By – Amar Yumnam
Imphal, March 24:
Manipur is a small province marked by at least some robust qualities. First, it is a small geographic space but with a rich history of her own; the smallness richly accommodates varied spatial characteristics. Second, it is marked by historically shared appreciation of diversity of culture within the smallness; let us recall the traditional institutional norm of Manipur preceding Article 4 of the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity of the UNESCO: “The defence of cultural diversity is an ethical imperative, inseparable from respect for human dignity.” This is the ethical norm across ethnicity that has enabled Manipur to sustain social life till today. Third, these realities do imply the co-existence of diverse ethnic groups. But let me add immediately that this diversity was never a sustainable ground for communalisation, despite occasional raising of issues of social justice and designing models of social advancement. Fourth, there have been many instances of government – I use it in both Provincial and Federal senses – looking like failing to address the shared objectives for social transformation, but these never came to a situation of massive breaking of rule of law.
But the last two years have been very different for Manipur. I have not used the term communal conflict yet for I prefer seeing it as a social crisis rather than a communal one. We have government that has failed to govern; this is irrespective of whether the President’s Rule has been put in place or otherwise before. Governance is provided and socially coordinated by the Government, but that (governance) is exactly what has been missing in Manipur. We are observing collapse in every dimension.
To begin with, we have been seeing the elected representatives of a particular social group staying away from the centre of administration of government. This is a crisis of democracy and a critical evaluation of the way the state has been in Manipur. Secondly, there is now arising a situation of pluralising the rule of governance other than the one prevailing earlier. Third, while civil society interactions and deliberations are being globally emphasised upon, there is now a situation of just killing each other and prevent any kind of interaction. Fourth, there is a diversity and accompanied belief or otherwise on provincial government agencies and agencies of the federal government; this has been very explicit in the case of agencies to enforce the rule of state for restoring normalcy. Fifth, the political actors performing the functions of government at both the Provincial and the Federal levels have rather indulged in pretentious endeavours to restore public confidence.
In these circumstances of collapse of governance, we do not see any evidence of the government getting restored. In a scenario of social crisis Manipur has been facing the last two years, there are certain primary principles on which the government should act. The First fundamentality is to bring the situation under control. This is not seen even after the President’s Rule when only a nine years’ old girl was raped and murdered in the turmoil of the crisis. Without restoring order by bringing things under control it would be meaningless to talk of what further. But let me be indulgent here. The second imperative for the government is to digest the dynamics of the social processes in Manipur. Only after Order and Understanding, the Objective of Solution can be thought of.
I would rather add here that in a context of social crisis the Understanding and the roads ahead are not something the Government can achieve on its own; it is not an outcome of a photo session which comes the following day in the dailies that can perform this.
Consultation is the need of the hour. When even the simple thing of cutting down the poppy plants is such a difficult task and still an objective to be achieved even after the presence of Federal agencies whose numbers are perhaps larger than the total population of the province, things demand straight and sincere consultation; this demands efficient performance on policy implementation. To achieve this efficiency, let us recall what Max Weber had said: “For none of those systems of thought without which we cannot do if we want to conceive of those parts of reality which are significant in each case, can possibly exhaust the infinite richness of reality. None is anything else than an attempt (…) to bring order into the chaos of those facts, which in each case we have included within the sphere of our interest.” The government of the day has necessarily to be enabled to harness the emerging social complexity and equip with the capability to perform governance.
