By – Amar Yumnam
Imphal, Dec 9:
Manipur has been under an unprecedented socio-eco-political crisis rushing to complete two years of turmoil of public suffering and economic disaster. In a way quite contrary to principles of governance in a democracy, some characteristics of governance have become very prominent in the Manipur context. First, in a democracy it is of paramount importance that there is a continual effort to evolve and sustain the trust between the Government and the Governed. What has been in most visible display is the provincial government being least concerned with cultivating the public trust while the union government has seen Manipur issue as too small a matter to be concerned with. The quality of nourishing citizen-state trust has been marked more by absence than by presence such that rising distrust of the government is the social happening in Manipur today. Second, no meaningful government would indulge in attention-diversionary tactics while facing critical social crises (particularly in a multi-ethnic society where society is singular while ethnicity is plural) and manifest hiding characteristics at the height of crisis; the governance should functionally reveal ever-ready commitment to address any grievance in the social advancement. But the Manipur scenario has experienced behavioural manifestations of governance very violative of this principle.
Third, practising democratic federalism emphasises the inevitability of the federal government to view the crises of the federating units with an eye of shared concern and in a non-differential way irrespective of demographic, spatial and other social characteristics; this is more so for a large and diverse country like India. Looking at the demands for discussing the Manipur issues on the eve of the winter session of the Indian parliament, certain meanings – whether intended or otherwise – have come up. It is almost like the land of Manipur is seen as a cursed land. Further, the people of the cursed land are seen as less pure. This being so, the sanctity of the parliament in the land of the Ganges should not be spoiled by taking up crisis issues of the land and people of Manipur, even if the issues may be nearing two years. It is really frightening, from the Manipur perspective, of what the leading Psychiatrist of Manipur, Dr. Lenin, has informed the public that the social crisis of Manipur has started affecting adversely the normal functioning of mind of the people. While this might be assessed from the individual patients who had recently visited him, the lingering and long-term social implications of these cam never be ignored.
One recent set of books I have been opening is the series on Beliefs in Government of the Oxford University Press. In a book, Beliefs in Government (2006) Max Kaase and Kenneth Newton write: in the Series “overall satisfaction with life, as well as satisfaction with specific aspects of it, is much less dependent on objective and external factors than internal and subjective ones. Once a basic level of health and security is sustained, people turn to personal and subjective standards in order to evaluate their material and spiritual circumstances. This is why the capacity of reference groups to anchor the individual is important. ….. What is required for individuals is a set of yardsticks and reference objects with which to locate themselves in their social context.”While disappearance of communism and totalitarianism might have deprived the west of a reference structure, it definitely is not so in the case of Manipur. In the case of Manipur, the reference objects could be the other federating sister units, overall Indian experience post-1949, and ongoing experiences in comparable nations around the globe. In the context of the ongoing social crisis in Manipur, there emerges no satisfying picture to feel proud and happy about from even a minimal comparison endeavour.
Observing the happenings in Manipur and about Manipur has indeed induced me to see how were the things before we started counting years and in Greece before the birth of Christ. Plato’s The Republic is naturally the first attraction. His writings are in dialogue form. His Republic has had many translations; of the few I have with me, I have taken up for reference the one translated by Tom Griffith and published by the Cambridge University Press under the Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought (2000 – third printing in 2018) for personal reasons of ease with the language. Looking at the behavioural expressions of governance in Manipur, I love this appearing on p. 213: “If a guardian attempts to become happy in a way which stops him being a guardian, if he is not satisfied with this restrained and secure way of life – the best way of life, in our view — if he gets some idiotic adolescent notion of happiness into his head, which drives him, simply because he has the power, to start getting his hands on all the property in the city, then he will realise the true wisdom of Hesiod’s saying that the half is in some sense greater than the whole.” While there could be ‘true falsehood’, the fundamental imperative is: “If the entire soul, then, follows without rebellion the part which loves wisdom, the result is that each part can in general carry out its own functions – can be just, in other words – and in particular each is able to enjoy pleasures which are its own, the best, and as far as possible the truest.” (p. 354)
Given the present scenario in Manipur, a quotation from “Citizens and the State” is relevant: “Political trust constitutes an important aspect of the democratic orientations of mass publics. Trust is directed at the actors in the system without identifying a specific person or party. In this sense, itis a fairly general attitude. Trust in the institutions of government is atan even more general level. A decline in confidence in institutions is potentially more serious than a weakening of political trust.” Chapter 14 in Hans-Dieter Klingeman and Dieter Fuchs, eds., Citizens and The State, Oxford University Press, 1995, Reprinted 2002, p. 319).
As Aristotle wrote in the Nicomachean Ethics: “Every skill and every inquiry, and similarly every action and rational choice, is thought to aim at some good; and so the good has been aptly described as that at which everything aims. But it is clear that there is some difference between ends: some ends are activities, while others are products which are additional to the activities. In cases where there are ends additional to the actions, the products are by their nature better than the activities. Since there are many actions, skills, and sciences, it happens that there are many ends as well…. So if what is done has some end that we want for its own sake, and everything else we want is for the sake of this end; and if we do not choose everything for the sake of something else ….then clearly this will be the good, indeed the chief good. Surely, then, knowledge of the good must be very important for our lives?” What is the scenario in Manipur?
