Dr Asangba Tzudir
Like the never ending issues of garbage especially plastic wastes and its daily accumulation the various problems confronting Naga society today can be likened to the garbage accumulation. The more the problems and issues accumulate, the more difficult it becomes to solve, and some may have even gone beyond a solution. Is the future bleak? To draw hope has become a tiring and painful exercise that the minds seeks solace in peacefully resigning.
Certain ‘progress’ and newer strides in development is slowly taking place like the four lane in Dimapur stretching from Purana Bazaar to Chümoukedima, the Kohima Smart city project, digitalization at workplace, new rail connectivity etc. These are some positive aspects. However, within the tensed present and while imagining a future based on the present, it does not make the future bright.
Think about ‘change’ in Nagaland. How and where would one even begin. It has become a very difficult proposition to seek the reference point because in all aspects be it social, cultural, ethics, morality, religion, political, economic wherein the ‘form’ encapsulating the ‘content’ seems to have become formless, that it is a formless form lacking in content.
The government of the day continues with its own policies and development design but still struggling for inclusivity and direction. The Naga political solution currently struggle within a ‘formless-form’ that the pursuit for a lasting solution seems to be dissolving. The economy continues to reel under the dependency syndrome. To ethics and morality, our own acts question why we have to be moral. As for religion, it is at crossroads caught between biblical teaching, tribal culture and materialism where biblical teaching finds lost to culture and materialism
Looking at all these scary trends and trajectories, one can only conclude a bleak future. The state of affairs is such that the level of despondency is going to get worse on all fronts while the loss of human values and being replaced by technological and material pursuits is taking the beauty and hope out of humanity. This has happened because we have lost our identity and the very purpose of living to make life and living resourceful, productive and meaningful. Life simply has become a formless-form lacking in content.
Since the beginning of human history and the civilizing process of humanity resourceful concepts have failed to create the desired power because humans have failed to think positively, engage productively and understand the underlying truth about life and existence. In context, the materially calculated value of life has brought Nagas to such a standstill. The hope that there is a way out of this, and that a better tomorrow waits, is but a wishful thinking.
Dr Asangba Tzudir contributes a weekly guest editorial to The Morung Express. Comments can be emailed to asangtz@gmail.com
