Niketu Iralu
Kohima
I thank the organisers of this occasion for the honour and privilege given to me to speak on the subject for today. Yet, needless to say, I am keenly conscious of the responsibility that goes with the privilege, which I believe is to help developing the understanding and thinking in each one of us to ensure the continuing effectiveness of the Red Cross Society in today’s situation of all-round deterioration in our own State, region and globally. And from all that we are seeing, hearing and experiencing of conflict situations going out of control in all continents, we know how important the effectiveness of the Red Cross Society and movement is for our world in peril.
The official theme of the Red Cross Society globally is “through humanity to peace”. The theme declared for this unpredictable, increasingly dangerous, year of 2024 is “Keeping Humanity Alive”.
Both themes bring in humanity in its entirety, made up of all human beings, as the decisive factor in achieving peace and keeping humanity alive by stopping all that lead to killings.
Cornelius Sommaruga, was a Swiss diplomat and President of the International Committee of the Red Cross for 12 years. He became the President of the International Association of Initiatives of Change. I had the privilege of getting to know him and his thinking. He always talked about the urgent need of Globalisation of Responsibility. He said, if globalisation of responsibility is not understood and accepted by everyone today as normal thinking and living, exploitation of economic and political globalisation would inevitably result in massive corruption, violence and unmanageable killings worldwide. He died just about 3 months ago. He was a statesman who understood his times and acted and spoke out correctly.
Here it will be appropriate for me to share what a Swiss friend of mine has written to me. I may add that he, a few years ago, was in Nagaland and took part in a Red Cross rally in Kohima. He wrote:
“Henry Dunant, the Red Cross Founder, shouted in Italian -TUTTI FRATELLI – which means ALL BROTHERS. He said this again and again at the battle of SOLFERINO, Italy, as he was tending to injured soldiers, giving solace to the dying with the help of the village women of the area! Today his call would be ALL BROTHERS AND SISTERS. After days, when the battle was over, he sat exhausted on a box, in despair and horror at the loss of lives. Sunk in silence, suddenly a clear voice within told him, “RED CROSS” – the opposite of his nation’s flag.
An organisation of aid in wars, earthquakes and other catastrophes grew out of this thought and found worldwide support.
When the Red Cross as an organisation was established and the international Geneva convention came into being, Henry Dunant wanted more – an organisation that would heal the hurts and hates, fears, greed and want of power, regardless of the consequences.
He was a man of strong faith, and felt an even greater need for this kind of healing. He died feeling his call and work was not completed … its UP TO US TO COMPLETE IT TODAY.”
In our discussion of today’s theme – Keeping Humanity Alive, I believe we need to go to the deeper need Henry Dunant saw before he died. He saw the need for the Red Cross Movement to become a movement that would also “heal the hurts and hates, fears, greed and want of power at all costs” – not just one that addressed the sufferings of the human body and material destruction.
Given the enormously increased threats and dangers today due to immense increase in populations of nations, climate change, depletion of resources, so on, the uncomfortable truth is that blaming, irresponsible use of excuses etc., are now unaffordable luxuries we have to leave behind.
What Dunant saw was that the international movement he founded dealt only with what is called the “disease process”.* Dealing with an epidemic of a disease is dealing with the disease process only. In an epidemic emergency controlling and ending the rapid spreading of the disease HAS TO BE DONE and done properly. BUT unless the origins of the disease* are also dealt with thoroughly, like water, air and soil pollution, stagnant drains and garbage dumps, etc., the epidemic will keep breaking out. This you will agree is a most important reality all societies with dreams and aspirations must understand and accept the changes required by everyone as normal thinking and living.
Coming to our society today that we have produced together – unless each one of us accepts our duty and responsibility to do whatever we do excellently and properly as we know all Christians, Hindus, Muslims etc., should, whatever our job and place of work may be, our society is collapsing into a Black Hole created by ALL of us. Some of us will self-righteously insist our contribution to the creation of the Hole is not all that much, in fact not harmful at all.But God sees correctly the contribution of each one of us.
Can we deny the following?
• The Naga struggle ‘underground’ has destroyed itself and the people for whom it got started.
• The Naga Government ‘overground’ too has destroyed itself and the people for whom it also came into being.
• And what is this destruction UG and OG doing to the Church and other religions in Nagaland?
The reality for us now is, Lincoln’s ‘Government of .., by .., and for the people’ has been reduced to Government by the Ministers and MLAs for collecting enough money for the next election! (How the bureaucrats manage to get their shares and remain uncensored by the public can only be called modern Naga magic?). We have to say our politicians, although they will be the first to admit they are not saints, yet, have become helpless victims of us, the voters whose attitude is that the politicians must solve the huge problems of development, but we the ordinary guys can live as selfishly and irresponsibly as we like. The share of the ordinary people, all of us, in rendering effective governance impossible is more than we bother to bring into our public discourse. What Globalisation of Responsibility boils down to!
I shall end by making some observations.
• All Nagas will be found to be passionate about doing what is right and good. But we do what is right our way not God’s way – and we force Him to bless it. This is where God is left out and the devil takes over, creating his hell on earth right away.
• “What is wrong is wrong, even if everyone is doing it. And what is right is right, even if no one is doing it.”** How do we bring this truth back into our thinking and making of choices when faced with right and wrong?
• “Those who crusade not for God in themselves but against the devil in others, do not succeed in creating a better future but leave it either as it was, or sometimes even perceptibly worse than it was before the crusade began ... It is extremely dangerous to be more against the devil than for God.” ***
Congress leader Sam Pitroda has stepped down from the post of Chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress and his resignation was accepted by the party. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh took to X and announced that Sam Pitroda had decided to resign from the key post “of his own accord, “ reports The Statesman. Pitroda had been under fire over his controversial remark that Indians in the East resemble the Chinese while those in the South look like Africans.
“We could hold together a country as diverse as India — where people on East look like Chinese, people on West look like Arab, people on North look like maybe White and people in South look like Africans. It doesn’t matter. We are all brothers and sisters,” Pitroda said during an interview with The Statesman.
“We all respect different languages, religions, different looks, customs and food. That’s the India I believe in where everybody has a place,” he said.
It may be mentioned that the Indian Overseas Congress chairman last month had stirred a controversy over his remarks on “inheritance tax in US”.
“In America, there is an inheritance tax. If one has $100 million worth of wealth and when he dies he can only transfer probably 45 per cent to his children, 55 per cent is grabbed by the government. That’s an interesting law. It says you in your generation made wealth and you are leaving now, you must leave your wealth for the public, not all of it, half of it, which to me sounds fair,” Pitroda was quoted as saying in an interview to a news agency.
Ptiroda had said his statement on inheritance tax in the US was “twisted” to divert attention from what “lies” Prime Minister Narendra Modi is spreading about the Congress manifesto.
(*Dr RD Laing on “Disease Process and Disease Origins; ** GK Chesterton; *** Aldous Huxley. [NB: A few changes and corrections in some paragraphs made for greater clarity.])
Speech delivered by Niketu Iralu on the occasion of Red Cross Day organised by Indian Red Cross Society Nagaland in Kohima. May 8, 2024.
