Come out of a savage state, refine, enlighten and elevate in social and cultural life, taking an active interest in the community’s needs and affairs of a town or a city, with civic pride by performing the duties and responsibilities to the best of ability i.e. civility and civic sense.
Civility is the act of showing regard for others around us. On the other hand civic sense is nothing but ethics which need be followed by one in public. Making efforts to avoid spitting, attending nature’s call in public etc are some of the examples of following civic sense. Both civility and civic sense is that sense of an individual which makes him a civilized citizen of a country. As far as our normal understanding is concerned, it is felt that people from educated and belonging to the upper strata are more or less quite civilized and have civility and civic sense. This may be true in advanced countries but, so far as India is concerned, we are shocked to see, what is inherently wrong with us is that we, no matter which state and what background we belong to, are utterly lacking in both civility as well as civic sense. Sad but true. Drastic and radical changes are needed for all of us, if we have to live with dignity and self respect.
Lack of civility and civic sense is not far to seek, we find it all pervading, no matter which city or town we go, including our state capital, Kohima. In our neighborhood, in the colony, on the road, in the office, in a theatre, in a public toilet or in a restaurant and everywhere we go, we have disgusting signs of incivility and an absence of civic sense. Over and above as per the report of WHO, there are as many as 665 millions of poor Indians who have to defecate in the open every day. These people completely lose their self respect, dignity and civility from their practice, and spread diseases all over the land. As such they demean the human race, otherwise proclaimed to have superior intellect over every other living creature. That is why Indians suffer comments like “India Dirty, Dirty, Cheating, Cheating” made to me and my wife by a Phillipino, when he discovered that we were from India, out of his concern for us.
When Mokokchung can be clean, why can’t Kohima be also? Someone told me that few other hill stations and districts of Nagaland are cleaner than Kohima. If it is true, what is wrong with us? Let us examine ourselves through and through and come out with practical solutions. The situation in Kohima seems to be better off some few decades ago; we were never as uncivil as we are today. Why this deterioration in our civic sense today? Mind that the lovely and historic capital town of Kohima is not only just for lackadaisical human beings to pollute and degrade with their thoughtless selfishness and impunity, as we are accountable to the future generations who would suffer the after effects.
The reason for this uncivil nature is perhaps attributable to our upbringing and formative years as we never took public property seriously, and treated it as ‘nobody’s child’. Civility is conspicuous by its absence, added by our savage background. With this casual and careless attitude, it is no wonder that the public places are all littered because they do not belong to anyone. We feel that the municipality is to look after these but, what about our contribution? We only contribute filth wherever we can. We clean our homes and throw rubbish in front of our neighbor’s home or on the public roads; we eat sweets and chocolates and throw its wrappers here there and everywhere without bothering. A very common sight at Kohima is sweet or chocolate wrappers flung out of luxurious passing cars in the middle of the road. This only goes to show how very civic minded, our so-called creamy layer of society is. If this is the standard of the cream, the less said about others, the better it would be. It is high time that we learn civility instead of savage and barbarism.
Our problem on the other hand is that we only look after our own interest and nothing else around us matters, which are often reflected in all our development activities and its management. The shortcut method of doing things has become our Naga culture, therefore even if we do not have public amenities we do not have the spirit and the guts to shout and complain, nor do we seek workable solutions. We may want every good thing for our city, such as good roads with proper drainage, sufficient quality water supply, reliable electricity, world class public ‘pay and use’ toilets etc but we would not contribute anything toward this end. For instance many parts of Kohima still have no drainage or public latrines for many decades. When our turn comes to contribute our bit, we try to dictate and extort from the Government with all impossible terms and conditions for every petty resource. This is the standard of today’s generation civility and civic sense. In order to overcome the crises, we need to plan and envision for the future and act locally right now to devise ways and means to have a confident future for the younger generation.
Attitude is the core value of every human being. Civic sense is an attitude, per se it predicts the human behavior, be it good or bad. He who has an attitude of civility and civic sense has a broad mind and a future. Civic sense needs to be cultivated.
Absence of civic sense and poor sanitation especially in overcrowded habitations like Kohima is the cause of many diseases and shortened life span. Therefore Mahatma Gandhi famously said “Sanitation is more important than Independence”. Gandhi is perfectly right. Lack of civic sense and sanitation jeopardizes health and threatens life. In such a situation, political independence as we all cherish, has little meaning.
Random disposal of wastes is not only incivility but an insult to the neighbor. Littering betrays us to be a cheap and immature culture. It is time we rise to the challenges and prove that Nagaland is not just ‘mud and dust’ as accused by the foreigners and that Nagas are not just ‘meat and wine’. When we see ourselves the way others see us, civic sense will no longer take a back seat. Let us declare that we can do it if we only do with the needed ‘I Care’ for Kohima or Nagaland.
Care springs from taking pride in our motherland and striving to keep it healthy. The Japanese take compulsory turns in cleaning their neighborhood every morning as an opportunity for having enjoyable fellowship in that joint positive effort. Quite contrary to India’s high caste exercising their so-called privilege of littering everywhere without an obligation to clean up themselves, other lower castes are copying them. I am sure we shall not be carried away by this mainland culture.
Occasionally I take out my children to clean up the neighborhood, even though it is not easy because of the horrible smell. Now the littering in the neighborhood with bottles, plastics and rubbish are much lesser day by day. The Nagas are lucky not to suffer such cultural indoctrination. Rather we boast of a sense of sharing collective responsibilities, valor, integrity and allowing ‘Dignity of labour.’ So the huge task of creating a habitable land for ourselves should not seem impossible to us.
The Bible says your camp must be clean so that God may not see anything indecent amongst you and turn away from you. Shall we resolve not to rely on a culture of cheap escapism but with a vision and a goal, shall we march ahead so that we may have a hope and a future. “Great is he who serves and not the one who slumbers and eat”. Shall we also resolve that we shall absolutely refrain from littering our towns and cities? Let us live to earn respect and dignity through how we live.
Points for discussion:
Civility, civic sense and sanitation should be taught in all our schools, churches and homes.
The Japanese example of compulsory and rotation neighborhood cleaning sho uld be adopted.
The random waste disposal habits of the non-local shop keepers need to be strictly checked.
Sulabh International Social Service Organization, New Delhi should be brought in to construct and maintain some units of world class ‘pay and use’ toilets at Kohima.
We are going on very slow in the process of bringing the gravity water supply from the mountain sites to the capital town of Kohima, so in the mean time we may request the Government to arrange sufficient water supply from deep tube wells, for the colonies, restaurants and public toilets for the purposes other than cooking and drinking.
Road expansions and drainage construction at Kohima is a must since it is our capital town.
Civility is the act of showing regard for others around us. On the other hand civic sense is nothing but ethics which need be followed by one in public. Making efforts to avoid spitting, attending nature’s call in public etc are some of the examples of following civic sense. Both civility and civic sense is that sense of an individual which makes him a civilized citizen of a country. As far as our normal understanding is concerned, it is felt that people from educated and belonging to the upper strata are more or less quite civilized and have civility and civic sense. This may be true in advanced countries but, so far as India is concerned, we are shocked to see, what is inherently wrong with us is that we, no matter which state and what background we belong to, are utterly lacking in both civility as well as civic sense. Sad but true. Drastic and radical changes are needed for all of us, if we have to live with dignity and self respect.
Lack of civility and civic sense is not far to seek, we find it all pervading, no matter which city or town we go, including our state capital, Kohima. In our neighborhood, in the colony, on the road, in the office, in a theatre, in a public toilet or in a restaurant and everywhere we go, we have disgusting signs of incivility and an absence of civic sense. Over and above as per the report of WHO, there are as many as 665 millions of poor Indians who have to defecate in the open every day. These people completely lose their self respect, dignity and civility from their practice, and spread diseases all over the land. As such they demean the human race, otherwise proclaimed to have superior intellect over every other living creature. That is why Indians suffer comments like “India Dirty, Dirty, Cheating, Cheating” made to me and my wife by a Phillipino, when he discovered that we were from India, out of his concern for us.
When Mokokchung can be clean, why can’t Kohima be also? Someone told me that few other hill stations and districts of Nagaland are cleaner than Kohima. If it is true, what is wrong with us? Let us examine ourselves through and through and come out with practical solutions. The situation in Kohima seems to be better off some few decades ago; we were never as uncivil as we are today. Why this deterioration in our civic sense today? Mind that the lovely and historic capital town of Kohima is not only just for lackadaisical human beings to pollute and degrade with their thoughtless selfishness and impunity, as we are accountable to the future generations who would suffer the after effects.
The reason for this uncivil nature is perhaps attributable to our upbringing and formative years as we never took public property seriously, and treated it as ‘nobody’s child’. Civility is conspicuous by its absence, added by our savage background. With this casual and careless attitude, it is no wonder that the public places are all littered because they do not belong to anyone. We feel that the municipality is to look after these but, what about our contribution? We only contribute filth wherever we can. We clean our homes and throw rubbish in front of our neighbor’s home or on the public roads; we eat sweets and chocolates and throw its wrappers here there and everywhere without bothering. A very common sight at Kohima is sweet or chocolate wrappers flung out of luxurious passing cars in the middle of the road. This only goes to show how very civic minded, our so-called creamy layer of society is. If this is the standard of the cream, the less said about others, the better it would be. It is high time that we learn civility instead of savage and barbarism.
Our problem on the other hand is that we only look after our own interest and nothing else around us matters, which are often reflected in all our development activities and its management. The shortcut method of doing things has become our Naga culture, therefore even if we do not have public amenities we do not have the spirit and the guts to shout and complain, nor do we seek workable solutions. We may want every good thing for our city, such as good roads with proper drainage, sufficient quality water supply, reliable electricity, world class public ‘pay and use’ toilets etc but we would not contribute anything toward this end. For instance many parts of Kohima still have no drainage or public latrines for many decades. When our turn comes to contribute our bit, we try to dictate and extort from the Government with all impossible terms and conditions for every petty resource. This is the standard of today’s generation civility and civic sense. In order to overcome the crises, we need to plan and envision for the future and act locally right now to devise ways and means to have a confident future for the younger generation.
Attitude is the core value of every human being. Civic sense is an attitude, per se it predicts the human behavior, be it good or bad. He who has an attitude of civility and civic sense has a broad mind and a future. Civic sense needs to be cultivated.
Absence of civic sense and poor sanitation especially in overcrowded habitations like Kohima is the cause of many diseases and shortened life span. Therefore Mahatma Gandhi famously said “Sanitation is more important than Independence”. Gandhi is perfectly right. Lack of civic sense and sanitation jeopardizes health and threatens life. In such a situation, political independence as we all cherish, has little meaning.
Random disposal of wastes is not only incivility but an insult to the neighbor. Littering betrays us to be a cheap and immature culture. It is time we rise to the challenges and prove that Nagaland is not just ‘mud and dust’ as accused by the foreigners and that Nagas are not just ‘meat and wine’. When we see ourselves the way others see us, civic sense will no longer take a back seat. Let us declare that we can do it if we only do with the needed ‘I Care’ for Kohima or Nagaland.
Care springs from taking pride in our motherland and striving to keep it healthy. The Japanese take compulsory turns in cleaning their neighborhood every morning as an opportunity for having enjoyable fellowship in that joint positive effort. Quite contrary to India’s high caste exercising their so-called privilege of littering everywhere without an obligation to clean up themselves, other lower castes are copying them. I am sure we shall not be carried away by this mainland culture.
Occasionally I take out my children to clean up the neighborhood, even though it is not easy because of the horrible smell. Now the littering in the neighborhood with bottles, plastics and rubbish are much lesser day by day. The Nagas are lucky not to suffer such cultural indoctrination. Rather we boast of a sense of sharing collective responsibilities, valor, integrity and allowing ‘Dignity of labour.’ So the huge task of creating a habitable land for ourselves should not seem impossible to us.
The Bible says your camp must be clean so that God may not see anything indecent amongst you and turn away from you. Shall we resolve not to rely on a culture of cheap escapism but with a vision and a goal, shall we march ahead so that we may have a hope and a future. “Great is he who serves and not the one who slumbers and eat”. Shall we also resolve that we shall absolutely refrain from littering our towns and cities? Let us live to earn respect and dignity through how we live.
Points for discussion:
Civility, civic sense and sanitation should be taught in all our schools, churches and homes.
The Japanese example of compulsory and rotation neighborhood cleaning sho uld be adopted.
The random waste disposal habits of the non-local shop keepers need to be strictly checked.
Sulabh International Social Service Organization, New Delhi should be brought in to construct and maintain some units of world class ‘pay and use’ toilets at Kohima.
We are going on very slow in the process of bringing the gravity water supply from the mountain sites to the capital town of Kohima, so in the mean time we may request the Government to arrange sufficient water supply from deep tube wells, for the colonies, restaurants and public toilets for the purposes other than cooking and drinking.
Road expansions and drainage construction at Kohima is a must since it is our capital town.
(Kuolachalie Seyie is the Co-Convener Environment and Sanitation Committee, Nagaland Baptist Churches Council. The above is a presentation made during a seminar on Environment and Sanitation at DC Conference Hall Kohima 10th June2011)
