SASRD: A hope to make Nagaland a ‘land of abundance’

DIMAPUR, OCTOBER 20 : The School of Agricultural Sciences and Rural Development (SASRD) under the Nagaland University, located at Medziphema, represents the hope of turning Nagaland from an “agricultural deficit” state into a “land of abundance”.

This statement was made by Dr Chubatola Aier, the principal of C-Edge College, while delivering the foundation day lecture at SASRD on Thursday morning. It was the 39th foundation day celebration of SASRD.

Unlike previous foundation day lectures, which were mostly technical in content, Aier informed that her discourse would be drawn from her field of specialization: literature. Evoking sublime imagery, it was titled as “Dreams, Shadows, Lights and Poetry.”
“Dreams, shadows and lights because they make our lives complete. And poetry because it inspires us,” she reasoned. The ultimate dream of everyone, according to Aier, should measured by the splash it creates “in the river of eternity”.

This is the kind of dream that can be created within us and acts as our guiding star, she said. “Thus it is consciously created and can be fulfilled. And this school, since inception, has been living the dream.”

Referencing the problems that continue to persist in the Nagaland University, she hoped that SASRD would still find ways to keep its dream “fresh”. She likened the end of a dream to the shadows. “When does a dream end?

“It ends when we cannot rise above circumstances, and when we cannot rise above mediocrity. Then it turns into a nightmare,” she shared. A “true dream”, Aier said, has no end. “It merely changes shape and direction. That is how we keep flowing in the river of eternity.”

She reminded that it was entirely up to the school to define its destiny. “What kind of splash do we want to make in our particular course of river? Either we rise above the river, or we drift along under the currents.”

After reciting Matthew Arnold’s famous poem Dover Beach, Aier used it to equate with the phase that the Nagas are going thorough currently. The lines And we are here as on a darkling plain/Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight/ Where ignorant armies clash by night, perfectly sums up the confusion that defines Naga society today, she shared.

Aier used another famous poem, Ulysses by Lord Alfred Tennyson, to encourage the students to keep pursuing knowledge like a sinking star.

Chief guest of the occasion, P Longon, minister of Health and Family Welfare, said that “we must find new innovations in agriculture sector” to increase rice production in Nagaland. The inability of “our farmers” to produce enough rice to achieve self-sufficiency was a matter of concern, he said.

The top performer in academics for the year 2016 was given the Alumni Award on the occasion.