NON-ENTERPRISING ATTITUDE: ECONOMIC BANKRUPTCY OF ARUNACHAL

Until recently, our land has been described as 'Hidden Land', ostensibly for reasons such as remoteness and isolation of the whole area, rendered by the rugged-rocky, inhospitable terrain from the rest of the world. As the rays of the modernization dawn here too, every walk of life and outlook of the people have remarkably changed. This exposure to intricacies and complexities of modern-day life has, undoubtedly, widen the scope of growth of people; but having, for so long been, reeling under miseries and hardships inflicted upon us by unfriendly topography like difficult hilly terrain, undulating landscape and heavily dense, not excluding isolation from the rest of the world, we seem to blindly accept everything as a boon without much concern for the after-effects or hung-over. Our virgin minds have been lured and enslaved by the fruits of modernization; souls have been engulfed by lime-light of modern world. The tempting modern life-style has initiated a mad-dash rush towards modernization in every sphere of life. Unfortunately, the unsophisticated brain is no match to giant, rather boundless realities of this present world, and this uncontrolled infatuation with all its implications, in turn, has created ripples in our primitive minds, leading further to confusion, restlessness and turbulence.

Essentially, to get along and sail atop the tides of present world of globalization, it is indispensable that we introspect ourselves and re-orient our attitudes, aspirations and deeds for peaceful life, better future and prosperous Arunachal. Our approach to life-style, undoubtedly, is definitely catching-up with the global trends; unfortunately, our attitude with respect to socio-economic and political conditions, specifically, modern economics is as slow as snail’s walk and dismally poor.

Money has seeped into the traditional economy of the tribal and village society and disintegrated the age-old barter system. Though barter system still persists, the monetization of every aspect of rural economy is increasingly shattering and unwinding the well-knit fabrics of community-feeling and brotherhood. In addition, it has resulted in unsustainable resource utilization, further hampering the community/common pool resource. The society is passing through a dangerous phase- transitional phase- which marks both economic anxiety and social dilemma.

Population of the state is touching new high every year. Also, the proportion of unemployed youth, uneducated & educated and unskilled & skilled, together is alarmingly increasing. Despite growing awareness and changing outlook of the people, the mindset is still predominantly vaguely progressive, evidently dull and rigidly orthodox. Every body prefers to play safe-hands and accordingly run after govt. jobs- whatever the grade or level. Most of us are more than content to have even a clerical job. Truly, our general attitude is shamefully non-enterprising. Under these circumstances, with burgeoning job-seekers and shrinking govt. jobs, the state is heading towards an inevitable economic doomsday.

As economics predominantly governs the daily affairs of life, the economic uncertainty and economic anxiety among vulnerable, youthful minds of unemployed, non-enterprising citizens of the state is genuinely a cause of serious concerns. Certainly, the rampant corruption, intricate red-tapism and wide-spread insincerity, negligence and malfunctioning of govt.machineries and bureaucratic hierarchy are to blame for all the odds engulfing the state. Interestingly, the people are no less responsible for the state of affairs of the state. While, on one hand, we are dangerously obsessed with the thought of tribal pride and consider it against our ego and sentiments becoming shopkeepers, pulling rickshaws, etc, on the other hand, we talk of lack of scope and unavailability of opportunities; but the fact is that we are, as pointed out before, ourselves non-enterprising and very reluctant to seek-out for new ventures and create new avenues.

Regrettably, we never mind nearly exhaust ourselves physically, get excessively emotionally fatigued and mentally tired working long hours in our fields and jhums under skin-scorching sun and incessant rains and thunderous storms, not excluding many other sufferings still meeting merely our sustenance needs or resorting to such unlawful activities as theft, extortion and the like as is evidently growing rapidly among youth.

Hence, it is no wonder that Arunachal is a dead lot of consumers. Honestly, are we producing anything? Are we exporting anything to other states? Well. We can get plenty of excuses like lack of infrastructure, poor road connectivity, absence of market and so on. Notwithstanding these facts, honestly, we lack the spirit of entrepreneurship and business sense. Contrary to ours, the state of Mizoram is notably performing in the field of entrepreneurship and self-employment generation. The mizos are the most enterprising of all the north-easterns. Dignity of labour is ingrained in their thoughts and deeds. Any lawful economic activity is worth respect, irrespective of nature and type. This is what they exactly believe in, which, in turn, perennially infuses and nourishes them with the pride and satisfaction. Consequently, the per capita income and living standard is impressively high. In Arunachal, we solely depend upon others (People from other states) right from repairing of shoes and trimming of hair to construction of houses. Introspectly, we are ourselves responsible for unemployment situation. We are unconciously, yet knowingly helping in the out-flow of our states's money. While we enrich others, ourselves get impoverished. It's a sure economic bankruptcy for the state.

Therefore, it's time that we inculcate a sense of work-culture. We need to learn, know and feel a sense of pride and satisfaction for any kind of work. Work is worship; as long as it is a livelihood activity and not unlawful, it is no bad or inferior work; rickshaw-pullers, drivers, shopkeepers, hawkers and highly-paid, handsomely-dressed, white-collar job-goers are all same. In fact, what is essential is work ethics and respect for dignity of labour. Better late than never; but must or else........