Socially Challenged

Editorial:-
The last month of the year is now underway and another year is drawing to a close. This was another year during which, predictably [given that elections are due in the first half of 2014], much happened in the political arena which, while high in pitch packed no surprises. The year, in that sense, was like any other in reinforcing the general lack of excitement or absence of surprises in how Sikkim moves on. This is not necessarily good, because while no one has complaints with politics playing to an expected script since it is in uncertainties that trouble brews; it is in Sikkim’s continuing refusal to deliver social engagement on the state’s perennial challenges of suicides and addiction that things need to change. It is all very well for instance that PS Tamang finally quit the ruling party and joined his former colleagues in SKM even as NB Bhandari booted Congress out of Congress Bhawan and invited SSP back in and Dr. AD Subba realized the benefits of being in a national party after 12 years as a regional outfit. Along the way there were many minor players at work breaking apart, joining up and realigning. There were no surprises in any of these political developments because every single one of them had been in gestation for a while and were expected anyway in the final six months run-up to the next Assembly elections; if anything, some of these moves might have come too late. So no surprises there; unfortunately, while Sikkim could have done with some surprises at the social engagement level, even these did not happen. As two brief news-reports in today’s edition bear out, the problems remain. Two suicides, both by young people in rural Sikkim and a drug bust at the check-posts.
Neither suicides, nor addiction or for that matter peddling has received a social response. Whatever has happened with regard to these issues have been state-sponsored initiatives, not people driven efforts. And now that elections are round the corner, there is every possibility that social issues will be appropriated by political parties, which, instead of offering solutions, will put a spin on things and blame each other for the situation. Since people refuse to engage, that will become the dialogue which takes over the public domain and another year will go by without anything substantial being done to address social issues. The politics will receive one level of closure by May 2014 after Sikkim has voted, but the concern that demands more attention is the direction that the Sikkimese society is headed. The Sikkimese society has failed itself miserably. Crime appears to be on the rise as do suicides and addiction continues to convert more people at younger ages. Much as the people would like to convince themselves, these are not problems erupting from poor governance, they are ills that a poor social fabric foments. There have been few, very few instances, where people have come together to further a good cause. There have been too many indications of a disinterested society more comfortable at sweeping its responsibilities under the carpet than addressing issues and solving them. The lethargy one often associates with the bureaucracy is as acute among the people who should make up the civil society and Sikkim remains the poorer for it. There has been no consolidated effort by the people for anything. Every initiative that should have come from the people has come from the government instead. This does not always work, because if the people themselves are not motivated enough or concerned enough, then mere legislations are of little help. The present times are times of change, rapid change, and unless the society remains involved in this change, tracking it, it will soon realize that they have mutated into something ugly when they could have metamorphosed into something much prettier. With our vacuity, we also cripple the chances of an improved future for the coming generations. That will be guilt difficult to live down.