By – Amar Yumnam
It has been hard time for Manipur for more than three years. Despite the resumption of transport services with the neighbouring States, the situation is still very unpredictable as the core issues (including unaccounted inhuman killings of humans) are still unsettled. The Hard Time I am talking of is of “my fears, nightmares and ghosts in one place. Not all maybe, but a real reminder. There isn’t a day goes by without me breaking out in a cold sweat” as defined by Elspeth Cook and Anna Donald, and ends with “Useless words. He bends over the bunk and reaches out to Rocket’s hand as if to take a pulse. But he touches only cold, useless flesh. ‘Oh God, Alex, what have you done?’ Useless words and no possible reply …”
It is with the claimed objective of getting out of this hard time that many elected representatives of the people and the Chief Minister and the Home Minister of Manipur go to Delhi to discuss with their “Jis” on how to resolve the issues. On return, almost all of them invariably respond to the questions as “It is likely that the Centre is going to consider our desires favourably.” Now there are two things to begin with. First, the time they have taken to travel to Delhi and come back is not personal; it is social time. Second, the monetary expenses involved are of the resources the public have contributed to run the government.
The term government should immediately remind the representatives frequenting Delhi that the state (of which government is a component) is a contract among the people to live together and not to hurt anyone. Besides claiming as Representatives, they should as well realise the underlying meaning and responsibility for safeguarding the contract. The manner in which they represent is of a democracy; in many occasions one cannot help feeling that some of the Representatives need meaning and behavioural implications of Democracy to be absorbed and made part of the personality. The contemporary concept of democracy is very different from the one perceived by the Greeks: “Greek democracy was poorly regarded by all the Greek philosophers and historians whose writings have survived, including Plato, Aristotle and Thucydides. They depicted it as government by the ignorant or government by the poor.” Further, the contextualised understanding in a globalised world is the focus today. India follows the parliamentarian form of democracy. Given, the size and diversity of the country, it is a federal form of democracy: “Generally, most federations, whether dualist or integrative in their underlying design, provide for some form of accommodative governance, sharing of institutions and some forms of joint action. A dimension that needs to be discussed is the various different ways in India in which institutions and tiers of government work with each other and with others across jurisdictional boundaries, interact to manage inter-jurisdictional conflict and tension, the techniques and structures of interaction, and accountability and transparency. The actual operation of the Indian federation should be categorized not in terms of rigid structures for the division of powers, but as involving a process that enables reconciliation of internal diversity within the federal framework. Power-sharing, cooperation and accommodation are more effective, cheaper and lasting methods of accommodation for developing plural societies, as found in India. They become a meeting point for antagonistic groups and seemingly irreconcilable positions.” (Akhtar Majeed)
It is in this background that cooperation and participation of the people in the social welfare functioning of the government are highly emphasised. But these can only be founded on sharing information, which is poor in Manipur. The Elected Representatives, incidentally of the same political party holding power in Delhi, never share the detailed points and counter-points of the discussions they had with the ‘Jis’. They all manifest a kind of secrecy or adopt a principle of minimalizing information being shared– they do not value the Being and Time to use the two terms of the great German philosopher, Martin Heidegger. This behaviour could mean one or a combination of the following factors: I. They did not have the courage and capacity to explain the fierce social issues of Manipur in a way to prevail. II. They did not have a detailed deliberation on the potential policy interventions in the given circumstances. III. The ‘Jis’ in Delhi behaved right in the beginning as having full knowledge of everything, and they could not raise the contextual realities highlighting the difference in differences. IV. The powers that be in Manipur, particularly CM and HM, do not carry the principle of Federalism in their heart and mind.
The ultimate result of all these is, Oliver Williamson would say, a poor functionality of the mechanisms of government. And thereby raising the transaction costs of running the government and the social existence of the population.
