Seeing the undigestable conditions in Manipur, most of the people in and outside Manipur want to do something for the betterment of Manipur. But the ground reality is that we could rather do something good for the development of the state.
It's not the politicians who are corrupt, it's not the police force that's corrupt, it's not the insurgent groups who are misleading or misguiding others....
It's the people, It's the PSYCHOGRAPHY of the people there, here and everywhere.
DEVELOPMENT has many aspects and scopes. It doesn't confine only to ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. We have all the money but we are not educated.
Even if we are educated we cant write an application in English (English is not the height of development but of course an indicator of qualitative development in education).
Even though if we are competent enough, our way of thinking, behaviour, attitude towards the wolrd, knowledge, prejudices, beliefs and perceptibilty are very limited.
In other words we can say we lack the PSYCHIC MOBILITY.
We dont really think out of the box. We treat people very indifferently.
That's the reason why, today Manipuri tribes dont think they are Manipuris, to take an example. They want to associate with some other states or they dont have a brotherly feeling for other castes in manipur.
WE HAVE TO MIND OUR BLOODY ATTITUDES. We should learn how to respect and honour people irrespective of their castes or religions.
We should stop cursing people. This can be possible only when we learn to cultivate and inculcate a Psychic mobilty- a tendency to emphathise and implement in our outlook.
All in all, it's the individual who has to change or develop himself or herself first.
Let's not try to change the system or society.
LET'S BECOME A CHANGE IN THE SYSTEM OR SOCIETY BY CHANGING OURSELVES. AND THATS THE ULTIMATE WAY TO THINK ABOUT MANIPURIS,MANIPUR AND ITS DEVELOPMENT IRRESPECTIVE OF WHERE YOU ARE STAYING.
But at times we are confrontated with questions like "When your chakhao(stomach) is empty can you think of education/society or whatever?" When our Chakhao(stomach) is empty, we wont be able to think about Education,society...Very Right.
But even when our Chakhao is full, we hardly do anything sensible. Instead we engage ourselves in Leibung Phamba(sitting together in common place and talking about the nitty-gritty of other people) or rather we voluntarily talk about bad of other people (Waathi Ngangba).
It doesnt matter where we are staying. Whether we are in Delhi, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore.....we seem to be follwing the same aged-old traditions. We dont have time to think about ourselves.
What I'm trying to say is that we have to constatntly check, review, assess ourselves and make changes if necessary so that we can improve and develop the quality of the personailty we have in ourselves. Which is known as Human Resource.
Every individual is a human resource or part of it.
In order to have a better MANIPUR, we have to improve the quality of each and everyone, which is difficult if not possible. But to improve yourself is totally dependent on you.
And we all need a dose psychic mobilty.
* Raj Nongthombam contributes for the first time to e-pao.net .
The writer can be contacted at garibkhan(at)yahoo.co.in .
This article was webcasted on March 26th 2007.
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