When the news of President Pratibha Patil’s visit to Nagaland came in, waves of enthusiasm of welcoming her were felt; all the more so because she is the first Indian woman to have occupied the highest Constitutional position of the country.

Patil entered into active politics at the early age of 27, she successfully contested her first election to the Maharashtra State Legislature from the Jalgoan Assembly constituency. She served as a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha from 1985 to 1990 and was later elected as a Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha in the 1991 General Elections from the Amravati constituency, Maharashtra. In fact, she enjoys the unique distinction of not having lost a single election in which she has contested. She held various Ministerial portfolios in Maharashtra and was also once the President of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee from 1988 to 1990. Prior to her election as the 12th President of the country, Patil served as the Governor of Rajasthan.

Her predecessor Dr APJ Abdul Kalam was a typical, yet a practical man. He was the people’s President and was accessible by many wherever he toured. His visit to Nagaland on the 26th of October 2002 soon after assuming the office of President was a memorable one. Dr Kalam first landed in Tuensang and then went to Kohima to attend a civic reception at Khuzama Public Ground. Before addressing the massive crowd there, he met Khuzama Village Council members. Soon after the program ended, the ‘missile man’ chose to walk through the milling crowd, avoiding the VVIP car waiting for him in front of the rostrum, to interact with the school children eagerly waiting for him across the road at their small school compound.

I was with him while he was interacting with the school children at Khuzama and he really ignited their minds and urged them to do their part to turn India into a developed and powerful nation. He was a role model to many young Naga students who had freely and frankly interacted with him, sitting as close as two feet away from him. He was unassuming and is generally loved by the people of the country in general and children and students in particular.

I was deeply touched when he recalled his memorable visit to Nagaland in one of his speeches after completing his eventful years in Rashtrapati Bhavan. He said, “It was a unique experience for me at Khuzama village to meet tribal village council members and discuss with them the village progress and the dreams of the village citizens. I was very happy to see the empowered village council functioning with financial powers and taking decisions. I saw a prosperous village with fruit and vegetable production. However, there is a need for providing physical connectivity in Nagaland through quality roads for enabling faster movement of products from the villages to the markets. That meeting gave me a powerful message about the transformation which can take place in the 600,000 villages of India, if all the villages are empowered to deal with development and are well connected among themselves and with the urban societies.” I still have a fair question as to whether we can have such a President today who is practical and sincere to the citizens of the country.

On the contrary, President Patil’s coming to Nagaland happens to be much later after her assuming the office of the President of India on July 25th, 2007. Her coming to Nagaland will, however, bring a lot hope and aspirations to the Nagas.

If the President of the country fails to visit any of the states during their 5 year tenure, it will make no sense. Mostly those states lying in the extreme corners of the northeastern region bordering China, Myanmar, Bhutan and Bangladesh do not witness a Presidential visit. As such, there is every possibility for them to feel isolated or neglected. The President being the Supreme Commander of the country’s Armed Forces should definitely visit this part of the country as often as possible for the simple fact that there have been increasing threats towards India from neighbouring China. Over the years, China has been seen as overtly aggressive against India and has even claimed Arunachal Pradesh as part of its territory. There has been a feeling that the Center has not done enough to counter such designs by its counterpart in Beijing. In such a situation, the President’s visit to the region will restore the confidence and the rapid erosion of the feeling of nationalism in the region.

President Patil’s visit to Nagaland has come at a time when the state is relatively peaceful due to the ongoing political negotiations between the representatives of the Government of India and the NSCN (IM) and reconciliation initiatives of the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR) as well as other agencies. The NSCN (K) is also under a truce with the Government of India and political negotiations with the latter are yet to start.

Just a few months back, the state was also privileged to have the country’s Vice President Dr M Hamid Ansari and his wife Salma Ansari in its midst who came to grace the state during the First World Bamboo Day at Heritage Village, Kisama.

Our visiting President had a massive civic reception at the same venue. As per the initial reports in the media, she was to first visit Tuensang before going to Kohima. However, the visit was then slated for only Kohima due to time constraints and her heavy schedule as reported.

It is, however, regrettable that the President reportedly had only 20 minutes to interact with many NGOs, civil society leaders, etc. on the 10th of March before proceeding to attend the ‘civic reception’ at the Naga Heritage Village, Kisama. I wonder what productive message she would carry back to Delhi if she does not give sufficient time to leaders of various tribal organizations and civil societies. Instead she should put more emphasis on such so called rarest interactions with these leaders as she would only be able to hear the genuine voices of the people from those who have been experiencing a new lease of life over the year following relative peace prevailing in their state. There has been a drastic reduction of factional related violence in the state over the years and this development itself is a major step forward towards building a strong platform where people from all walks of life will ultimately come for free and frank discussions without any fear.

Here I remember Dr Radhakrishnan, who, while inaugurating Nagaland statehood said, “The administrators must examine the human, the healing touch in their relations with the people and should not deprive the Nagas of their innocent joys, their songs and dances, their feasts and festivals, which are not repugnant to our moral sense.”

Nevertheless, I will always salute Her Excellency for her courage to personally fly a fighter jet, the Russian-designed Su-30 MKI at the Lohegoan airbase in Pune on November 25th, 2009 at her respectable age of 74. Of course, her predecessor as the President of India, then 74-year-old Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, also flew a Su-30 MKI in 2006 during his tenure in office. Yet, I don’t think this as strange though, because he is, after all, a ‘man.’

Dr Radhakrishnan also said, “Nothing can stem the tide of progress of India if 450 million people are determined to achieve it by hard work, discipline and determination.”

Today we have a President who could fly a ‘fighter jet’ and with this big heart and strong mind, there is hope that she will surely do something for the people who want to live in peace once and for all. One wonders if Dr Radhakrishnan’s vision will ever remain elusive or whether it will find its destination.