Flights Of Fantasy
[ M Panging ]
Most successful Arunachalese have studied outside the state at some stage of their student life. Since there were no medical, engineering and law colleges in the state, almost all engineers, doctors and lawyers have attended college outside the state. Because of availability of only few colleges, many Arunachalese studied in colleges outside the state.
Today, many forward-looking students, who have performed well in class XII exams and children from affluent families undertake graduate and post graduate studies in Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Dehradun, etc.
For school education also, many students are opting for studies outside the state. Many students are pursuing school education in prominent residential schools at places like Guwahati, Tezpur, Numaligarh, Delhi, Dehradoon, etc.
Arunachalese educated outside the state interact and mingle with other students of different cultures, castes, tribes, races and regions. Studying in major metropolitan cities, they are exposed to pillars of development, like expressways, swanky shopping malls, flyovers, metro rails, modern airports, elite universities, multiplexes, museums, planetariums etc.
They are taught by accomplished professors, lecturers and taken on exposure visits to famous institutions. They are also exposed to lofty concepts, like idealism, fraternity, pluralism, secularism, socialism, democracy, etc.
Similarly, many Arunachali officers attend seminars and conferences in swanky convention centres in major cities of India and few lucky ones attend such seminars in foreign countries. In these seminars and conferences, they are exposed to latest developments in education, superior economic theories, latest development concepts, management formulas, where they mingle and interact with the best minds of the nation and the world.
After such exposure and grooming for many years in various colleges and universities of the world in the prime, influential years of their lives, most Arunachalese return home bubbling with new ideas and zeal to implement new concepts in their home state.
However, their enthusiasm and zeal is muzzled after a few years in the state. Soon these lofty concepts and theories are compromised by the lifestyle prevalent in the land of “Khushi Khushi”. Most concepts learnt in the institutions outside the state are gradually forgotten and dumped into the dustbins to be replaced by omnipresent local lethargy and inertia. Such is the lethargy and inertia that, many modern development concepts are reversed, and regressive concepts are implemented with gusto and vigour.
This reversal of modern ideas and concepts has been the bane of our state due to which our state remains one of the lesser developed states of the country. If majority of the concepts learnt outside the state were sustained and implemented, Arunachal could have been propelled towards the path of development.
Do all these ideas need an enabling environment? Can we provide that? Or perhaps, we need a stronger character to retain, sustain and implement modern concepts leaned outside the state. (The contributor is Retired Group Captain VM)
