By – Amar Yumnam
Imphal, May 19:
The first part of the title of this article is the name of the book edited by Cal Clark and Don-Terry Veal. I love the title of the book for there is a healthy reflection of the public choice here. An author in this book writes: “Transparency in public finance involves the increased flow of timely and reliable economic, social, and political information. Some of the key materials concern monetary and fiscal policy, government service provision, private investors’ use of loans, the creditworthiness of borrowers, and the activities of international institutions. Conversely, a lack of transparency results when someone (whether a government official, a public institution, a corporation, or a bank) deliberately withholds access to this information or misrepresents the information or fails to ensure that the information provided is of adequate relevance or quality.” In such societies this happens: “Corruption distorts the allocation of local resources and the performance of local governments. The consequences of corruption are poor public services, increased social polarization, inefficiency in public services, low investment in a community, and decreased economic growth.”
While these are issues enough to lose our sleeps, the recently altering social characteristics of Manipur are very disturbing in many dimensions; these are not restricted to one. The deteriorating character of the state itself seems accompanying these absolutely unhealthy features; there are ample examples on this. In November 2024, inter alia, the social experience of witnessing a group of women and children (including an eight-months old baby) putting in captivity for days and then killing them all was a collective pain for all. Just recently, we find a Nursing Student girl from Meghalaya dead within the institutional campus of a most important medical college of the region and located in Imphal. I have picked up just two examples of the many during the last two years – one representing the irrationality in a large group and another at the individual level. I have taken up these two examples for they manifest pretty well that Manipur today is not Manipur socially and historically. Above these we can add many promises by many groups that the other parties would be completely eliminated from this world.
Very interestingly, it is in this context that we find in the Northeast something almost like what William Dalrymple has put in his recent (2019) book titled The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence And The Pillage Of An Empire: “Corporate influence, with its fatal blend of power, money and unaccountability, is particularly potent and dangerous in frail states where corporations are insufficiently or ineffectually regulated, and where the purchasing power of a large company can outbid or overwhelm an underfunded government.”
When the land and her people have been experiencing their latest efforts to survive for life in an unprecedented disoriented governance behaviour and coupled by rising generalisation of shared inter-ethnic antagonism, there now comes the news of a government decision to link the North East with the rest of India through the ocean route. We are not fools that we are completely unaware of the strategic endeavours which have been “put” in place so far to make the Northeast the prime agent for implementing the Indian approach to the Act East Policy. Further, there have been talks, comments and assertions that the dynamics of the changes taking along and around the Chicken Neck – giving land connection of the region to the rest of India – to be given attention qualitatively and quantitatively with the incorporations oof diplomatic dimensions. But the government attention or rather absence of it and the transformation of the Northeast perspectives have just revealed two pictures: first, the non-functioning of the national highways in Manipur for two years that the government does not have time to care for, and second, the absence of control of drugs which makes the public suspicious of the government. These are issues which should naturally demand government attention sooner.
It is exactly in this context of pretentious attention to the crises of the Northeast that the announcement to make the region connect with the rest of India through the oceans have come up. I am not interested how soon this is going to be made real or otherwise. But I am definitely concerned about the negative social implications. First, The Northeast would definitely get collectively farther away from the other parts of India. Second, this adding of distance to the prevailing one would involve additional costs; by the way, the general backwardness of the region is to be appreciated. Third, the consequential distance would also be characterised by additional linkages to adopt to reach any destination. Fourth, the majority of the population endeavouring to connect with the rest of India are not economically sound population. Fifth, these people would mostly be first-round exposures to the rest of India. These would make them easy targets for getting befooled by the “friendly and wise” people crowding the areas near ports and there is every potentiality of the numbers of these to be high. Sixth, the fifth process can be targets for misleading and cheating of women reaching the ports to first time to the brothels. Seventh, how frequent and how safe these ocean trips could be? I shall limit myself to these few questions.
To end, I would certainly add that the Northeast is no longer a crowd of fools living in a corner and who could be taken for granted for anything. Let us not forget what John Stuart Mill emphasised a generalised emotional and cognitive foundation as the sine quo non for success of representative government. There are issues of Justice, Morality and Development to be explicit about.
