In India, a well known hypothesis has developed which goes something like this: In India corruption starts from the birth of a person when a birth certificate has to be obtained and it extends up to death when bribe has to be given for cremation and for obtaining death certificate. It further extends even beyond death, if one would like to get legal heir certificate. Thus, corruption has become a total phenomenon in India today. Off course we in Nagaland have also perfected the art of the corrupt. In fact we seem to have improved upon it. And the problem is further compounded by the fact that the public they are mostly apathetic to what is going on around them. Citizens are often silent and we lack the will to fight against corruption and not to forget that we also contribute to the problem. And so since the public also give their consent to the corrupt by way of legitimizing corrupt practices, the fight against the menace of corruption is a losing battle even in Christian Nagaland where our churches fall prey to the corrupt offering. Recently there was an astonishing report which stated that one person in Mizoram paid Rs 30 lakhs as tithes to his local Church from the alleged corrupt money he earned. In this hopeless situation, perhaps the media can at least try to encourage correction. But the media in Nagaland we have fared poorly when it comes to speaking out the truth. Journalists have become too much identified with the system. We are failing in our role as a free press…to get to the bottom of the story…to point out wrongs…to make our government accountable for their acts of omission.
In the context of our own failings as a responsible media, this newspaper applauds the few citizens who have risen to the occasion to take on the corrupt people and system by way of using the platform of the media to boldly question the authorities. In a wonderful example of building pressure on the government machinery to refrain from corrupt practices, one Headmaster of a school in Kohima village used his freedom of speech and expression to question the concerned authorities of the Food & Civil Supplies Department. When it was brought to his knowledge that the allotted food supply meant for his school was perhaps going to be siphoned-off, as an alert and vigilant citizen, the headmaster used the platform of the local media to air his grievances under the headline “What is Food & Civil Supplies up to?” (carried in the prominent newspapers). Barely a few days later, the Headmaster again wrote back to the newspapers to inform that the allotted quantity of food supply (about 360 bags each of rice & wheat) was delivered to the school in full even without the transportation charges! The valuable lesson that all of us can learn from this is that an active and vigilant citizen along with the support of a free media can do wonders to curb corruption. Both the citizen and media should work more closely so that probity, transparency and accountability are demanded from those who run the affairs of the State. The media must remind itself of the role it should play—to carry the “voice of protest” and be the medium to spotlight social evils, policy failures or the wrongs in our system. And perhaps the local media must make more use of the Right to Information Act (RTI). In the RTI Act there are endless possibilities for the media to demand accountability from those holding public office.
