Politics With People’s Lives

By Patricia Mukhim


The government of Nagaland raised the retirement age of its employees from 57 to 60 in November 2007 on the eve of the Assembly elections held in February-March 2008.


This decision was obviously a populist one. It was a vote-catching strategy of the Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) government, a coalition headed by Neiphiu Rio of the Nagaland Peoples’ Front (NPF). The ostensible reason for taking the decision at the time was to bring the Nagaland government employees on a par with those of the Union government.

The reasoning sounds too simplistic to be true. Yet this populist decision catapulted Rio back to power for a second term because the entire state machinery became his faithful lap dogs. Before bringing in this landmark amendment, the Rio government consulted the Naga Students’ Federation (NSF) and the Eastern Naga Students’ Federation.

The latter gave unconditional support to the proposal, but the NSF laid down three conditions. They demanded that the blanket ban on creation of new posts be lifted and the upper age limit for entry in government service be raised from 30 to 35 years. The NSF also demanded that the maximum length of service be restricted to 33 years.

Rio was sworn in as chief minister again on March 11, 2008. Immediately on resumption of office, his government proposed to revoke the earlier order that increased the retirement age to 60. Instead, it brought in an amendment that government employees should retire after 35 years of service. Ironically, the earlier order was taken after due consultation with several stakeholders groups like the NSF, the Eastern Naga Students’ Federation and others.

Naturally, the arbitrary revocation created an uproar. The amendment proposal to the earlier bill went through a heated debate in the House before it was passed.

Chinks in Armour

The second amendment to the Nagaland Retirement from Public Employment Bill raked up a number of issues. First, it came to light that Nagaland has the highest percentage of government employees in the country. Unofficially there are about 80,000 employees but the official figure is 68,900. Strangely, of the above figure 2,953 employees are under-aged and belong to the age group of 10 to 17 years. This implies that Nagaland encourages child labour. But the other side of the coin is that there is largescale tampering of dates of birth so that employees can go on serving well after reaching the age of superannuation. In fact, the tampering bit was what irked the NSF.

The federation, therefore, demanded the second amendment to which the Rio government meekly acquiesced. But the contention of those employees who are affected by this quixotic resolution is they had taken a few decisions in November 2007 after their retirement age was raised for another three years. Some had admitted their children to higher educational institutions in the belief that they would be in a financially comfortable position to support their education for another three years.

Others had revised their post-retirement plans and a second revision would have entailed additional expenditure.

Prey to pride

Following the revocation of the enhanced age of retirement, the Nagaland Senior Government Employees Welfare Association moved court to seek justice. The case is now lying with the Supreme Court where a special leave petition was admitted on October 30.

The association argues that of the 53,000 educated unemployed youth registered in the State Employment Exchange, 23,000 have not passed their Senior School Leaving Certificate (SSLC/matric) exam. They cannot be classed as educated unemployed.

About 12,000 educated unemployed youth are availing of different employment schemes like Prime Minister’s Rozgar Yojana, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and also the chief minister’s corpus fund.

The association argued that the government should on no account be seen as a job provider, but as a catalyst that facilitates employment generation in other sectors.

What has aggravated the situation further is the government’s stipulation of retirement age at 35 years of service. This is purely on the demand of the NSF, an organisation that represents seven out of the 16 tribes of Nagaland. Curiously, the Eastern Naga Students’ Federation, also representing a large section of students from different tribes which had earlier given unconditional support to the enhanced retirement age, is silent at this critical juncture.

The entire case points to the ugly fact that desperate political strategies executed for short term political gains and which are based on the lives and livelihoods of people often boomerang very badly.

A decision of such importance should have been carefully considered instead of bringing in the jingoistic Naga pride and equating the services of Nagaland government employees with those of the central government.

Rural woes

All the state governments in the Northeast face tremendous pressure on the unemployment front. The absence of private and public sectors which could have reduced the list of educated unemployed has only aggravated the matter.

But there is something to be said about the lack of an effective planning mechanism. All the northeastern states are facing the problem of urban influx. People rush to the towns and district headquarters looking for job opportunities because the village economy has regressed over the years.

Rural development is only a phrase in the government vocabulary. It does not happen because most of our planning is for the towns and cities and not for the villages which actually have huge prospects for growth.

Agriculture is the backbone of all the seven states. Hence the priority in government planning and spending should have been in this sector.

A vibrant rural economy would have met the employment needs of a good chunk of youth population. But our governments have been more interested in allocating major portions of their budgets to the PWD and the public health engineering department because these are the money-minting departments for the politicians and officers.

The two departments have received top priority year after year for nearly three decades but have shown no significant results. Roads are just as bad and many villages remain unconnected.

Potable water and sanitation are still not available to over 70 per cent of the population.

Corruption in Nagaland has touched the pinnacle. Obviously the government sector is the most corrupt since only this sector has the money to play around with. Today, if the Nagaland government is facing the music, the problem is its own creation.

Years of bending the rules to accommodate the aspirations of political party acolytes have now become so huge a problem that it would require the wisdom of Solomon to untangle them.

In the meantime, some government employees who have been victims of an arbitrary decision have to lick their wounds in dismay.

The Supreme Court has not yet given its ruling on the contentious issue. But who wins the case is immaterial.

For the DAN government, its cup of woes seems to be spilling over. Fortunately for Rio, there are no serious contenders for his throne at the moment. Besides, the Congress in Nagaland appears to be in complete disarray.

(The writer can be contacted at patricia17@rediffmail.com)