Zhokusheyi Rhakho
Kohima
Voting is not only a right but duty and abstaining to vote would tantamount to making the wrong people come to power just as Edmund Burke remarked, “the only thing necessary for evil men to succeed is for good people to do nothing.” Also as Plato put it, ‘the penalty for refusing to participate in politics is to be ruled by your inferiors.’
But elections in Naga context are still crude and raw that money, muscle & guns rule the roost unlike the refined western societies. Election is a time when all the crooks & rotten ass becomes useful & the good people relegated into the background. This rightly compound to Dane Frank’s remark, ‘get all the fools on your side & you will be elected to anything.’ But nothing can be more stupid than village councils/wards/colonies, public organization issuing diktats to its members to support particular candidate threatening anybody who dare to defy its directive. This trend goes against the very essence of democracy which abets the sham democracy that ours is wrought with. Some people have the usual knack of interpreting or justifying things from fuzzy points of customary laws or culture & tradition whenever it suites their ulterior interest be it election, women reservation, rape cases, etc. This is where our culture has come to pervert itself unable fusion itself with modernity or strike a balance between continuity & change within the notion of logic & rationality.
This is the tragedy of our election that has deeply crept into our marrow where not the personality, integrity, etc of a candidate but lure of money/material becomes the deciding factors. Bartering away one’s vote for money without the least compunction of right or wrong, idolizing leaders who are morally bankrupt & disoriented in ideology & principles but play only the money fiddle are tragic flows in the praxis of our democracy.
Selling one’s vote to the highest bidder shows how cheap one is. It is ignorance & greed rather than poverty that people mortgage its vote over money that will only last a moment knowing that once elected, candidates would disappear & won’t be able to mint a penny out of him thereafter. But until this vicious cycle of spending spree during election & recovery after elected leaving little space for development is broken down, Nagaland will always be at square one. This is where corruption begins leading to all ills but the leaders are elected expecting them to be capable & therefore are expected to do something rather become part of this vicious system.
As election draws near once again, its time to seriously ponder over issues that has wrought us like electricity, roads, healthcare, unemployment, good universities, etc. How many new hydro powers has been generated, industries set up to mitigate chronic unemployment, built new roads or checked immigration. Naga political solution is an old trick that all parties croaks whenever election draws near which doesn’t appeals to the people especially the youth anymore. Did the govt. remembers everything about festivals but forgotten everything about development? Which leader was fiddling when our villages are yet to see the light of the day? The word of Vivekananda can’t be more relevant when he said, ‘so long as the million lives in hunger & ignorance, I hold everymen a traitor who having been educated at their expense, pays not the least heed to them.’ For any leader to do nothing even after seeing the perpetual poverty of the villages would mean to say that others misery is his merriment.
As declared by naga nationalist groups its best to stay away from this troubled water rather than dip its hand & earn the scorn of the people which is causing irreparable damage to the naga cause itself. If they are apprehensive of any candidate or party than they should get written assurance for the same that the party won’t betray the naga cause when comes to power rather than involving in the election which do more harms than good. They should be wise enough to surmise that braying political solution has become electoral politics irrespective of whichever party comes to power.
Though the efficacy of NBCC Clean Election campaign is another matter but the trend is laudable as it may give impetus to the much needed electoral reforms in the near future. One hopes other apex bodies like the Naga Hoho, NSF, etc too may join the bandwagon.
In countries like Denmark (least corrupt country) even the central cabinet ministers don’t keep security guards since they are elected with least corruption so least enmity, thus nothing to fear. In state like Mizoram no person can be expected to become a successful politician without involving oneself & building strong rapport with the church but in Nagaland a person starts his political career as petty students’ leader or wannabe local heroes & street bosses or spoil brat of politicians or bureaucrats sons full of drunkenness & debauchery. Once these people takes the reign of power the consequences is anybody’s guess. This is why politicians & diapers need to be change for the same reason.
Nagas live in a time where our ideals & values are not in order, where the chasm of class stratification between have & have-not is burgeoning (neo-colonialism) akin to what western societies underwent long ago bringing war & destructions. Nagaland has whole lot of problems but not solution & one reason behind could be because there are no good universities. America rules the world because it has world best universities like Harvard, Yale, Massachusetts, etc., producing world ablest states men, so also, the American sense of responsibility, for e.g. in Nov. 2008 within three days of Mumbai terrorist attack the FBI landed in Mumbai offering help saying your security is our concern. Can any Naga leader have similar bend of mind saying Nagaland is my responsibility?
Great leaders in the sands of time had risen & changed the fortune of their country like Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Aung San Suu kyi, etc. so also the evil ones like Hitler, Khmer Rouge govt.(Cambodia), etc, & reduced their countries to shambles. Within the reign of a single Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore was elevated into a developed nation from poor resource less colonial outpost. Israel which is 80% desert was not only developed into regional super power but supplier of fruits & raw materials, South Korea became developed nation within a short span of electoral reforms ending chronic corruption. All these nations were poor resource crunch states ravaged by war & destructions but through good governance & able leadership, their country was transformed. There is no reason why Nagaland where every stretch of land is productive can’t be developed on a similar line. Even in India, Chief Ministers like Nitish Kumar transform Bihar from poorest chaotic state into a fastest growing state (economically) within a span of two terms Chief Ministership. Narendra Modi transformed Gujarat into global economic hub within three term of his chief ministership.
Nagas live at crucial time where we need a leader who is little more than ordinary, god fearing & conform to the moral standards of Christian principles. We need leaders who are morally upright, socially conscious, intellectually alert, spiritually oriented & politically principled. The choice of any wrong ones may not only prolong our miseries but seal the fate of Nagas future. No wonder it will take a visionary to cleanse our ills that have grossly plague our society. Can we ever elect a govt. who can give corrupt free govt., good roads or a better future? Can we elect leaders who would make the dumb million feel good about their state thinking we are in safe hands? For a set of people who claims they can run a nation, is there no good & righteous men to man their state? Isn’t there any leader who can make us stand taller in the midst of our neighbors? Nagas yarns whether any men the stature of T. Aliba, A.Z Phizo, T.Sakhrie, etc will once again walk this land. Out of 1.9 million people of Nagaland can we elect 60 good men who will be symbol of our integrity & morality or at least 12 (ministers) to rule us or parish like Sodom & Gomorrah unable to find even 10 (of course fire won’t rain down). Vote for a change! Vote for a better Nagaland!!
