Indian Policy Thinking And Making: Bluffing Exercises In Manipur

Writer – Amar Yumnam
Given the attitude, the manner, the methods and the compulsively imposing exercises the Government of India indulges in Manipur, I would like to start with the first paragraph of the Introductory Chapter of the book on Federal Democracies(2010)edited by Michael Burgess and Alain-G. Gagnon: “For those scholars and students who are interested in comparative federalism, it may come as a surprise to learn that in the contemporary mainstream literature not very much detailed attention has been paid to the relationship between federalism and democracy. Up until quite recently it appears to be one of those relationships in political science that we simply take for granted. When we look at the world, we do not examine the lenses through which we look at it but which nevertheless shape our understanding of what we see – or think we see. The reason for this complacency might be explained by reference to what Ivo Duchacek noted over 30years ago when he addressed the meaning of federalism. ‘Federalism’, he claimed, had become ‘one of those good echo words that evoke a positive response but that may mean all things to all men, like democracy, socialism, progress, constitution, justice, or peace’.’ His observation underlined the essentially elastic nature of these terms that could be stretched to furnish several different meanings.” Still further, W. S. Livingstone put very in 1956 in Federalism and Constitutional Change thus: “It seems … clear that federalism is inconsistent with a doctrine of strict majority rule if applied to the whole federal community …. By its very nature federalism is anti-majoritarian. A federal government is designed to protect and afford a means of articulation for the territorial diversities within the larger community. All the instrumentalities of federal government are devices whose purpose is to prevent the unqualified majority of the whole society from riding unchecked over the interests of any of the federated elements. It is a technique for the protection of a minority within one state or several states against the majority in the rest of the states …. Federalism cannot be dismissed as evil because it does not fit into a theory of majoritarian democracy … what ad hoc majoritarians forget is that a federal state is a different thing, that it is not intended to operate according to a majority principle.” Further democracy and foreigners too has been a long studied critical subject.
I have made certain quotations to particularly emphasise certain issues that have been emphasising by many, including me, in the context of the present social crisis in Manipur. First, I studied Economics as an enrolled student during the mid-1970s and early 1980s. During that period the different branches of the Social Sciences were as if unrelated to one another; we used to raise our collars and be arrogant in gatherings boasting Economics as the most-significant subject. But by late 1980s and early 1990s, things increasingly became clear that the assumption of separateness and the adoption of specialised subject-wise policy formulations and adoptions were wrong in both social conception and social impacts. Thus, the approach of multi-dimensional conception, formulation and implementation of policies started taking robust roots. Second, in this multi-dimensional conception, formulation and implementation, it also became increasingly emphasised that the context of the place and population was paramount in taking cognizance of. Third, while diversity was increasingly taken note of, the Indian perception of diversity was only on the basis of caste. There could be diversities in political traditions, economic engagements, geographic dimensions and other factors being interacted within a tradition of inter-connected framework. Fourth, while the Himalayas were being taken full care of, the boundaries of Manipur and finally Manipur itself have been under treatment as disposable. Fifth, there has never been in Independent India the kind, time length, population and territorial issue, deepening and widening ethnic diversion, absolute non-attention to the immigration issue consequent upon the happenings in the neighbouring country and the like for the social crisis for almost two years as in the case of Manipur. The list can go on, but let me limit myself to only these five.
Given the various dimensions involved in appreciating and evolution of policies of social issues, there must have been commitment and endeavour to understand and adopt the policy-interventions based on this understanding. But what has happened in the case of Manipur are just Manipur? The Government has thrived in the deepening and the widening of social crisis. Instead of endeavouring policy-interventions with the application of mind to the context and applying the pure federalism, the province has been treated as having no effect on any of the contemporary multidimensional appreciation of social issues on the rest of India as both demographic and geographic size were relatively small. This understanding of size was the end of all; the qualitative differences from the others in the rest of India are just ignored. In this context of non-appreciation of differential realities – diversity within diversity in a relatively small region of population and geography and the inherited traditional solutions different from the larger parts of India – application of mind for appreciation of the contextual “small” region and relevant formulation of policies are not considered to be matters of national importance. Remember what Michael Walzer said in 2006 emphasising morality: “The largest requirement of morality, then, the core principle of any universalism, is that we find some way of engaging in that activity while living in peace with the other actors.” Manipur is not a place without a history of this though there is every reason to doubt the existence and engagement in play today to cause irreparable damage to this accumulated strength.