By – Amar Yumnam
Imphal, August 26:
Whatever I write today has nothing original to do with my own thoughts. I am depending on the thoughts having global appreciation and acceptability for I am afraid of the potential personal consequences if I ever attempt to put anything to do with my personal feelings; at this time of One Norm and One Nation, I should not afford to be otherwise. So even if all the provinces of the Northeast were under the President’s Rule, and only one Governor were asked to look after all these, I would not make any comment. It is the desire and decision of the Government at the Centre (the Government of India), and I should not indulge in commenting on this. A live example is the case of Manipur, which is now under the President’s Rule and the Governor of which has been asked to look after the affairs of a neighbouring province as well. I do not make any comment as to the goodness or otherwise of this for the capability of diversity of concentration and application capacity on differential issues of the concerned Governor must be above par vis-a-vis any other. I understand that Manipur has been in an unattractive scenario socially, politically and economically. If anybody tries to make any negative comment on the individual person with varied capabilities looking after this of different and differential places, I would immediately utter: “Shut up. It is none of your business to assess the situation and measure the changes in any.”
I understand that Manipur is now characterized by a pluralism of difficulties. Let me mention some – without meaning to imply any implication on the quality and commitment of governance of both the governments at the Centre and the province. First, one social crisis has been happening for more than two years with critical effects on life, livelihood and future of the children inter alia. Second, this is now coupled by a terrible collapse of the physical and social infrastructure. I would not comment on any of these for the Government of India is a very capable agency to resolve these issues very fast as and when they feel. So with such a highly capable government making a statement that these issues would be resolved, why should anyone question about the timing and all that.
I also understand that very recently two very critical issues relating to the democracy – related to voting for electing Representatives to the legislatures – have happened at the Supreme Court of the country. I would not make a comment here as well as these relate to the courts. Rather I have seen the aptitude of the Government to come up with “interesting” bills relating to the big democratic posts in a democracy. First, differences were discovered between the announced results and the votes cast in favour or otherwise. Second, the cases of persons – however big the number might be – left out of the list would be looked into. A Northeasterner is not competent to make any comment on this.
But, I would like some comments with quotations such that these issues do not apply to the North East. Milton Friedman – I would assume that many people must have heard his name – put in his classic Capitalism and Freedom: study of “roles of economic freedom needs special emphasis because intellectuals in particular have a strong bias against regarding this aspect of freedom as important. They tend to express contempt for what they regard as material aspects of life, and to regard their own pursuit of allegedly higher values as on a different plane of significance and as deserving of special attention. For most citizens of the country, however, if not for the intellectual, the direct importance of economic freedom is at least comparable in significance to the indirect importance of economic freedom as a means to political freedom.” He continues: “Economic arrangements play a dual role in the promotion of a free society. On the one hand, freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself. In the second place, economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom.” “Because we live in a largely free society, we tend to forget how limited is the span of time and the part of the globe for which there has ever been anything like political freedom: the typical state of mankind is tyranny, servitude, and misery. The nineteenth century and early twentieth century in the Western world stand out as striking exceptions to the general trend of historical development. Political freedom in this instance clearly came along with the free market and the development of capitalist institutions.”
Given the way the prevailing socio-economic atmosphere inducing people to steal and the emergence of an unprecedented inequality in Manipur, let me assert with Kaushik Basu working to evolve a New Economics in his Beyond Invisible Hand: Groundwork for a News Economics [2010]: “…altruism and trust are critical ingredients for a society to do well and prosper…..[I]f at a societal level all individuals were more trusting….,then there would be the possibility of greater cooperation…..would occur for sure, with all the attendant economic benefits of higher income”. But the additional fear I feel is what Alpa Shah puts in The Incarcerations: Bhima Koregaon And The Search For Democracy In India (2024) puts: “Making the claim that the Modi government is fascistic is important as it draws attention to the horrors of democratic rights abuses unfolding in India, and the ideological domination and mass support that props up the regime, in which even the word ‘democracy’ has become co-opted and subverted.”
