Fate of Naga society at the hands of those in governance — Iralu

Our Correspondent
Kohima, Feb. 27 (EMN): Peace activist Niketu Iralu on Thursday said that whether “our young society” would grow properly with happiness and human dignity or collapse uncontrollably in chaos, anger and vengeful destructiveness depends largely on the performance of those who run the machinery of governance.

Iralu was speaking at the inaugural session of a three-day training programme on “Ethics and Values of Public Governance” at the Administrative Training Institute in Kohima. He said that the challenges and opportunities that members of the state bureaucracy handle daily are immediately consequential.

“Government of the people, for the people, by the people is such a beautiful ideal and sounds so simple; but to make it produce the needed result must be so hellishly complicated and demanding, if the people think their rights are more important than their responsibilities,” he said.

Iralu reminded that there are many challenges that those in public governance need to accept and respond to adequately in order to grow.

“Will the highly emotional struggles for legitimate human aspirations for identity, dignity and security by the numerous ethnic tribes, nationalities and communities in the Northeast region take the fragile people like us forward or will our struggles destroy us because of our failure or unwillingness to heal our damaged relationships because we are too selfish, proud and plainly ignorant?” he wondered.

Iralu also questioned if the natural environmental health of the region, which has within it priceless but sensitive bio-diversity hotspots, be destroyed by the coming projects of economic development; and what will be the economic and political consequences?

According to him, ‘we need to know that our struggles and aspirations are right and essential for our proper development as human beings’.

“Human element is the decisive factor and unless we bring changes in our attitude of greed, selfishness, ego, and other shortcomings, development is not possible but instead bitterness of destruction is coming,” he said.

Commissioner and Secretary of P and AR department Dinesh Kumar informed that the programme has been initiated with specific objectives relevant to the present time ‘as we are facing various issues each day’.

He asked the government officials to work for the state and the country. “We are not masters but servants and therefore we have to serve the community and society,” he said, adding that “many bad things” are happening frequently today because of lack of ethics among the officers.

Resource person, Kiran Gandhi, said that the training programme aims at reconciling differing values and developing a shared perspective for a just and fair society where each person is valued and treated with dignity.

Twenty-two officials from different departments are participating in the programme.