Dear Editor,
Our state has made significant strides since the NEFA days. The 35 odd years between 1952 and 1987 saw rapid political and administrative developments in Arunachal Pradesh finally culminating into statehood for our state on 20th February 1987.
Few good old figures that pioneered to let us see this day needs to be remembered and thanked amply. But after all these years, the question on real development still looms
large and lingers.
Given the fact that our first generation population after the Independence were mostly illiterate and ignorant, the early leaders and politicians literally toyed with them when we look back.
Instead of envisioning and carrying ahead a holistic approach of development agenda, the whole state has been made a botch of things. To aggravate it, the onset of 21st century saw the ascendance of new crops of politicians to prominence in the political scene of Arunachal Pradesh who would take the legacy of identity politics, vindictive politics and dereliction of duties of their predecessors to the next
level. It seems the political class of our state have taken away only the blood-sucking attributes from the mainstream Indian politics.
The terms like ‘statesmanship’ and ‘Good Governance’ have been rested to peace.
Snowballed over the years sadly, the present scenario clearly exhibits the sorry state of affairs vis-a-vis Arunachal Pradesh and it’s prolong wait for a real development politics rest on the derelicting hands of the moribund political will.
The people of Arunachal Pradesh, however, have commendably caught up with the pace of the developments to quite an extent. But, the majority of the population still remains deprived of the political and administrative know- how. Lack of awareness about the political system and the administrative machinery have kept them at the receiving end but still easily lured by the shrewd politicians with freebies during electioneering. Forget about the intelligent voting, the clan and tribe considerations are still so deeply entrenched in the mindset of the voters that the ideologies of the political parties don’t stand a chance. It could have only been different had the people through generations of education become ready on all front to assimilate the impending change. No doubt the historians and the political analysts have rightly pointed out the premature conferring of statehood to our state.
Nevertheless, there is a growing impatience with old attitudes and the slow pace of change. Arunachal is also going through a demographic revolution along with the nation it is embedded in. The educated and the new generation voters need to change the process and the trend. They need to churn out performance and accountability from their representatives through the power of ballot.
A forced dawn must to be broken wherein the political class and aspirants have no way but to pursue the genuine politics of development. Let’s put Albert Einstein’s words “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
Yours,
Rokpen Gali