Hotoni Yeptho
Assistant Professor Sociology Department Sazolie College Phezhu, Jotsoma.
Society is influenced by many forces and factors that causes social change. Man of powerful expression, ability and leadership can constitute an important source of desirable change. They often raise the consciousness of the masses who are faced with strain and discontend to existing order and seek for a desirable demand. The sociological significance of change consists in the fact that the people effect change. This paper tries to apply the reader response theory to the autobiographical of Khekiye K Sema’s “Encountering Life Antics of a Govt. Servant”, which provide a fact forming basis of evaluation to 3C’s change, culture and corruption that offered a wise and deeply empowering perspective on the work of transformational process. How his work cultivates an engaged clarity likened that of an urge by Virginia Woolf: “let us never cease from thinking what is ‘civilisation’ in which we find ourselves? Where in short is it leading us, the procession of the son of educated men?”.This paper also attempt to divulge on how the writer is not only dissenting voice, expressing himself through the art of self exploratory as the book was the culmination of his cursory writing ‘The Years in Service’ but rose to speak for the common people as corrupt mechanism of power and money have ensnared the people on power. The writer self asserting boldness of speaking his mind on the danger and constraint of institutional accountability without the bias tone sprout the reader’s admiration. Every social mobilisation by an intellectual precede the social and reform movement ,literary influence have been held as the core of human reform as history is the witness. No doubt study of literature is no longer it ever was simply the study and evaluation of poems, novels and plays. It is also the study of the ideas, issues and difficulties which arise in any literary text to practical and contextual situation and its interpretation. Study of change is an emergent interdisciplinary phenomenon-who speaks? who writes? When and where? under what institutional and historical constraint? In different ways they all analyse past and present practices and happening out of a commitment to future possibilities. This subgenre of autobiographic and self reflective fieldwork account presents variously naive, confessional and analytic accounts which provide an important forum for the discussion of a wide range of issues, epistemological, existential and political.
“No man’s life can be encompassed in one’s telling. There is no way to give each year its allotted weight, to include each event, each person who helped to shape lifetime. What can be done is to be faithful in spirit to record and try to finds one’s way to the heart of the man”-anonymous.
Social movement involves rate/ tempo and direction of change and the direction of which it goes is most necessarily inevitable. People require some amount of creativity, dynamism and rationality as “change in society follows change in ideas and change in consciousness” (Hegel). As society is made of many forces which irresistibly causes change, these pertinent questions become important: (a) whether the changes are due to human engineering? (b) can a man regulate to suit his conveniences? (c) can he regulate and decide the direction of social change to a desirable end?
These are some of the tantalising questions, tantalising because no one has any idea how to weigh and to estimate the influence of single individual in the process of social change but there is no doubt that all social changes occur because of the action of men and women. Francis Bacon defended the concept of change as a continuous progress and Auguste Comte, the father of sociology summed ‘ positive attitude to life is progressive’ and progressive thinking enables an individual to effectively participate in the activities of the society that effects humanity and make a positive contribution for the progress of the society. The merit of the explanation of social movement is that it is pivoted around conflicts and cognitive change. It motivates and mobilise people around some issues and interests. Social scientist have long recognised what is most significant is how people perceive their situation. The feeling of relative deprivation is one among the element that must be present before discontent will be channelled into a social movement. The term relative deprivation is defined as the conscious of a negative discrepancy between legitimate expectations and present actualities (John Wilson 1973). People must feel that they have the right to the goals, that they deserve better than what they have. Voicing against wrongdoings and oppression is the first step and insists those in power to make change. That real work of creating a different better world and situation is to take responsibility upon oneself to lead that change to create the sort of world that one desire. This idea resonated deeply in the writings of Khekiye K Sema who writes aggressively on sweeping corruption that exists in various institutional level thereby failing to provide justice, fairness and excellence to the common masses that they deserve. The wrong doing of the people on power is blatantly exposed to the reader. Most general common people remain at the mercy of a venal administration that, encouraged by the absence of an independent watchdog, exploits them relentlessly. The high level of corruption in society has been widely perceived as a major hindrance in the growth and development. While human greed is obviously a driver force of corruption, it is structural incentives and poor enforcement system to punish the corrupt that have contributed to the rising curve of graft on the society. Recent examples of perverse use of state are distressing and disturbing as the writer expressed: “The sanctity of bureaucracy as a guide to the political class towards saner ethical behaviours has lost its relevance these days. With the passage of time in the vein, officers daring the system will become a thing of the past. Infact the new mantra often heard in the corridor of power is that those who often have the authority but fails to use it for personal gains are fools”.
Many people have sadly accepted corruption as a sad reality. Unless we are able to fight corruption and win over these glaring gloom that seems to challenge us on the face, the benefits of development can never shared equitably as it ought to be. The starting point of corruption in public offices seems to be in political arena beginning with electoral corruption. Electoral corruption in the state has increased in recent years primarily because of high cost of campaigning and questionable practiced indulged in by the political parties and candidates. Youth Net studies show almost 1000 crores spent in 2013 Assembly Elections. The political parties in their quest for power spent thousand crores of rupees in the General Election yet nobody discloses the source of money. The absence of proper regulation and monitoring of the expenses both by the candidates and parties has given rise to widespread criticism. The startling revelation of spending an approximate total of Rs.569,96,000/- (rupees five hundred and sixty nine crores and ninety six lakhs ) in 2008 elections and 937,82,67,500/-(rupees nine hundred and thirty seven crores, eighty two lakhs sixty seven thousand and five hundred) in 2013 elections, is an alarming call to all the people with conscience. This research by Youth Net was made of an exhaustive effort to bring to the notice of the people of Nagaland on how the wrong election system is affecting the alarming levels of corruption in our state. The awakening of people’s conscience would help the politicians and leaders as a whole to serve the people better towards all round development. To realise this would need the collective effort of every individual .That “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” uttered by Neil Armstrong when he become the first man to reach the moon remain relevant that one person effort and little action everyday no matter how insignificant it may seem becomes a giant leap for mankind. No doubt to reach a thousand miles begin from single step.
Walt Disney writes: “our heritage and ideals, our code and standards the things we live by and teach our children are preserved or administered by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings”. The writer looks back to the illuminating culture of the Nagas which is made of giving, sharing and helping hand in times of crisis which constitute the major part of the spirit of our people and their sense of colour character and commitment as he recalled “with the break dawn the community was abuzz with an ant like activities helping one another to restore the damages. The community spirit at work was an amazing sight to behold. This one distinctively exceptional quality which i hope will always abide with us....the attributes of unselfishly helping one another in times of crisis”.(pg 11).This reasserts the importance of guarding our tradition and delves deep into the tradition of the people and explores the fabric of the closely knitted society. The importance of oral history and oral tradition can lead to empowerment of people fighting for their rights and self determination. The Japanese called oral tradition as ‘intangible cultural heritage’. The importance of our cultural oral history tradition and the need and concern to document it is expressed by the writer thus “the abundant wealth of knowledge concerning our past was buried with the passing away of each of our elder generations. We were fast running out of time and as late as we already were, concrete effort was urgently needed to be undertaken as the beginning. we have found our mission statement”. (pg 303).The commentary vision to preserve the dwindling culture and to keep the identity of the Nagas intact was realise in the form of compiling the folklores of all the tribes of the Nagas which the author proudly announced: “we called it ‘Fables from the Misty Mountains’-Folklores of the Nagas”. Each story is reflective of the particular tribe with the tone of reflecting back in to the past. It all have the message of loyalty, friendship, love, virtue of good over evil etc which all the Nagas believe and cherish dearly.
Retrieving to the discourse, any reform movement can operate in a society where people have freedom to criticise the reality and institutions that it may secure changes. Social Movement play a very important role in highlighting some of the social problems. To carry a positive action one must develop a positive vision and it can be seen in the writer’s ability to speak and uphold the yardstick of fairness which often hurts those in power as truth hurts and which generates reaction at times rudely. The writer urge to people to uphold truth without fear or favour to strive for better future and its message to display the core values and the righteous conduct and commitment to greater transparency augmented by accountability which is displayed in his bureaucratic etiquette and his impeccable integrity and the ability to finely articulate career life distinctly is rare in the context worthy to emulate. In tune with what the writer strive and envision for can be exemplified by Malawi journalist lt. Raphael Tenthani word: “speaking truth to power is not a crime in a democracy; it is a part of the game, we just have to live with it whether we like it or not”. For the society to strive, develop and grow it needs a leader who can enthuse people to grow as Cardinal John Henry Newmans observed ‘to live is to grow. To grow is to change’. And surely this clear unquestionable road map of change and growth has to be understood from the perspective of how the writer is dissenting voice with reference point of experience and fact forming account, providing intellectual insights to the social problems with critical awareness, powerful expression and without bias tone as people yearn for a change questioning change from whom and where, and as people gear to face the challenging years ahead.
