“Manimohan”, House of the People and Governance: Anything Goes in Manipur

By – Amar Yumnam
The House of the People is the most significant institution in a Democracy. While the importance of Government lies in functioning, the significance of the House lies in the fact that it is an institution (by this I do not mean schools, colleges and universities – I feel pain for the need to mention this, but a body with traditions and culture of its own) of utmost importance to propose, debate and ultimately decide on what is the Social Choice of alternatives of policies and actions as all the Elected Representatives of the people are in this. The place of their meeting is the House – Parliament at the national level and Assembly at the provincial level.
It is of utmost paramountcy that all those who have the honour to sit in the House do their homework well before uttering something on anything. But one recent incident, which is now viral in the digital world, is the mentioning of “Manimohan/Money Mohan or whatever” one had about a person so well-known and highly respected at the global level. Dr. Manmohan Singh was a highly learned person (means his understanding on issues of importance was very high, and not attended high level classes); he was very highly educated (attended many levels of learning including a Doctorate from one of the top universities of the world). He was the Head of the People (Prime Minister) of India as well. In Manipur, an honourable member happened to be unaware of his name; this is definitely a shame for Manipur.
The second thing I want to talk about today relates to governance. Governance is about the Social Choice converting into policies and actions by the government to realise the objectives contained in the dynamics of reaching to a social choice. Here I suddenly remember what Amartya Sen said in his Nobel Prize Lecture: “A camel,” it has been said, “is a horse designed by a committee.” He is talking of the Rationality to be properly established while deciding on an action performed while exercising governance by the government of the day taking care while working on social choice. The welfare approach being recommended cannot be something like William Baumol (one of the greatest Economists of the twentieth century) observed “an ill-concealed resemblance to obituary notices”. I am referring to these two for the obstruction caused to the performance of Lamta Thangja prayers. Well for the Meeteis this prayer is one of the most significant ones and bound to a single day. Second, the performance of this prayer has ancient roots. Third, the place where the people wanted to perform the prayer is not something discovered only yesterday or today. It has a long pre-historic association with the social choice of the Meeteis.
There are reports of a litigation in connection with the place. This is exactly where the quality and nature of governance come for the state action definitely cannot look like what Baumol called “”an ill-concealed resemblance to obituary notices”. The state does have the capability to govern the nature of prayer. Instead of allowing all the people to conduct the prayer at one go, it definitely could have been in a queue system. Another way could also have been within a limited time. Even though litigation is there, the state could have taken special permission for the Lamta Tangja prayers. In this connection, I would like to say in emphatic terms that any study of society from any discipline must now include the cultural dimension of the concerned society. While examining any society, the economic, anthropological, sociological, ethnic, religion, geography and social institutions are necessarily done in a non-exclusive approach today. In the same way, the Lamta Thangja prayers too include all these dimensions. Causing disturbances to this prayer would necessarily affect the social stability and thus the effectiveness government actions.
Let us recall that Plato put emphasis on thinking rather than just on the idea in his classic The Republic: “Many a man who is ignorant of human nature has friends who are bad friends, and in that case he ought to do harm to them; and he has good enemies whom he ought to benefit; …I think that we had better correct an error into which we seem to have fallen in the use of the words “friend” and “enemy.” While recalling Plato’s Thinking, it is also important to realise what Habermas – a great German thinker who left the world only four days back – had said of the need for Reason to be based on Rationality. Manipur needs to explore what Rationality is.