By Wanshan B Khardewsaw
As we bid good-bye to 2013 whether individually or collectively we know what losses and we have suffered and gains we achieved during the year. That the state suffered major losses during the last few months of agitation is inarguable by any yardstick. However, as we groan for the loss or non-gain, or for whatever reason, here are some facts that we ought to know, even as the state government has estimated the financial loss, and made the pressure groups responsible for the recovery of such loss.
In August alone, the Finance Department of Andhra Pradesh Government estimated a loss of 3,500 crores because of the government employees’ strike, demanding the Centre to rollback its bifurcation decision of Andhra Pradesh. These are the kind of losses that are not recoverable, even as the Government of Meghalaya estimated a loss which is hardly one percent of this said estimate (for not less than two months), as done by the government of Andhra Pradesh. This speaks a lot as to where we stand as a state, in as far as growth and contribution to national growth is concerned. It is negligible! Whether or not agitations will continue, we can only hope and pray that the New Year will bring the kind of decision and commitment (from both ends), that will ensure that the thin line between moral and immoral is not erased.
2013 has thrown up bureaucrats like Durga Shakti Nagpal who was suspended for putting a stop to illegal mining by the sand mafia. In other words she was standing up against the wrongs that the so called rulers of the state commanded her to do. As the present Chief secretary of our state retires, even as he was credited with six months extension, can we expect that the new year will bring us officers and bureaucrats close to, even if not of the stature of Durga Nagpal, who will dare to stand up for what is right, making sure that the thin line between right and wrong is not erased?
It is very interesting to come across a write-up by Apratim Mukarji in ‘Who sows the wind? And who reaps the whirlwind?’ A very clear presentation of how the US did sow the wind through its unscrupulous policy of pushing the Soviets out of Afghanistan through the Afghan Jihad, which we all know is more of an American Jihad. Also their cheap route of financing this so called Jihad through the drug trade, which not only left Afghanistan as a full blown largest producer of Opium and Heroin, but its economy is now more or less totally dependent on these substances as Afghans farmers found opium to be the most profitable crop for farming. The result of which is that society after society and country after country, across the world is left to continuously pay the price for this deliberate American folly.
With nothing much to ponder about and nothing much to write, we definitely have to make sure as a State that whatever we sow now, the future generation should in no way reap any whirlwind irrespective of who sponsored, spearheaded, planned or masterminded the present imbroglio.
We have seen in 2013 that the Supreme court has struck down Section 8 of the Representation of People Act, which allowed convicted MPs and MLAs to continue in office while their appeals journeyed through courts, until the cases have to be closed because of the clients’ natural death. Not mentioning the commotion after the announcement of the said verdict, but the question is, will we see any of our representatives being convicted and sent to jail for their involvement in various scams, even as we have seen the verdict for some of our officers in various departments of the state. Will it ever happen? Or will 2014 prove otherwise?
2013 also marks the golden jubilee of the greatest speech, which perhaps is the reason why we have Obama as the most powerful man on the planet today. On 28th August 1963, history was made with the celebrated speech of Martin Luther King Jr, when he spoke out loud of his dream, “I have a dream”. The speech was considered as one of the greatest speeches in history. It drew the attention of Americans and the world to the situation of the Afro-Americans in the US. He asked that they be judged “not by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character”. Even as the pro-ILP pressure groups have suspended their agitation (until New year), we hope and pray that the New Year will bring promising and acceptable change to one and all, and that Christmas will, as it meant to be a harbinger of lasting peace and congenial and harmonious atmosphere for all, where no specific groups or communities are targeted or used as tools to bring down governments.
The intention is to posit here that the malaise and series of allegations faced by the various stake-holders of the state during 2013 should be enough of whatever loss we have had to suffer. Let it be a resolution of one and all in the state that the New Year will be a year of complete gain for the state, a year that will take us to newer and greater heights as we set aside and let go of whatever loss we suffered, and we keep up the pace of whatever gain we achieved.
Let me conclude this write-up by wishing all the readers of Shillong Times, and particularly, readers of this article, that we may all have a “more promising” and a ” more Public Participated” 2014 – a year that the wise, the honest and the real intelligentsia will not keep quiet. May we all see a year where achievements will be surpassed, records will be broken, reputations will be made, and failures will be forgotten.
“Being controlled by the opinion of others is a guaranteed way to miss your purpose in life”