“A Conversation in Transparency in Nagaland: A Tool for Accountability in Governance,” Morung Lecture XX, an initiative of Morung Express, was held on November 8, 2024 in the Conference Hall, Fazl Ali College. The Morung Lecture XX series is organized in partnership with the Research and Development Cell, Fazl Ali College. The session opened with an introduction by L.S. Vinod, Vice Principal. The speakers for the event were Rev. Dr. Chingmak Chang, Secretary of Eleutheros Christian Society, Tuensang and Prof. Lanu Longkumer in the Department of Geography, Nagaland University. The session was moderated by Arien.
The first speaker was Rev. Dr. Chingmak Chang who spoke about navigating the way for transparency when corruption is institutionalised in our communities. Taking on a community worker’s perspective, he urged the audience to generate a dialogue beyond today’s lecture. Using the apt metaphor, “Fish rots in the head first,” he compared that to the Naga cultural problem. He spoke on how information is power and the context of who holds the information seems to be important. In the Naga context, cultural values are loosely spoken of as democratic. Democratic rights and cultural values differ although a certain resemblance of equality may be present in the latter. However, we have a strong hierarchy in our culture that tends to be imperialistic; following a top-down kind of dynamic.
Naga cultural values tend to be nepotistic in nature. Secrecy within the tribes are bred causing alienation between each other. It causes a lot of negativity. Naga Culture tends to dictate terms. Blindspots in our understanding of democracy makes true equality impossible. He stated that beyond awareness, we have to look at sensitisation. In his personal experience, he spoke about the process of revitalizing church bodies to include women through the perspective of the Kingdom of God. Hence women were then allowed into church bodies as long as sense and rationality of it was shown. When we begin to know that the other person has equal rights, then that’s when transparency and accountability comes in. Perception change has to happen at the grassroot levels. People do not understand communitization, rights and all other essentials because the village-level ingraining has not happened.
The second speaker was Prof. Lanu Longkumer who remarked on the grim state of reality, looking at the daily news, popular narratives around us in our context. Governmental statistics and year plans, mottos and visions that speak of positive outcomes for our communities were highlighted which does not reflect the undercurrent reality; dependency on govt jobs along with other statistical reports were highlighted in relation to our need for transparency and accountability.
He stated that Nagaland politics is a politics of money and corruption; with no checks and balances as is apparent with an oppositionless government. He remarked that there are three types of people in Nagaland: naive people that do not know their rights, complicit citizens that promote nepotism and corruption, and spectators that choose to remain silent. When governance is not in the right track, all the bodies attached to this also fails. The lectures were followed by question and answer session. Concluding remarks were made by Akangjungla Longchar, Morung Express. Vote of thanks was given by Dr. P. Tiatemsu.
