New Delhi
Everyone is keeping fingers crossed on the prospect of One Solution, One Agreement;
but honest analyses would reveal a key insight that no one policy or one leader can be
panacea --- that is, treat all ailments.
Sincerity can be a trigger to purposeful revolution.
The days of golden goose are over. The Post-Solution era would mean some funding but those eyeing 'greener grass house' called the BJP; and the old tricks of minting money may get shocker.
Money will not come easily. The old habit has to end.
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has already counseled that the state government should focus on development expenditure. At the risk of displeasing 'friends' and repeating what has been stated numerous times -- it is time to forget Corruption at least for next few years.
A long-term effort to quell financial mismanagement will require concrete steps and sometimes even unpopular measures. The new dispensation should be ready to take the risk.
I spent sometime with a few development experts in Delhi lately. A few of them have handled states like Nagaland, Mizoram and Himachal Pradesh and a few others know pretty well the easy going lifestyle of politician-Babu nexus. The 'contractors' need not be cousins either by relations or by business-ties of give and take.
One of them told 'Nagaland Page': "Things are in bad shape. The CAG reports revelation is worrisome. Nagaland will have to bring health care, schools, jobs and the general rule of law to a populace that has rarely seen focused and sincere government attention".
The Education Ministers neglected 'education policy' and were supposed to handle transfers of teachers. For long in the 1980s and the 1990s, the Higher Technical Education Ministers were used to 'send youngsters for medical and engineering colleges'.
Same stories about Transport Ministers (helping country cousins with bus auctions) or Civil Supplies Ministers gave away 'tokens' of special quotas.
There would be challenges the this system itself as things are also at shambles. If the old ministerial hands are too experienced and easily vulnerable to the corruption malady; with the new 'interim arrangements' chances are the new set of leaders and ministers would be in such high positions without ever having to face a popular vote.
Mizoram experienced these while in Assam, the students-turned-netas of AGP were incompetent and corrupt too.
Let us assume that one former underground commander could become the 'chief executive' one day.
But development is a tough proposition. There will be need to handle welfare measures and he will have to carry bureaucrats along. He would face a tough challenge.
An unease over his credibility will also linger. Gossip mongers would raise the tribalism bogey.
There will be a need for slicing the fruits and here 'unity' would be needed. If the political parties
and leaders do not work together - which is quite likely - there will be a realisation that there is a real
danger that the new interim-arrangement will fail.
The biggest risk in that 'failure' will be the tag that parents' wishes were imposed though the child
wanted to make his or her choices.
But change is the essence of life. High expectations are natural. These expectations are largely
one of imminence of something excited. Will the society and the state change ? Will these also
make everyone a new being from what we have been?
At the national level, India has seen major transitions and turns in the curves. There was Emergency,
there was 1991 when Economy was liberalised and 2014 when a pro-Hindutva macho image man
Narendra Modi was given a historic mandate.
Closer scrutiny would convince that Naga politicians have failed despite some good works.
Will it be wrong to presume that Nagaland has all the ingredients of a revolution -- joblessness,
roads in shambles, teachers not getting salaries, thriving corruption and quite an incompetent and
indifferent politico-administrative system?
When it comes to hard political war there is no pill for regret.
ends
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