrupt practices, the little feet behind are sure to follow suit in vicious cycle. Of course, ideologies can be reoriented by the individual and the society. However, it is the State in due course that must develop sensitivity and appreciate the aspiration of the people. The State must focus on building trust to let the citizen derive faith in it. Therefore, the three elements advocated by Hegel in his ‘Philosophy of Right’ must work in unison to douse the inbound crises.
