Take I: Intromission.
Longpi Area in the Nungba sub-division has a new star on the rise- its bureaucracy. There is manifest intent for movement about the bureaucratic set-up in the face of institutionalized torpor that has long been associated with bureaucracy in free India.

This is starkly evidenced by the recent tour of the Area undertaken by T. Pamei, DC,Tamenglong, and Praveen Singh, SDO, Nungba. The touring team in the company of a Medical Officer, two qualified nurses and bigwigs of the Area disembarked on more than thirteen villages, creating milestone at almost all the villages.

The discursion entails trekking no less than hundred kilometers on foot in one of the most non-congruous region of the state. The locomotion by land and on water was flagged off at Kaimai from where the tour party sails down forty kilometers through the Barak up till Gallon, the south-western tip of Tamenglong district.

It was a momentous start as Gallon, arguably the only village in the Longpi Area to be hundred per cent GI sheeted despite its corner most location, had its last bureaucratic visitation way back in 1968 by an SDC of the Area.

On more than two occasion the present Health Minister Gaikhangam did visit Gallon but it had to wait thirty-nine long years for a visit by the Deputy Commissioner of the district. In fact, more than half the number of villages in the Area shares similar fate. The hysterical reception of the tour team by the villagers was forgivable given this backdrop.

In spite of their desolated situation in the frame of development, villagers were more profuse in their gratitude than in airing charter of ‘demands’ vis-à-vis the visit. This is not to obliterate the fact that a fair deal of ‘wants’ were put forwarded to the DC and SDO.

From two bundles of GI sheets to typewriters- the range of demands was hilariously wide. The topic of interaction with villagers was comprehensive, from sanitation to intoxicant-free lifestyle to vitality of primary education and, of course, the prospect of NREGA.

The spine of deliberations was how to take the next plunge towards self-sufficiency and development. Ample encouragements were doled out by the visitors topped with the promise of transparent disbursement of funds and incentives.

Take II: Elegantly Dwindling
In plain words, development in the Area suffers on two counts. Firstly, it can be attributed to the apathy of the powers that be. Secondly, development or the absence of it relies on the power of planning and execution of the numerous chiefs in the Area.

By all accounts, the latter factor had created more bumps than it smoothens on the path of development in the Longpi Area. There was a case where an elderly woman complained to yours truly that her wages under the NREGA was not reaching her notwithstanding her valid Job Card.

Or take the case where not a single GI sheet was in sight in a village benefited with the same for two-third of the villagers. Here inextricably comes in the question of integrity of the concerned chiefs.

To call spade a spade, the cause for equitable progress has been lost on many a chief so aggravatingly that villagers are mere provider of strength in numbers cunningly exploited by chiefs in times of electoral roll revision and house counting for beneficiary schemes.

Thus, the state and power blocs in the villages cannot constitute a conscientious partnership for progress.

Plethora of chiefs: hard to find villagers
No two adjacent villages in the Area are sever by more than five kms. With due respect to their years of existence, most of the villages give the impression of being tiny hamlets that can be, in fact, are deserted on the slightest pretext.

Respectably flourishing settlement oozing symptoms conducive to long-term inhabitation is hard to come by. Chieftainship being passed on from a generation to the next, naysayer will ride upon the plank that village-dom is a question of history, privilege and tradition. It indeed is.

But tradition and progress seldom sees eye to eye. For progress the prerequisite reads like a list that is in exact opposition to what the villages are endowed with as of now. Without sufficient manpower and the confluence of ideas and techno crafts, one cannot put even a foot forward.

A five-housed village with villagers shuffling like playing musical chair is not exactly an apt logistics for establishing a school, elementary or primary. At the behest of noticeable development pan-Longpi Area, it can be advocated that the chiefs need to either pull up their socks or throw the towel in. there is no third option.

Quo Vadis LACA?
For the uninitiated, LACA stands for Longpi Area Chiefs Association. It is a conglomerate of more than fifteen chiefs of the Area. The basic flaw with the LACA is its tendency to get started intermittently.

An interior and backward region like the one in discussion requires a vibrant and innovative organization to regulate its ascendancy or decadency.

As the only recognizable lobby in the Area, LACA needs to behave as an active pressure group that has the balls to demand its share of the pie. If this calls for change in leadership, let it be complied with.

In view of certain aspects of development in the Area, the LACA, pulling all strings, should lobby hard for at least two respectable high schools and triple that number of Health Centers, the working-type, for the Area. LACA also needs to fight, tooth and nail, the gutter-class educational standard of its fiefdom with evangelistic zeal.

Chiefly non-chiefs or more royal than the king
The politics can get downright C-grade even here in the villages. They not only wash dirty linen in public but also made up the whole ‘dirty’ affair. To disobey the chief, even a judicious one, is the new mantra.

Countless developmental schemes were reportedly delayed by the government or relocated to another un-destined village or altogether buried owing to the success of unfounded ruckus created by disgruntled villagers. Not all chiefs are dishonest and not all subjects are in sync with him.

Whilst they have their dogged day of fighting, the division bell usually rings. It goes without saying that a house divided is not a house at all; forget about the standing or sitting part. This takes its toll on the hierarchy of authority of most villages in the Longpi Area.

The nomadic consciousness of inhabitants that they can emigrate to the next village or the one after it left no room for permanent settlement at one place. This degenerates into a state where one lives on a quick-fix basis- giving no hoots to permanent source of bread much less the vision for long term welfare.

Longpi,Where?
Isolation in terms of communication is the bane that has been plaguing Longpi Area for the last so many years. Till now, after sixty good years of Free India, the government is still debating the ‘possibility’ of interconnecting the interior regions.

Perhaps, they have not seen the Addidas punch line ‘impossible is nothing’. Had progress been construed with no rider, Longpi Area would not have been so dark is the undercurrent doing the rounds.

Even for connectivity sake, the need and prospect for bi-lane asphalted road is beyond words. Connectivity was one huge theme that T.Pamei eulogized on during his tour of the Area. Coming from him, perhaps it’s authentic.

The day BRGF delivered its goods would be the day Longpi Area emerges out of seclusion. Amen.