DIMAPUR, JUNE 13 (MExN): “I have a dream, a dream for the people of Nagaland, a united, enlightened and progressive Nagaland where every citizen who dwell in the land will be able to raise his or her head high in the comity of nations,” said SC Jamir, Governor of Goa.
Interacting with a group of Political Science students from Nagaland University who called on him this afternoon here at the Raj Bhawan, Jamir said he has a dream of a future Nagaland which will be the envy of others in the country.
“When we talk of the future we should not forget about the present because it is the present which will give birth to the future,” the Governor maintained. “And when we talk of the present we should not forget about the past since it was the past which gave birth to the present”, according to a statement issued by the OSD to the Governor.
However, he lamented that in Nagaland the people are so obsessed with the past even going to the extent of glorifying the past completely forgetting the present where we are in.
“Nagas were known as an honest and upright people,” he said. “But today, there is a famine of truth in the Naga society. No one is speaking out the truth. And who or what has created this situation which is preventing the people from speaking out the truth? It is the gun culture which is preventing us from speaking out the truth. This is the greatest, gravest and most dangerous syndrome of insurgency in Nagaland in the last five decades or so,” he said.
Jamir went on to lament that when intellectuals who care for the future of the Naga people involve themselves to find out a workable and acceptable road map to the Naga political problem, but who in the process go against the ego of some people, their lives are threatened and they are asked to refrain from their endeavour.
He cited the names of Niketu Iralu, Charlese Chasie and Kaka Iralu who, it may be mentioned here, were threatened with dire consequences by a certain faction of the Underground two years back.
Jamir stated that everywhere in the world, people are talking of liberating themselves from domination, but that in Nagaland, with all the prerequisites of a Christian State as well as a secular State “we are not able to avail the opportunities because of fear. To change we should speak out the truth and this truth should percolate down to the grassroots level.”
Replying to a query from a student, Jamir said, “It is shameful that in the name of Sovereignty we are killing each other; in the name of freedom, we are not allowing the people to enjoy freedom; in the name of the welfare of the people, we are taxing, extorting the people to the bones. What kind of a movement for the people is this? Is this really for the people? Will this build up any future for the Naga people?”
He appealed to the students to “dispassionately analyze” whether the activities of the underground groups such as killings, extortion, threats and intimidations are helping the cause of the Nagas.
“We ourselves have to remove the burden our people are carrying,” Jamir said and added that Nagas cannot expect outsiders or providence to solve their problems or lift their burden.
He appealed to the educated, enlightened sections of the society to come out and build the present and future of Nagaland as a “united, harmonious, erudite and prosperous society where we can hold our heads high.”
The students from the Political Science department of Nagaland University, numbering 27 of them and led by their lecturer Likase Sangtam, arrived here in Goa yesterday morning and will be leaving for Bangalore tomorrow afternoon from where they will head back for Nagaland.
