Dear Editor,
Arunachal Pradesh has a numerous and vast untapped resources. We only know the little side of the resources we get from the land of Arunachal but when we dig into the huge mountains and hills, there are, and there is, plenty and variety of useful natural resources. The people of different tribes and cultures have a unique role to play in the systems in which each one lives.
The state today at this stage is in the developing times, where we don’t know who is benefitting who and who benefits much or who is lacking in development activities. The people especially our grandparents are like the warriors or the freedom fighters. They have toiled hard to earn their livelihoods and much more than that.
In those times, the world for them was the villages and the people. To be a people of the villages, one has to take up his or her responsibilities faithfully to achieve the goals for their needs and wants.
Therefore, till today people of the villages doesn’t depend much on the machines and the scientific technologies for any cultivation of fields. They fully want to live the organic way. Villages of Arunachal Pradesh have a strong governing system in which they define themselves the authorities to be shoulder upon.
The word decentralization has a role to play in any particular institutions. As said by Mahatma Gandhi, I suggest that, if India is to evolve along nonviolent lines, it will have to decentralize many things.
Centralization cannot be sustained and defended without adequate force. Simple homes from which there is nothing to take away require no policing; the palaces of the rich must have strong guards to protect them against dacoits. So must huge factories. Rurally organized India will run less risk of foreign invasion than urbanized India, well equipped with military, naval and air forces. You cannot build non-violence on a factory civilization, but it can be built on self-contained villages.
Rural economy as I have conceived it, eschews exploitation altogether, and exploitation is the essence of violence.
Villages of Arunachal Pradesh are one of the institutions that have to play a common role to achieve the path of Swaraj. One of the most common things that are happening in the villages of Arunachal Pradesh is the successful working of Governing System. It is the form of decentralization where in every village, there is a leader called as “Gaon Burah” mostly man. In every village he is the Head in taking any decision and also to solve cases pertaining to many affairs. Villagers cannot do any kind of activities that goes beyond the interest of the village. Every villager has to work for the common purpose and for common achievements.
Decentralization can play a major role to boost the aspirations of the village people in terms of development activities and various other projects which can work for the development and welfare of the people. People from the cities and towns don’t know the working system in various aspects of the village. Hence, it is the villager who knows the working systems of their village and they have the right to be independent in its own way. Once they are independent, they have their choices to plan their model for the particular village with the common objectives.
Therefore, it is very important that the handling of power should be given to the village level.
Once the village level takes over the power, I think there will be a change in the village where there will be transformation taking place in various developmental projects and programmes.
Because in the village, it is the villager who knows their problems and their anxieties which need to be fulfil.
To build a better village which can be a model for a village swaraj, one need to understand that a village is the place where all the ideas and innovations can exist and be a guiding force for the nation. A lone village in one corner of the country has great potential and resources to fulfil that village.
Yours,
Mankam Mossang
Student, PGDRDM