Witoubou Newmai
It is said that progress often fails to escape from any conscious society.
In our society, in want of long term policies and consistency, everything becomes melodramatic. Plans or policies are often seen spread over the planners’ desk in times of landslides and floods, or say, whenever any other calamity befalls us, only to be stashed in the shelves days later where they remain until the next calamity. This trend indicates that we don’t go beyond the knee-jerk response.
It will be ridiculous to expect a zero-occurrence (of natural calamity) but it is not absurd to say that good policies, plans and consistency surely can mitigate the hardship of the people.
In this fast advancing world where good planning is the adjective that enhances every approach we are only encouraging stagnancy, if not fantasy, when our inconsistent or occasional display of surfeit of enthusiasm comes hot only in times of calamity.
Our planners or policy makers or programme executors are overwhelmed by the culture of knee-jerk response, and so, they have become themselves issues of inconsistency, and thus, they remain below the realm of modernity.
When are we to see our policy makers or programme executors proving that they are the inhibitors of this grim situation that convulses the growth trajectory of our society?
On the other hand, ‘we-the-people’ need to realize that the rate of progress is also an index of what kind of people a society is endowed with. This is to say that the whole affair is not only about the government authorities, but, it is also about making use of available provisions by the public.
As long as ‘we-the-people’ allow ourselves to be complacent, we are only giving in to the viewpoints of those people for whom politics is all about wielding power, and doing nothing for the society.
And thus, the nub of the argument is also about as to what extent constituencies have influence on their representatives/legislators. It appears that it is the round-about situation once the elections are over. This is also because our society is yet to deliberate thoroughly on the “proper form and scope of political participation as to who should represent whom and on what basis or who should participate and in what way” (David Held).
The over-all inference is thus - these hardships faced by the people in our society are also glaring signs of strained equations between the ‘concerned authorities’ and the ‘we-the-people’.
