Soyimyanger Aier
The folly of the youth, the indifference and the silence of the educated and the well offs are dragging Nagaland down even further. I see no fault in those in charge of the government starting from the CM to the peon because it is us the people who never questioned and checked them due to nepotism and of course fear of summon letters from tribal unions. We all gave them a free hand to manage our affairs without any checks and so they owned the government and exploited all the resources that were meant for us.
We have privileged unelected chairmen, advisors and third party government parasites living like kings at the expense of our state’s ex chequer. We have kilonsers who have hijacked the Naga national movement living like kings surrounded by pity young Naga boys and girls who still reluctantly believe that there is a Naga nation. Their children are even more privileged. They live in luxury and study in expensive boarding schools abroad. They get into business without financial or patronage insecurities. This is the beginning of the elite class in Nagaland and at whose expense? Yes you and me. But no need to blame them because it was us who were too naive and afraid to challenge them when they held our dear Nagaland at ransom.
They say small minds are easy to please and yes we are a race with small minds. A 500 rupee note will excite us, a cosmetic patch up of the road once in a blue moon will make us praise the MLA like foolish sychophants, an achievement or a promotion or a youtube sensation among the various tribes will excite everyone to the point that we have to brag and post them on media as if one of us got an Oscar or landed on the moon or got the Nobel prize. Small minds do not feel shame or guilt or empathy. Bringing a politician to grace a student’s conference is a major achievement without any shame, forcing the people to elect someone to the NLA is a communal achievement without any feeling of guilt, killing off all birds and wild animals in our forest in the name of medicinal and exotic food and spitting kutka and betelnut everywhere is a palate pleaser for us without any remorse or guilt for our environment.
All these are happening right in front of our nose but we do not feel uncomfortable at all. The scholars and the educated ones chose to remain silent because they think it is wise to stay quiet and they have too much to lose if they open their educated mouth and they do not want to offend their elite friends, the outspoken ones are rather threatened or bought off, the general public do not want to step out of their comfort cocoon because they maintain their tribal/clan loyalty and the naive ones do not care as long as they get that short term comfort. This is my Nagaland!
(This article was originally published on the Facebook page Ao Semtu. Except for the title, the article has not been edited by MT)