Moa Jamir
Nearly two weeks have elapsed since the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) Report 2016 was tabled in the Nagaland Legislative Assembly on March 19 highlighting discrepancies in various Social, Economic, Revenue and General Sectors in the State.
While the government’s conspicuous shoveling of the report with a 13 minutes assembly session is a tacit strategy, the deafening silence of leading social and religious organisations on the report is ominous and reflects the wretched state of affairs we are living in.
Such findings are the norm in these annual reports. Routinely, the reports are tabled and shelved, without discussion or corrective action and given a gentle burial. Remember the last year’s CAG Report? Probably not.
Consequently, our roads are barely motorable; health services need a life-line; schools are unteachable; social and economic sectors, and other public amenities and services remain in total shambles. A ‘state’ of complete despondency.
What could explain such nonchalance – of the organisations as well as the general public? Is it lack of awareness and information deficiency? A case of an acute enduring ability?
No, it is a symptomatic malady of Corruption that has become endemic and ingrained in every layer of society.
Corruption is described by the World Bank as 'the abuse of public office for private gain' (World Bank), but the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) has defined it more comprehensively as 'when institutions, organisations, companies or individuals profit inappropriately from their position in the operations and thereby cause damage or loss. This includes giving and receiving bribes, extortion, favouritism and nepotism, embezzlement, fraud, conflict of interest, and illegal monetary contributions to political parties.' Sound familiar?
Corruption is so deeply ingrained that not a single institution –governmental, social or religious– is free from its encumbering shackles. As a result none is willing to shake the status quo fearing repercussion from others. The system, therefore, continues to keep the State in a “vicious cycle of corruption.”
Lulled by years of corrupt practices and systematically shaped under it, the public has also become immune to such findings.
At the end of the day, it is the general public that forms the core of social organisations and church bodies. The silence, thus, is an admission that we are all part of the tentacles of corruption and a fight against the same would result in collective implosion.
In such a situation, how do we break out of the vicious cycle? Transparency International, an anti-corruption watchdog, has among other things suggested ending impunity, reform public administration and finance management, promoting transparency and access to information; and empowering citizens as measures to fight corruption.
But if the general populace as well as leading institutions of the State are, in a way, ‘co-opted’ by the government thereby enabling impunity and obscurity, the fight against corruption in the State becomes an insurmountable task.
It is high time that conscientious and likeminded citizens of the State take on corruption head-on by highlighting and voicing out against corruption ad nauseam till those at the helms of affairs are perforated to act. A relentless and sustained campaign is needed to fight this menace.
For any comment drop a line to moajamir@live.com
