K. Ritse, Pfutsero Town, Nagaland
[dropcap]F[/dropcap]ailure is not a new thing in human life. Whatever we attempted in life, we never succeeded in 100 percent, but the bigger or larger portion of our attempts we miserably failed. Only the good part of our failure is the experiences we gained in life. Though it is bitter and hard to accept the reality there is no choice but to take for granted that it is a part of human life in this world. For those persons with an optimistic mind-set the failure in certain part of life is nothing but a good lesson to him/her in the near future. Such bad experiences make him/her more firm/ determined to achieve success in life. So, that type of failure makes him/her stronger and persistence in life to face the reality of life. That is why the commonly quotation “FAILURE IS THE PILLAR OF SUCCESS” is very much true in the practical life of human beings. From the lowest level to the highest strata of human life this become a life phenomenon in our day to day practical life and we all accept as a universal truth.
In dealing with the topic “YOUR FAILURE IS MY ADVANTAGE” slight differences we find in the context of Naga society. The Naga society wants an absolute and 100 percent success while attempting a particular issue. Even a very negligible error committed by an initiator, in due course of his/her attempt in life the bigger and larger criticism fallowed after the attempt and discouraged that person. When criticism is too much to carry along his/her attempt for a new and innovative attempt we as a human being discourage oneself and give-up the idea of attempting further more steps for success. The bad idea or ill motive dominates in Naga society and you find no appreciation or encouragement in life. Such mental attitude develops the concept “YOUR FAILURE IS MY ADVANTAGE”. Therefore to minutely deal with the subject matter in our Naga society all Naga citizen never ever accept the failure in life and always pointing our finger to the person who struggle for the survival of the peaceful society.
This mental blockage present in our society quite for a long period and continues even today makes our life a lot of different when compare to other advance societies. In our society, there is no admiration and no role model person in life to get our strength in life. When asked the younger generation as to who is your God-father in life. Many youngsters don’t have an admired person/role model person/God-father person in life. So our society is like a boat without an oar in life. We never acknowledge the pain taking by an individual for a great attempt and faced the hurdles in life. Where he/she went wrong and faced failure become my advantage to prolong the attempt in life. We know how difficult he/she met the reality of life, we take for granted that it is a good opportunity to knock him/her down and take a fresh start without him/her instead of asking his/her experienced help to succeed, we take the advantage and condemn that person for his/her failure.
1.Your failure becomes the advantage of the same tribe:-Let us give more illustrations in dealing the subject matter in the context of Naga society. We are so matured to give bad comments to each other but don’t know how to give a supportive role to the societal problem. In each and every daily newspaper the condemnation headlines are very much a dominant news item. Not knowing the head or tail of the whole story if it is concerning to your near and dear one who is in bad shape we immediately give direct condemnation and distort the facts and figures in reality. Every time when one officer is marginalized and put it in a shameful position we want to protect him/her and take the ISM CARD in the society. That way factionalism, groupism, clanism and tribalism etc pokes its head prominently in the present Naga society. If a person is found very much guilty in a particular incident, but if he/she happened to be your fellow tribe; you want to rescue him/her from the crowd and boldly stand behind him/her and snatch the culprit from the crowd and the public become a mere spectator having no way to voice our opinion in such situation. Because there is no body in the crowd to hear the public opinion and the public always become the aggrieved party. Here the person’s failure, become the advantage of one particular tribe and hide the truth in the eye of the public. This is the real dominant seed of favoritism and nepotism practiced and is used as an acceptable culture in our Naga society. The soft-corner of our kids & kins, relative, denomination, religion so on and so forth become the hard corner for the public in the Naga society at this present juncture. Because applying the soft-corner is directly denying the truth and so justice is denied. Only it paves the way for the brave and the courageous persons to cover the public opinion and ill-motive of selfishness authoritatively control the Naga society. Citing such examples one by one will surely hurt someone’s sentiment and may counter attack the writer. But this type of incidences had occurred each and every day in our society.
2.Your failure to stick on the truth is the advantage of others in the bigger issue:- Many a time people refer back to the leaders and who are in the power for covering their stand. Taking the example of their higher ups and question back why not me if others are doing. This rebounds back question in the society is only an indication of tough negative competition among Naga society and there is less way open for a progressive society looking forward the truth in the near future. When retrospect the present facts and figure of the flow of money in the society people really wonder as to how the money is accumulated in the hands of the persons who are in the power and how they lavishly distribute the amounts to the lower strata of the people in all the important occasions. The public is seeking justification in their heart to heart level and cannot come out with a concrete result as to how the money flows into their hands. Without finding an appropriate answer people spread the negative rumors and taking for granted of the clever people to have a dominant role in the society without an idea of truth. This common practice, become the accepted norm of the Naga society and no one has got the guts to retaliate such practice in the society. It is because the whole population in the given society wants the favor of the person/persons who are in power had resulted into the emergence of a new class in the Naga society though there was no class society right from its inception.
3.Your failure in action is other advantage in practical life:- The first and foremost thing in life is not to meet failure. But we face such failures and get a lesson. Even then we didn’t accept the failure. So what we do is to pretend that failure does not come to me and justified our stand in many ways. Just like the society needs peaceful life and the intellectuals said that peace is the only way to get peace. As human being we search for other means of peaceful life. But it never come in our life because we first longs for peace and never think of having peaceful life first. So what we did is that we shift the blame to others and peace in one’s life did not have a place in our mind. The same way we individuals never accept the failure and defend ourselves as if we get peace.
Here your action never tallied with your thoughts and your life is hanging around in that position searching for a success life and you become a good lair and pretend to live in that condition for a long time. That become your habit and whenever you are charged by others, your fixed thought make you to tell lies all the time and that is internalized in your life. Others ultimately know that you are a good lair and lost the confidence of the public. That way you are sideline and the trust and confidence in you by others is diminished year by year and only at the end you realized yourself that the tactics of bluffing others make yourself a suicidal attempt of yourself and people disregard you. At that time only you admitted yourself and withdrew yourself from the society. Many a time large number of leaders and reputed persons become the prey of the public and lost their credentials.
At such period of time the public take advantage on you and sell you at the cheapest rate. Realizing yourself takes time and your failure in action, directly turn into an advantage of the public. The Naga society had come across many such incidences in the past. The popularity and peoples praises never stays for a long period and once it diverted from the truth in action people dig out their own graveyard. Therefore your failure in action, become the advantage of the public to mention your name in the history of the society in the negative line. Such accumulation of past leaders having individualistic view of distorting the failure into their own line of thoughts contribute the norm of the accepted habits in the society and the standard of the society is framed in that line and we all accepted as “Chal ta hai” theory.
4.Your failure is someone’s contribution:- The hate most habit of humankind is this practice of napping your image for the greater interest of one individual. In politics, these practices are very common and play easily in such a way as propaganda. The good side of a candidate is put in the cold storage and only the candidate’s prospect of failures right from the family line to the village and tribe position were dig out and nit the bud of such candidate. Here the maturity of the individual no more controls the society, but people are so fun of hearing such propaganda and believe that such individual is not fit to be a candidate. Such willful intention leaders, to pull-down each other in the Naga society become so popular that the evil thoughts and evil practices dominate the society and many matured people having great concerned for the Naga society stay aloof from the society and become a silent spectator far away from the crowd. Almost all vision leaders don’t want to play and put him/her in the fray for self popularity and wait for the society to wake-up from it slumbering attitude.
Even in the church level, there is no hesitation to use the failure of church worker in the advantage of other person. That is why the split of the church took place and many a time the church workers were disintegrated and you find no cohesiveness in dealing with each other. At the extreme stage the aggrieved party of the church workers break away from the main church body and another church with different denomination is established even though the belief of Jesus Christ as our messiah is same. The village administration partially involved to bridge the gap and tried in many ways and means to keep the village intact in one denomination. But the village authority has limited power to involved themselves in the religion because of the belief and faith of an individual base on salvation after death restrain them to take direct action. When the situation in the church level too cannot reconcile each other and find a solution under the spirit of forgive and forget; how can other social groups either in NGOs or political party level can have genuine reconciliation. Under this caption of tough competition of not admitting our failures for reconciliation to each other, the Naga society is looming around from reality of life and proclaims ourselves to be the best among us. The truth is hidden and we have in an artificial life, full of hypocrisy.
Back to the general public or village level the same or even the worst is happening in the present Naga society. No one care for each other and always go for self motive oriented reputation and never think of the next step after his/her tenure is over. All leaders wanted to contribute his best in his/her short tenure and by-pass many rules and regulations for the fulfilment of his/her cherished target. But there is always a side effect after the tenure is over. After his/her tenure is over, the public confused themselves as to what is the actual yard stick to follow in the society as rules & regulations to control the whole population. From that point of confusion, the entire population becomes restless and the society in itself belongs to the people who are cunning, witty and clever excluding the truth in the society.
In conclusion, the Nagas are firmly rooted on equality of life having no rich or poor, privileged or unprivileged, lower or higher; but only the strong, active and hard work excel in life. Such fortunate persons out of the hard labor threw a feast of merits to the community in their prime stage of life. Their names were recorded in the history in various forms of social recognitions. Such recognitions through verbal history, when crossed each and every independent village; the community recalled their names in memory and passed it to one generation after another. The community admired such persons and treasured in the heart of the community and preserved it as folk tales of their fame and people honoured them in all big public occasions. Such verbal history still never dies down and still very much treasured in our hearts for their generous and kind deeds toward the well-being of the community. The past Nagas fame and qualities of life can still rewind back and trace back it significances for Naga society development. The good is good and bad is bad attitudes still very much present in Naga society. Let us all rise up and boldly say ‘no’ to the bad and ‘yes’ to the good for our Naga society survival. Not only knowing the truth, but internalize it in our daily life and say firmly no to the badness, ugly, dirty and unjust etc. Let us practice good habits in our daily life without any hesitation. Only then the Naga society can restore its indebt qualities. Make our mind to rely on the truth and act bravely, courageously with our full conviction to say yes or no at the right time as per the situation demands and stand on the truth all the time and before the world today; in order to claim and preserve our distinctive identity and unique history. Thank you all the readers for articulating the thoughts for a brighter and better Naga society.
