The common people have come to believe that money power wins and mind power loses in the race; But why?
The recently reported misappropriation of Rs 207 crores; RPP exposing backdoor appointments; 269 extortion cases in the last 3 years; the lone state in India that doesnot have a medical college; the languishing rural healthcare; and getting tagged among the highest unemployment rate in India are just some examples that show how poorly Nagaland is governed.
(For details, refer table)
Together with it, Nagaland has issues that are unique to its own such as its long political conflict with the Indian government, the infamous and controversial acts such as NLTP, regionalism and tribalism. Issues steaming from those issues include excessive taxation by the Naga political groups, extortion and the booming of black market using illicit liquor and drugs.
Currently, the state is governed by a democratically elected United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Government without the hallmark of the modern democracy i.e. the opposition. In a democracy, opposition is institutionalized to be an integral part of the political system as its main role is to question the government of the day and hold them accountable to the public.
Ruling out the opposition, Nagaland’s only option is to keep the democracy running through multiple Civil Society Organizations whose opinions and demands have been tested time and again to be the most influential in every decision the Nagaland government makes.
[Civil society used here refers to the dense network of groups, communities, networks, and ties that stand between the individual and the State]
Also Read: Intellectual bankruptcy
In a nutshell, Nagaland is as decentralized as any ideal democratic society would have imagined. But corruption in Nagaland is rampant; inequality in wealth distribution is evident; basic amenities such as proper roads, water supply, healthcare and electricity are yet to be provided in remote areas of districts like Mon and Tuensang and many more.
And for every issue that’s going against the public’s interest, the general public has blamed the government. But, who is the government? Apparently, the Government consists of those individuals whom we have elected through our vote to govern us.
The scale of public dissatisfaction and discontentment against the government would have made one imagine that the government must have been placed under a lot of pressure by the citizens while demanding better governance. This belief arises from the principle of democracy that asserts how Citizens should hold the government accountable through various democratic procedures.
But is it simple to hold a government accountable by an individual? Arguably yes but reasonably no.
Therefore, instead of a single individual, the Civil Society acts as the watchdog and the guardian of public interest and plays the most significant role in making the government accountable. This makes civil society the backbone of democracy.
However, a Civil Society can only function to a certain extent as they are limited by knowledge, information and experience. Moreover, an organization’s ability, its vision and goal is always in parallel with the adequacy and efficiency of their leaders.
An organization is best equipped when the leaders have broad vision, well-versed with new political developments, and have the ability to analyze, rationalize and comprehend the complexities, legalities and the terminologies involved in various governmental policies to protect and promote the interests of their people. This, in a way, demands the leaders to be close to being omniscient.
However, the leaders need not be ‘all-knowing’ but can still be informed and exposed to various ideas and knowledge through various public discourses in the likes of print, digital and electronic media.
An ideal ‘check and balance’ principle in a democracy between the State and the Citizen can be aptly explained figuratively. In reality, civil society must be guided by intellectuals. Intellectuals have throughout human history transformed and reformed societies.
However, in our context, most intellectuals are salaried, tenured or pensioned and are typically chained to the wheel of a respectable career and profession. This narrow professional self-interest has destroyed the so-called ‘public interest’ of the intellectuals and has taken away their capacity of critical mindedness.
This is evident from the study on Mokokchung District conducted by Dr. E. Benrithung on the Political Participation and Political Attitude. The study concluded that the highest educated respondents were among the lowest that happened to discuss politics and also the lowest turnout in voting participation. This conclusion can be further backed when the public intellectuals maintain their silence even when corruption flaunts the society.
It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose untruths. Today, intellectuals fail to play the role of critical counter power to the State and seem to have lost their ability to think independently. This has led to common people believing that money power wins and mind power loses in the race.
Being an intellectual is not enough. There is an urgent need to translate this intellect into productive action in the real world. The changing nature of information gathering has made it much easier to maintain an insulated intellectualism but the silence must break at some point. Therefore, asking what intellectuals should stand for and fight for in today’s world can be a start.
The intellectuals owe an explanation to the community as to why they choose to remain silent when they know very well that corruption has become all pervasive. The common people are suffering, the lay people are victimized. This is so because the intellectuals have failed them; the intellectuals have become complicit in misgovernance and corruption by remaining mute spectators.