Young voice against the state of affairs
Elsheli Chishi
Respected Leaders, Parents, Seniors and Citizens of Nagaland, First of all, I would like to thank our Almighty God for this privilege to rally together for a better Nagaland. I would like to thank my school authorities for giving me this honor to share my perspectives and experiences of bad roads in our state.
On behalf of my school, I would like to share the struggles we've been facing due to the deteriorating condition of roads. About 80% of the students in my school travel by the school bus including me. Being a resident of Thilixu village, 3rd mile it normally took 30 minutes to reach school and I always thought how fortunate I was compared to the distance that my other schoolmates had to cover daily. But the journey had not been a joy ride because of the pathetic roads. And to add more to my misery, the one and only 4th mile bridge connecting us to our school collapsed! We now have to go to school taking the Patkai College route, which takes about 1 hour 40 minutes.
That leaves us with 3 hours and 20 minutes of travelling every day. It's like going around the whole world and back. Kindly allow me to highlight some of the ordeals we experience on a daily basis:
1. The road is an endless stretch of potholes and ditches, with no smooth road at sight. We suffer a lot because the journey is so bumpy, uncomfortable and dangerous leaving us feeling nauseous and dizzy.
2. One of my cousins who is also studying in my school gets her migraine triggered almost every day, due to the stress of long journey, heat and dust. Not forgetting the high risk faced by many students who are allergic to dust, heat, and have respiratory problems.
3. Because the route is so long that by the time we reach home we are too exhausted to even change, let alone doing our homework or studying, which we all know will have an adverse effect in our academics especially on our upcoming exams.
4. In fact, our Administrator and parents out of their own expenses have even gone to the extent of voluntarily repairing the road wherever possible but that is also short-lived due to plying of many vehicles especially heavy ones.
This summer break, our family took a road trip to Shillong and I was blown away to see how developed it was. Their roads were super smooth with road signs and traffic lights. As much as I was excited to explore the beautiful city, I was disheartened by the ugly truth that we are neighbors and yet our state is falling far behind in many ways. Our home state, Nagaland is equally breath-taking with scenic mountains, lakes, rivers and plains, rich flora and fauna, yet we rank lower than other states when it comes to tourism which derails our economic growth. And I think that one of the main factors for this situation is poor road condition.
Sometimes I wonder, is it too much to ask for good roads as a citizen of Nagaland? And I often imagine if I were the Chief Minister or Minister or Bureaucrat or an Engineer or a Contractor how I would transform the roads. After experiencing all these horrible roads, I have begun to realize with much more conviction how important it is to have corrupt free leaders and bureaucrats and state machinery to look into the welfare of people. We do not want some Emmanuel Macron or Barack Obama to inspire us. We yearn to see our own Naga leaders as our role models. Leaders who will leave behind a flourishing Nagaland for the next generation. I dream of a Nagaland that is corruption free and prosperous with proper water supply, 24/7 electricity, beautiful roads and strong bridges. And I hope with all my heart that the present state of affairs is not the kind of Nagaland we would want carry into the near future.
“Please leave for us a future to inherit and we promise to earn it with integrity.” So my dear seniors, leaders and everyone present here, with all due respect let's be encouraged that it's never too late to rebuild our future. Let us be responsible, accountable and united in our cause to make Nagaland the best state in India.
The above speech was delivered by Elsheli Chishi, a Grade 7 student of Hope Academy Dimapur during the ACAUT Public Rally Against Corruption on August 25, 2017.
