By – Amar Yumnam
Imphal, February 9:
Manipur has been historically, politically, geographically as well as demographically positive about shared movement ahead. There definitely have been inequalities in the development process and levels of development attained. But during the last eight decades, understanding of development incorporating the contextual realitieshas been willingly undigested. The major factor behind this Post-Merger failure has beenthe Federalism in this country (India), as imperfect as it is, has not had time and inclination to digest the imperative necessities to take the South East Asian part along the path towards development. These contextual realities have certainly given a very costly social revelation during the last three years such that, even if the normal conditions return, the social doubts and fears would take time to cure. We now have the return to popular government, but with only one year in hand with harsh social realities to address.
The prevailing scenario equals the individual Francis Fukuyama talked in his 1992 classic The End of History and the Last Man: “As individuals, we can of course be optimistic concerning our personal prospects for health and happiness. By long-standing tradition, .. people are said to be continually hopeful about the future. But when we come to larger questions, such as whether there has been or will be progress in history, the verdict is decidedly different. The soberest and most thoughtful minds of this century have seen no reason to think that the world is moving toward what we … consider decent and humane political institutions—that is, liberal democracy. Our deepest thinkers have concluded that there is no such thing as History—that is, a meaningful order to the broad sweep of human events. Our own experience has taught us, seemingly, that the future is more likely than not to contain new and unimagined evils, from fanatical dictatorships and bloody genocides to the banalization of life through modern consumerism, and that unprecedented disasters await us from nuclear winter to global warming.” Like it, positivism has been getting replaced by pessimism in Manipur.
Herethe new Leader of the Government in Manipur happens to have the broad trust by the public. But the time available to his administration is just one year while his Party has publicly displayed for at least three years a scene of pretentious incapacity to address the critical social problems of Manipur. Let us recall Da’ud ibn Tamam ibn Ibrahim al-Shawni of his End of Reason (2005): “As individuals, we can of course be optimistic concerning our personal prospects for health and happiness. By long-standing tradition, Americans as a people are said to be continually hopeful about the future. But when we come to larger questions, such as whether there has been or will be progress in history, the verdict is decidedly different. The soberest and most thoughtful minds of this century have seen no reason to think that the world is moving toward what we in the West consider decent and humane political institutions—that is, liberal democracy.
Our deepest thinkers have concluded that there is no such thing as History—that is, a meaningful order to the broad sweep of human events. Our own experience has taught us, seemingly, that the future is more likely than not to contain new and unimagined evils, from fanatical dictatorships and bloody genocides to the banalization of life through modern consumerism, and that unprecedented disasters await us from nuclear winter to global warming.”
The key points I am trying to point out are: A. The commitment of leader has broad social acceptability. B. The socio-politico-economic problems to be addressed in Manipur are both wide and deep. C. The Indian federalism does not give space and grant capability to function and perform contextually to the small provinces. D. The time available for governing effective change is very limited.
These realities naturally raise the question as to what should be the approach to be adopted such that long term healthy implications are naturally generated. For me, I strongly feel that the focus should be the evolution of a Framework for social functioning healthy enough to be (a) respected by the public in Manipur and (b) the Governance over Manipur. With the lovely historical basis, at least the foundations of the first component of the framework can be created. As regards the second component, I have used the term ‘over’ rather than the normal ‘in’. We still see the behavioural attitude of the members of the agencies of the country’s government thinking of the families and households in Manipur as inferiors. The agencies in the province also find it convenient behaving like following them without any application of mind. I am not making these statements in a vacuum. The Framework for Social Functioning and Administrative Governance must necessarily possess healthy qualitative characters. Here lies how history would decide on the present Leadership.