Grip of chiefship on the Kukis

    03-Oct-2022
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Lunminthang Haokip
Contd from previous issue
Virgin slopes where various short-term plants can be grown to bear fruits of prosperity are available a dime-a-dozen in the districts bordering Myanmar. The “Look East” policy promises a ready market for horticultural products in the ASEAN cities through the Eastern corridor via the newly constructed AH-1 and its link- roads. Most portions of the Trans-Asian highways had been multi-laned and paved to take on international trading thoroughfare. North East India, thanks to similarity in features and cultures, fortunately has no problem establishing a people to people trading rapport with ASEAN Nationals.
THE CHINA FACTOR: The emergence of China as a wholesaler of every household need and a buyer of valuable forest products, albeit in shady deals, of India, will also force  the Kuki entrepreneurs of NE India to rubber-neck towards the East. Two Asian Highways routed from China through upper and eastern Myanmar had already flooded Tamu, Namphalong and Moreh market with trade items at irresistible prices. The present closure of the erstwhile border trading hub of Namphalong, due to the National crises in Myanmar, affects the economy of many families who made a living out of the international buy & sale paradise. On the flip side, chief-ship and its traditional fixation takes the under-developed community in reverse gear. Undemocratic impositions on helpless landless inhabitants sub-divide a main village into many more hamlet villages which are counter-productive in premature stages. Some are still-born. Horticultural plants and pucca houses are the casualties. The former never grow fully; and the latter get dismantled frequently.
 LICENSE TO THRILL: Chief-ship carries the burden of clan-receptive and change-resistant negative social elements democracy and Christianity can do nothing about. Nothing delights a well-heeled Kuki brother than being declared the chief of a new village or being issued a gun-license to.
To him, the two are ‘licenses’ to thrill. He is happier to be a ruler of three households than be a title-less and voice-less subject in  a 100-house village. The tragedy is that every man in the small village thinks alike. All wish to be a chief one day, if not by hook, then by crook. So, at the slightest provocation, a rebel-without-a-pause, equipped with a imaginary cause to call quits, is born. A fine for breaking wrong-doing is often made a excuse to either shift base or create a hamlet village. No wonder, a Kuki village with 30 houses is looked up with awe and considered a highly well-behaved entity; many big villages notwithstanding. The bitter truth of the matter is that, the smaller the size of the village is, the more complicated the problems they are saddled to handle.
THE BIBLICAL REMEDY: Looking East or West is not the optional end. The best to look at, to remedy the social malady of village fragmentation in a world where numbers and size matter, is the God-Man from the Middle-East, Lord Jesus,  who said, “Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant” (Matt. 20:27). This singular verse, applied in letter and spirit, will change the face of backblock Kuki villages and society. A chief’s role is of multi-tasks. A good chief must be the chief donor, chief runner, chief orator, chief servant, chief forgiver, chief promoter all rolled into one restless soul with a heart of gold. All these attributes can not be endowed in one man. So, he has to evangelize his village using the Word of God. A believer is much easier to be tackled during crisis than a hardcore atheist. Chief or no chief, an individual can’t keep everyone happy. So, the chief should be “shrewd like a serpent and harmless like a dove (Matthew 10:16).” If he can’t be so, he has to imagine a lot and cultivate a sense of humour. Because imagination is given to man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humour, to console him for what he is. Right?
A PARADIGM SHIFT IN APPROACH IS DESIRED: Like it or not, chief-ship is here to stay. Government recognizes the chief as the lowest functionary in a hill district democratic set-up whose mistakes can, of course,  upset the whole. His  performance or non-performance will impact the big picture. Concerned thinkers are invited to share their ideas in the media so that a more potent village administrative guideline may come up to replace the obsolete present. A paradigm shift in approach is desired. We need to formulate Acts and Rules that would aptly address the basic social structures and super-structures that hinder our natural, human and financial resources from peaking. Let us take positive steps to do away with the generational curses that stand between what we should have been and what we actually are. Unless, we use our Scriptural knowledge and academic brilliance to make our villages more liveable for gen-next, posterity will, one day, blame us for having used our heads only to keep our earlobes apart.