“State Govt Committed to fight Corruption”
Asangba Tzüdir
The statement made by Nagaland Home Minister that the ‘State Govt is committed to fight corruption’ while addressing the Civil Services day celebration needs to be read with a pinch of salt considering the current trend of affairs. Such statements sounds very promising, nonetheless, it somehow squeezes one between hope and despair.
Hope, because such statement is also an honest confession that our society is in desperate need of an honest encounter with truth. Despair because, such ‘beautiful proclamations that becomes headliners’ have become a routine affair and makes one think if it will be just another meaningless concealment beneath its deceptive rhetoric made more pronounced by the way corruption works. It becomes meaningful only when it is applied in context and in praxis.
It is indeed an excruciatingly painful duty to write or talk about corruption in our state when it has reached astounding proportions, something that is unthinkable, contrary to a Christian state. Corruption has become a rampant part of human life and occurs in multiple manifestations. This ubiquitous phenomenon is intensified by the question of livelihood, social status and survival in the evolution of a socially accepted standard of living. What Will Smith remarked is also very true of our society and aptly defines our mentality when he said, “We spend money we haven’t earned on things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like.” Thus, the need for change in mindsets, attitudes and lifestyles.
This calls for retrospection, rather than pointing fingers and throw oneself to the question of who is corrupt and who is corrupt free enough to ‘stone’ the corrupt. The answer lies in our heart and mind within each of us. Today corruption is one of the greatest impediments to growth and development beginning with human development. The confronting question is whether we choose to fight against corruption or let oneself became a part of the ‘normalising’ process of corruption. But, if at all we want a change for the better in ‘eradicating’ corruption in our state a collective responsibility is called for because we cannot afford to let corruption strangulate our lives and society.
Beginning with a responsible government that is truly and sincerely committed to fight corruption, the general public too needs to endorse at least a ‘moral minimum’ that is necessarily guided by the principal of the moral. To put it in simple terms, to be moral means to use the faculty of critical and practical judgment within us in deciding upon the better judgment of acting on the ‘morally right action’ in any given situation.
On the whole, the govt’s commitment to fight against corruption can be likened to the allegory of straightening a dog’s tail. Easier said than done, but if this goal is to be set in motion in the right direction, then each and every individual that makes up the state government, the ‘politicians’ and also the general public at large needs to stand up and do away with corrupt practices. We first need to ‘sacrifice’ our corrupt selves in order to build a corrupt free society and this strictly demands a collective responsibility. We also need to sincerely address the predicament that makes us a human being; as moral beings, and to embrace truth and re-inculcate the culture of hard work and the ethics of earning through honest means.
For now, one can only hope that the fight against corruption may not be like filling up a tank with water that has a hole in the bottom.
(Dr. Asangba Tzüdir is Editor with Heritage Publishing House. He contributes a weekly guest editorial to the Morung Express. Comments can be mailed to asangtz@gmail.com)
