Manipur Is Not A Land Of Jokers: Needed Policy, Not Pretentions

Writer – Amar Yumnam
For the last two years, no other province in India and the people therein have been needing Governance, Administration of Governance and provision of Social Policy like in the case of Manipur. I have been recently mentioning on Social Policy in this paper a few times and writing on the compulsiveness of one in the prevailing circumstances. However, something very tricky has been continuing to happen. Instead of the application of mind to evolve policies for addressing the intensification of Negative Social Complexities, we observe and people experience the spiralling evolution of so-called policies which are nothing but a clear reflection of the administrative mindset taking the land of Manipur as being settled by a collection of Jokers; treating Manipuris as Fools and nobody living there knowing anything about what government policy is like. The latest example is the announcement to post additional 15 IPS personnel in Manipur in addition to the huge number of security personnel already posted. There is no objection to the posting, but this announcement was being made as if a Final Solution has been found to the Manipur Social Crisis of the last two years. My query here is: Is this announcement of posting a policy at all, given the security forces already in place there? My answer is NO; it is not a policy at all. If there were some fresh programmes of security-oriented administrative interventions being thought of and being announced with a sense of urgency, and the services of these new people-related security officers were imperative, then and only then we could have thought that mind is being applied to policy formulation and implementation thereof; it has been nothing of this sort. Time has come to put in unequivocal terms that the attitude and the application of Federalism Principles on Manipur by the government in the Centre have reaffirmed and other revelations also demand the very nature of the need a fresh relook to Federalism in this nation.
It is now almost like what Alexis de Tocqueville explained long ago. “Those who went before are soon forgotten of those who will come after no one has any idea: the interest of [democratic] man is confined to those in close propinquity to himself.”The question Manipur now asks of the Centre is what Plato asked nearly three thousand years ago. Plato was interested in knowing how in the present context we would like to ask is: What is this absolute inequality of Federalism where the elements of justice is so markedly differential in character depending on demographic numbers? Justice would be decided upon by the larger numbers in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh or the like and the smallness in provinces like Manipur can be easily shouted down on their requirements to exist as society – Language, Culture and History of these small populations in small territories can be easily discounted. The reiteration effect of these has made the enhancement efforts very costly and, in fact, been very damaging to the social endeavours of the small population for qualitative enhancement of their lives.
Well, Manipur is small in both the dimensions of territory and population. But is it size alone which determines democratic valuation and functioning? Let me recall the questions and discussions on aspects relating to Institutions (in the sense of Social Norms)- Culture, Language and History – on Manipur I have mentioned more than once. In a very unique way, the institutional richness of Manipur is already globally appreciated and highly envied upon in certain limited areas of India; it is not surprising for it is a humane character. But Institutions are fundamental to social advancement.
Further, there is a big question of Morality as well. In a huge geographic mass coupled by diversity of demography, would it be proper to decide upon a socio-politico-economic question (any question for that matter) by representatives coming only from the larger collection of people and greater geographic territory? It is humane numbers prevailing upon mind. Are not there some differential aspects related to language, culture, history and the institutional qualities related to the group of the small territory and small population with an independent own history?
Third, it is relatively easy for a hugely larger and dissimilar socio-politico-economic group with an accompanying bigger political-economic strength to influence the contextual socio-politico scenario for manipulative sharing of personalised gains; the public gains are of pretensive displaying relevance only here.
Fourth, the exploitative utilisation of differentials in geography and demography also provide the opportunities for exploitative creation of political leaderships in the small places with marginalised population on a continual basis; being vocal but from the small area and minor population would not make any lastingly impactful political-economic impact.