By Michael Meiphami Shaiza
The image I have shared is the perfect summary of the tragedy. Two honest men roll the heavy carpet of REFORMS forward, sweating, struggling, hoping to build a nation. Behind them, two men in political caps quietly roll the carpet of CORRUPTION backward. The reform you bring in the front door, corruption rolls out the back door. This is the work of the Political Thief.
The question is old, but the answer is the key to understanding why nations like ours remain poor.
Stealing your destiny
The Ordinary Thief steals your things. The Political Thief steals your destiny.
The Ordinary Thief is a petty criminal. He wants your money, your bag, your watch, your gold chain. His crime is limited. You can replace what he took. You can buy another bag. You can work and earn that money again. His wound is on your pocket, not on your soul.
The Political Thief does not steal things. He steals your future, your career, your education, your health and your business. When he steals the education budget, he steals your child’s future. When he steals the health budget, he steals your mother’s life. When he steals the contract money for roads and bridges, he steals your village’s business and career. When he steals in the name of development, he steals the destiny of an entire generation.
The Bible makes the distinction clear: “Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people.” Isaiah 10:1-2. The Ordinary Thief breaks the law. The Political Thief makes the law to break the people.
An Ordinary Thief robs one man at a time. A Political Thief robs ten million men at once with one signature.
Political thief
The Ordinary Thief chooses whom to rob. You yourself choose the Political Thief to rob you.
This is the hilarious and painful part.
The Ordinary Thief hides. He studies his target. He chooses you in the darkness, without your permission. You are his victim, not his voter.
The Political Thief does not hide. He comes to you in broad daylight, with folded hands, with a smile, with promises of Reforms, of change, of Nagaland for Christ, of jobs and roads. He asks you to choose him. And you, blinded by tribe, by party, by Rs. 500 and a bottle, by empty promises, choose him to rob you.
You campaign for him. You fight for him. You put his poster on your house. You argue with your brother for him. You voluntarily hand over the keys of your treasury, your school, your hospital, your future to the very man who will loot it.
No people in history have been so cleverly deceived: to celebrate the arrival of their own robber. As the scripture says, “For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.” Jeremiah 4:22.
The great travesty
Police will chase and nab the Ordinary Thief. But police will look after and protect the Political Thief!
This is the travesty and irony of our current society.
If an Ordinary Thief steals a chicken, the whole village will chase him. The police will file an FIR, arrest him, beat him, put him in jail. The media will call him a criminal.
If a Political Thief steals crores from the chickenery scheme, from PDS, from scholarships, from medical funds, from road projects, the police will salute him. They will provide him escort, siren, pilot, security. The law which is quick to catch the poor thief becomes the bodyguard of the rich thief.
Why? Because the Ordinary Thief steals outside the law, but the Political Thief steals inside the law. He has made corruption legal. He has made commission a percentage. He has made backdoor appointment a system. He does not need to break into the treasury. He has the key.
The image shows it perfectly. The men rolling CORRUPTION are not hiding. They are in the same room as those rolling REFORMS, but they work in the opposite direction, with the confidence that no one will stop them. This is our system: Reforms on the front page, Corruption on the back page, both rolled by the same establishment.
The stupidest part
We insult and fight the Ordinary Thief but we fight each other for the Political Thief.
This is the stupidity that keeps us enslaved.
If an Ordinary Thief is caught in the bazaar, the public will beat him, insult him, shame him. We have zero tolerance for petty crime.
But if a Political Thief is caught, with evidence, with CBI cases, with papers, we will divide ourselves to defend him. One tribe will defend its political thief. One party will defend its political thief. One church group will pray for its political thief. We will insult each other, we will fight each other, we will kill each other on social media for the sake of a man who is stealing from both of us.
The Ordinary Thief divides no one. The Political Thief divides brothers, divides tribes, divides villages. He makes the Naga fight the Naga, the poor fight the poor, while he and his family live safely in Delhi, in Dimapur, in Bangalore, with the stolen wealth.
He steals your education and you still shout his slogan. He steals your health and you still carry his flag. He steals your future and you still say, “He is our man.”
And we blindly say we are not blind.
The judgement
The Ordinary Thief is a sinner, but he can be reformed. He knows he is a thief.
The Political Thief is a greater sinner, because he does not know, or pretends not to know, that he is a thief. He calls his theft “percentage,” “donation,” “party fund,” “negotiation,” “compromise.”
A society that only catches ordinary thieves will remain poor. A society that learns to catch political thieves will become free.
For the Naga people, for Manipur, for India, the lesson is this: Stop looking for the thief in the jungle at night. The biggest thief is the one you garlanded in the morning.
Until we stop choosing our own robbers, until we stop providing police protection to our looters, until we stop fighting each other for the benefit of those who loot us all, the carpet of Reforms will always be rolled back by the carpet of Corruption.
The choice, therefore, is not between OT and PT. The choice is between remaining blind and finally opening our eyes.
Michael Meiphami Shaiza is the President of Ukhrul-based NGO Ecological Rehabilitators’ Association (ERA).
(Views expressed are writers’ own and do not, in whatsoever manner, reflect that of Ukhrul Now)
