Imti Ozukum
New Delhi
No society prosper by remaining isolated socially, culturally, politically and economically, but free exchange of ideas and cultural practices has historically pushed societies beyond their own capabilities. Civilizations were built through wider interaction between people of different culture where cultural and economic exchange took place leaving all parties better off by assimilating the cultural advances from each other. The spread of such cultural advances that emerged as a result of interaction between different cultures which often took place in areas where people converge for commerce and trade has far reaching benefit including to those who never took part in any of the interaction. For example, Nagas were not in a position to contribute in any way towards the cultural, industrial and scientific revolution that happened around the world but we too benefit immensely from it today. Whereas people living in isolation both culturally and geographically,such as the tribes in Amazon forest and the Sentinels of the Andaman island, still remains in a situation ignorant of the outside world.
Progress in our society so far came through change and assimilation of useful knowledge, skills and practices from outside and not by hunting more human heads or sacrificing more pigs and dogs. From dressing, cooking, housing, education, means of income, marriage and almost everything did not remain in its pristine state but has undergone changes in ways we can be happy about. It is important not only to identify what is wrong with us but, as Hans Rosling noted in Factfulness, it is also equally important to identify what we have done right so that we are able to do more of that.
Realizing and acknowledging the deficiency in our culture that impedes socio-economic growth and development would be a good way to start. Nagas do not have a history of existing as a unified nation state with a centralized government but only existed as village republics and therefore to look backward for a vision to build a modern Naga nation would be like looking backward and driving forward. The principle formulated by Jawaharlal Nehru that tribals should develop along the lines of their own genius sounds not only compassionate but genius. However, such idea may have lead us to self-adoration and created antagonism towards ideas such as assimilation and integration making us socially, culturally and religiously paranoid. Such fear is not only pervasive but it also hinders receptivity. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel or rediscover the fire when such available skills, knowledge and practices can be simply incorporated. Europeans did not wait for the Roman numerals to evolve but simply adopted the Indian numerals which served the purpose better. Similarly Japanese did not wait for their own system to develop but actively emulated the skills, knowledge, ethics and practices from the west.
Japan was awoken from its seventeenth century isolationist policy of the Tokugawa Shogunate by the unfortunate way of gunboat diplomacy. Nevertheless, the realization of their backwardness dawned at the end of the isolationist policy ignited a massive wave of cultural transformation starting from work ethics to acquiring new skills and knowledge from western countries specially in the field of science and technology and carried it forward to a point even surpassing the perpetrators of the gunboat diplomacy from whom the new skills and knowledge were acquired. Today Japan is the third largest economy in the world in terms of GDP and the only developed nation in Asia and is a leading member in scientific and technological advances, yet remains deeply rooted in their cultural values.
Simply saying that we Nagas can work our way up through hard work once we are free from the Indian clutch and be self-sufficient like our forefathers is not only naïve thinking but unsophisticated and regressive. When hard work can mean different things depending on the time we live and on the nature of the work, and with the changing idea of “rich” and “wealth”, to imagine an economy based on our old understanding of hard work does not sound promising at all. The amount of paddy we possess today does not tell anything about our economic position, and inheriting an ancestral land in the village that is nothing short of a cliff is hardly of any economic value. A hardworking person working in a town or city is spared from the harsh physical demand and weather condition, which an even more hardworking farmer in a village endures, yet lives better and eats better, while a single acre of land in the urban can be used more productively than multiple acres in the village. Romanticizing our forefathers’ freedom of self-rule and self-sufficiency may be good for writing poems and songs but useless for running a factory or company. Inventing, building and producing things are the drivers of economic growth and development.
Nagas are neither endowed with geography like the plains or waterways for seamless flourishing of commerce and trade nor were our ancestors high spirited entrepreneurs therefore inheriting little to no skills that would help us compete with the enterprising Gujratis and Marwaris, who are also known for their receptive nature towards new ideas, or any other people skilled in commerce and trade. Years of continued interaction with the outside world have no doubt set the ball rolling yet the progress remains painfully slow or almost stagnant. The best bet in such situation could be skilling in trade that actually contributes towards economic growth. This may include acquiring skills in avenue such as marketing, manufacturing, retailing, and finance or simply running a grocery store and practicing it diligently. It is no wonder that a young non-local boy working as a helper in your neighborhood confectionary store has after few years established his own store while you wonder why your prayer for a job is not answered yet. We may have acquired a number of skills from our cultural up-bringing such as singing and being a president of our village students union but running a confectionary store was not one of it and therefore it must be learned and most importantly encourage learning.
It is disappointing to see how locals in Nagaland would not prefer to ride in auto rickshaw driven by local people or buy from shops manned by our own people. Cultivating useful ethics and acquiring skills and knowledge to overcome the cultural and geographic barriers would certainly be helpful because ethics of conducting business do not come through genes and is not even bestowed by God but comes through learning from real life experience.
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