By – Amar Yumnam
Imphal, Jan 13:
In my Last piece in this column – Policy In Manipur After Two Years: Policy and Policy-Making Are Serious Business – I had asserted that policy-making has necessarily to keep the contextual society in mind and observe the contextual values of public policy while framing policies. Unlike till about the 1980s when social, political and economic policies were treated as standalone approaches, these are now treated as belonging to the category of Social Policy emphasising the interrelated implications. An Economic Policy, for instance, today is no longer seen as just a market related intervention but concerned with the observance of contextual ethical values of the society and the rationality to be founded on justice and morality. While the earlier focus on absolute state interventionism has given way to an atmosphere of public liberty, the conscientiousness of the state on the issues involved is much more critical today; in a knowledge society, it is imperative that the state is as highly knowledgeable at a level above the individuals and the public on issues of public relevance.
Thus, the question inevitably arises as to how should we understand the public of Manipur. In my last piece, I quoted the opening lines Jenny Stewart in her 2009 book titled Public Policy Values: “The belief that governments should make a positive difference to our lives remains as strong as ever, even if there is a veritable industry of books about how they are getting it wrong.
Governments (we are told)are the captives of large corporations; they are enslaved by simplistic ideologies about market forces; they subvert true democracy; they are not to be trusted; their bureaucracies are incompetent. Every day, even(or perhaps especially) in countries that are blessed with relatively stable and competent governments, the media bring out stories of regulators that did not do their jobs properly, of services poorly delivered, of the weak and vulnerable left unprotected. If citizens did not believe that governments should do better, they would simply accept these shortcomings as inevitable. The fact that the public face of government is about trying to do better suggests that for many, perhaps most of us, governance is a values-based activity. If public policy is, as Thomas Dye defined it, what governments choose to do or not to do.., it is of enormous importance whether they choose to do good things or bad things.”In the context of the ongoing social crisis in Manipur, we can think of two agents of governance – the Provincial Government based in Imphal and the Union Government based in Delhi. As regards the Provincial Government, incoherence in both words and actions has been the rule rather than an exception. As regards the Union Government, let us understand it very clearly that she has now internationally one of the most powerful security forces in place. But the behavioural social manifestation of the security forces in Manipur during the last nearly two years has been only a display of non-commitment and one amounting to compromising on their own credibility; stories of security personnel standing in queue in front of medical stores to purchase condoms do in no way serve any social purpose, the democratic purpose or the interests of the forces themselves.
This implies that the security forces must have been directed by the Union Government not to engage in addressing the social crisis in Manipur. This can only meant that the union government perceives the public of Manipur as nothing more than – what Alastair Hannay would call – the audience. If the public were perceived as genuine public, the crisis would have been taken with the seriousness it deserves, but they are only made to see as audience what the security forces do or otherwise.
Since the people of Manipur are seen as Audience rather than public, the Value of Public Opinion is discounted. The common sense of the people would also be treated as non-existent.
It is exactly at this juncture that the Provincial Government must rise to the occasion to forcefully uphold the democratic principles of federalism. But it has not happened in the case of Manipur. It is now a case of institutional collapse. The Government here has displayed a kind of mannerism wherein she cannot hold an opinion while the Union Government does not care. She cannot hold even a singular understanding of the issues involved; the continuation of incoherence while talking about the crisis is accounted for by this.
Manipur now faces a scenario where the Senior says “Who cares” and the Junior is “Absolutely helpless”. This context is a fertile ground for all social strengths to go haywire. In fact, the historically founded, culturally enriched and civilisational foundation of Social Norms in Manipur are now being shaken. The social interaction mechanisms are fast losing on the rich social mannerisms. This should not to be taken lightly. Any society incurs a heavy social cost in a context of governance following unclear and non-committal policy paths. In such contexts, the individual social risks of survival and welfare would rise. Is not this what is happening in Manipur?