Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Saturday said that taking politics very seriously in every sphere of life hampers the developmental process and appealed to people to indulge in politics once only in five years.
The Chief Minister said that every five years people have the chance to elect whomsoever they want, therefore there is no point playing politics all through the five years. “I have seen that people, especially of the Abotani belt, take politics very seriously and view life and development only from a political angle, which hampers development,” Khandu observed while inaugurating the Tribal Cultural Centre at Mwya village in Lower Subansiri district.
He said: “If people want they will bring back my government based on our performance but if they don’t want us they will elect someone else. So why keep politics on our mind all the time and instead concentrate on the development of the state?”
Khandu stressed that politics should be based on performance and not on money culture. Expressing belief that the cultural centre would pave way for preservation of the indigenous identity of the people of the area, Khandu reiterated that preservation of cultural identity of the indigenous tribes of the state is of utmost importance.
He said most of the developed countries of the world were inhabited by indigenous communities at the beginning, which disappeared over the years owing to rapid globalisation. “Unless we practice and pass on our heritage to our next generation, our indigenous identities too would wane away slowly,” he observed.
Khandu advocated that no matter which religious faith they believe in, indigenous people of the state should preserve their cultural identity passed down by their ancestors.
Indigenous languages should be widely spoken and indigenous festivals should be celebrated with the same traditional fervour, he added.
He informed that taking cognizance of the threat to indigenous communities across the world, he conceptualised the Department of Indigenous Affairs in 2017 so that the government could support preservation of cultural identities of the 26 major tribes and more than 100 sub-tribes of the state.
Arunachal Pradesh is a unique state in terms of indigenous practices as ours is a 100 per cent tribal state, the Chief Minister said. He called for ‘brainstorming’ at community levels on why people are moving away from their indigenous faiths but without putting the blame on anyone.
