Tag: Editorial

There are two foot bridges of identical design at the Waheng Leikai stretch of the Nambul river, connecting Waheng Leikai with Major Khul and Paona Bazar. There is nothing very much to commend about the aesthetics of either of the bridges, but one towards on the south not too distant from the Keishampat police traffic point is okay, at least in the sense of its ordinariness. What would strike anybody as absurd and outrageous is the second bridge to the north, towards the much older and well known heritage monument, the Maharani Thong Nambonbi. From the Waheng Leikai end, the first and only step that takes the pedestrian on this bridge is about three feet high, ruling out not just senior citizen, but women in phanek and children, from using it. As a matter of fact, anybody, even the fittest man or woman, probably would not find it comfortable to negotiate it if he or she were not in a sports jumpsuit. No kidding, you literally need a ladder to climb to the bridge which pedestrians are expected to use daily. Without a question, this bridge should have been dismantled the day it was completed and rebuilt to ensure it is user friendly, and together with it, the engineer who designed its structural frame and the architect who conceived of it should have been placed on suspension pending a satisfactory explanation, and the contractor who built should have been black listed. None of this is likely to have happened, and at the end of it, all parties, government officials and contractors alike, would have done nothing more than cover up each other`™s misdeeds and returned home with wallets fattened by the loot from the project. What a shame!

There are many more everywhere in the capital city and obviously elsewhere. In an age engineering elsewhere have achieved unbelievable feats such as tunnelling mountains to building highways through them or connecting islands by undersea railways and causeways, a look at the conditions of our roads will say plenty of the place`™s work culture. Many roads, be it the Imphal-Ukhrul road or the Imphal-Kohima highway, where they are lined by eucalyptus trees are warped making them dangerous for vehicle users. This problem is not new. It has been here ever since this moisture absorbing tree species was introduced in the state some decades ago. As to why this species was a choice to be introduced in the state is a matter of speculation, but the peculiar characteristic of this huge, tall and indeed beautiful tree species is they absorb soil moisture and the consequences this can bring about is now more than evident. They have all through these decades been a spoiler for roads whenever they are planted along them, as the soil under the roads lined by these trees shrink after losing their moisture content. Despite knowing this attribute of this tree and having lived through the havoc they cause for decades, how is it no remedy or remedies have been found yet for this condition? The fact also is, there is absolutely no need even to newly discover these remedies. In the countries from where these trees are imported from, for instance Australia, the technology is commonplace, and none of their roads suffer because of the tree. This technology could have simply been acquired from these countries. Every year, civil servants, engineers, police officers and a horde of other government officers from the elite strata make foreign tours on public money precisely to pick up these skills and technologies. How is it that the state has still not learned even how to manage this eucalyptus problem?

The abject lack of commitment to profession is what is evident here. The truth also is, while this has become very visible in the case of the engineering department because of the public nature of their responsibility, this work culture is true of practically every department of the government. As a rule, nobody takes pride in the work they do, and if at all, they only take pride in the social status their jobs afford them. The vicious cycle does not end here either because today this status is closely linked to money. The government employees, including those in lowly clerical positions who earn money other than what their jobs legitimately guarantee them, rather than face disgrace come to be in a perverse way, revered. Unlike in the private sector where quality and quantity of work done is the only salvation and guarantee for livelihoods, in the government sector, the most coveted jobs are those where little or no work needs to be done but plenty of public money pours into the job holder`™s pocket through organised manipulation of the system in collaboration with other sections of the corrupt establishment.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/10/pathetic-engineering/

There is a wellknown unwritten rule about rules. It simply says, know the rules well enough to creatively break it. It sound rather absurd, but one supposes its logic is derived from the fact that while rules are absolutely necessary in bringing about a semblance of order in every walk of life, no rule can cover everything about any walk of life either `“ hence the need to go beyond the rules without debunking the rules altogether at some point or the other. This rather oxymoronic notion seems now ready to be called into play in the ongoing debate on quality education in Manipur. The question is, must education be all about formal education only. The obvious answer is `no` but said in many different ways. This acknowledgement for instance is why schools and colleges emphasize on the need for extracurricular activities. But what about in the extreme cases of alternative education advanced as a total or near total substitute for formal education? The question comes to mind as the world observed November 24 as the International Day against child abuse. It is not a surprise at all that so many think employing children in various physically trying professions must constitute child abuse. The most cited examples are children employed in motor vehicle workshops and other skilled jobs. Should not there be exceptions? For one thing, in many of these jobs, it is not only a question of employing children as in exploiting cheap, unquestioning, labour, but also a lot about apprenticeship where these children are taught skills on the job so that they are prepared for make a profession out of the training to keep the family hearth burning in adulthood.

The need, as one sees it, is not to generalize all kinds of child labour as abuse. If they are employed for unproductive, non-educative menial jobs such as dishwashers in restaurants or floor scrubbers, and for the profit and benefit of their employers alone, then obviously it would amount to abuse. But not every child job profile is or can be of the nature. The motor vehicle workshop case is a fit example. It is because of this tradition of apprenticeship education that Manipur today can proudly boast of a rich human resource of skilled labour in areas such a motor, electrical mechanics, blacksmith, goldsmith etc. Many of these skilled hands have had no formal education, yet they have a selfmade job although they would be automatically disqualified to white collared categories of jobs. This is not to say formal education can be done away with for anybody. It should not be too. But what is called upon is for education curriculums and schedules to be restructured so that formal education reaches out to those in these non-formal educations (apprenticeship) and not the apprentices having to bend over backwards reaching out to formal education. They must be made to learn the letters alongside their apprenticeship so that they will have a broader scope to enhance their skills through not just practical experiences, of which they would have acquired in plenty, but also from the inexhaustible knowledge banks accumulated through the ages in books.

To each according to his potential, must be the motto. It is not essential for everybody to be MA, or Ph.D degree holders. These should be for those inclined to and have the aptitude for academics and researches. Not every job must be white-collared ones either, but unfortunately this seems to be the popular notion in the present times. Because this is so, so many of the traditional professions, of which there are many in the state, are systematically withering away. Everybody today wants a government job and the rest has become senseless. Compare this to some of the famous and prospering traditional professions such as in Europe. One can at once think of the tradition of Scotch Whiskey making. Some families have been in the profession (business) for over four centuries. Under the circumstance, the perfection they have reached is also not altogether unimaginable. Sports professionals too leave formal studies early and consider their professional trainings as much education as what they would have done picking up a Ph.D degree. Nobody can say for instance that Pete Sampras did injustice to himself for opting to leave school young to concentrate on a career in Tennis. The same can be said of so many other extremely successful professionals. Formal education is important no doubt, but let it not exclude all other non-formal skill learning process as exercises in illiteracy.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/10/skill-as-education/

The idea of democracy and together with it the Western Capitalist model of economy as the end of history as postulated by Francis Fukuyama, (End of History and the Last Man) despite whatever counter arguments, remains among the most thought provoking and controversial theses that grew out of the political developments in the last part of the 20th Century, the most momentous of which was the end of the Cold War and the crumbling of the Eastern Bloc. The era of Marxism too virtually came to an end with the breakup of the Soviet Union and the opting of the free market economy by it former constituents and Communist allies, although we must add that even if the ideology failed as a political or economic model, it still remains a powerful and incisive tool for social analysis and literary communication. Communism as a political system may have seen its end, but we are of the opinion that it is destined to be survived by the vision it provided in understanding the very concept of social justice, and the influence the material world has on the inner drives that shape man`™s desires. It is also an irony of history that even if Communism has been discredited almost beyond salvation in the public spheres, at the very basic, individual level, the general understanding of a true democrat always seems to be someone with inclination towards the Left vision, who sees equality or at least non disparity in the status of religion, income, class etc as virtues, going a step beyond the other powerful alibi of democratic norms `“ that of equality before law.

On Fukuyama`™s contention of the free market democracy as the end of political evolution, we had already argued our points of differences on these same columns before. Much as we admire democracy, Fukuyama`™s Capitalist market model of democracy is too utopian, tending to overlook its many flaws. Developments in the Middle East, where this model of democracy was sought to be literally forced down the throats of the countries here as pills for all their ills, and the cataclysmic way this medicine is misfiring is just another reminder of this failure. We will not run the risk of repetition by arguing out the points again, but on the second point the American scholar makes `“ that of the liberal democrat as the last man, we are sufficiently provoked to make yet some more observations. Although not always for the same reasons as Fukuyama cites, we tend to agree that the liberal democrat, or for that matter any man espousing liberal thoughts, will be `the last man` for in him ceases all the tensions that make further growth not only desired but necessary. But the reality also seems to be, no society will allow a truly liberal democrat to go unchallenged. Our experience has been, the liberal man is always seen as a threat to any given society, and to counter him, there always have emerged a matching conservative group of thinkers and politicians.

We have seen this happen in Fukuyama`™s own ideal of a Capitalist democracy, America, where men like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King were gunned down. We have seen this happen in India too where liberals are so very often rebuked as `pseudo secularists` and `pseudo intellectuals`, we are seeing this happen in Manipur, where anybody who tries to look beyond the ethnic equations and identities are viewed with suspicion, and as someone who has been possibly bought over. The liberals are also always under pressure to prove their loyalty to the idea of their nation, and they are always left with the difficult task of doing this without subscribing to narrow nationalism. The question that is always thrown up in these circumstances is, is there anything as a larger national identity away from the more circumspect ethnic, religious, community identities. Perhaps the answer is also to be found in Fukuyama`™s own narrative of the ideal, liberal democrat. This man is defined as somebody who has overcome the demands of the Platonic Thymos, or the irrational human need to be recognized as essentially different, which is believed to be the motor behind social evolution. Giving up Thymos also would mean erasing the psychological boundaries that mark out one ethnic group from another, one religious community from another etc. The purely civic identity and citizenship that an ideal democracy seeks precisely this sacrifice. We all know what kind of opposition such a man anywhere would face and from where. For reasons that may in fact be a compliment to Fukuyama`™s liberal intents, his `last man` may never happen in this world, considering how zealously boundaries of religion and ethnicity are guarded even in the so called bastions of democracy.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/10/the-last-man/

Crisis brings out the best and the worst in everybody. The worst crises especially, have always been of peculiar interest of study universally. There cannot be any other reason behind the phenomenal success of cinematic representation of such a crisis as the Hollywood blockbuster Titanic that tells of a real life tragedy in which a luxury trans-Atlantic ocean liner in the early 20th Century, dubbed as unsinkable, sank with its 1500 passengers and crew after an iceberg hit. What do people do in times of extreme life threatening crises, has always been an intriguing question indeed. In the Titanic situation, it was a dead end where escaping death was near impossible, hence the question of how people caught in such traps react becomes all the more desperate and fascinating. There have been several depiction of the Titanic tragedy on celluloid though the century since it sank, but we refer here to the Leonardo-Kate starrer in particular. These and so many more in the genre explore and try to answer this question. It is only to be expected that the human reactions in these times of extreme distress would be widely different. Some, even the most ordinary men and women, often become heroic. Others, even those with the noble titles, become cowardly and treacherous. Some surrender to God, others simply panic and give up, still others take the fight to the last. These are situations that strip everybody of their external veneers and expose what lie behind the disguises they put on for society to appreciate.

Manipur has never been short of crises, the most immediate of these being those that emanate out of the tragic ethnic equations plaguing the state, but not the least from periodic visits of deadly pandemics. Everybody in some way or the other has been touched by these scourges. Even the lowly paid, overworked, professional media fraternity has not been spared but by and large, have been often heroic in meeting an extremely trying time, arguably even the most difficult in its history. In the past editors have been kidnapped, number of journalists shot dead, several more faced death threats, there were also bans on newspapers and journals… by people who are morally capable of unscrupulously carrying out their threats without trials. The fraternity`™s predicament had virtually nothing to do with any fault of theirs. In most of the cases, they have been fallouts of the faction frictions amongst an increasing criminalized section of the insurgency movement in recent times. That an insurrection is not the same thing as everyday crime is a well acknowledged fact the world over. This is also why the prescription for solution to any insurrection has never been, and cannot be, solely the use of raw force. One of the objections to the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA, in Manipur and the northeast, is for the failure to draw such a distinction in invoking the Act. Hence, among many others, this tendency towards criminalization of insurgency, regardless of whether this is happening in only a section, is bound to steadily erode this critique of the draconian act. In fact, in the minds of many, not just of policy mandarins and the top brass of the uniformed forces, but of ordinary men and women engrossed in their everyday struggle to eke out a living, this eroding process has already begun.

But all that is another story, although we hope those who would be directly affected, which virtually would include all of us, take note of it seriously, and reflect in earnest on corrective measures. For it is only as long as an insurrection stirs clear of criminalization, hope for an honourable solution would remain in sight. As of now, the media can afford to savour in some of its hard earned reputation at least in this matter. It has on many occasions been able to overcome petty rivalries and career insecurities in the face of major common crises and defended its freedom and independence courageously. If the community`™s response had been fragmented, probably a few of them would have been left to fend for themselves against what would probably have become for them too formidable an adversary. Having realized the strength in unity, it must now think of a structural, constitutional, mechanism under which the Editors Forum and the All Manipur Working Journalists`™ Union can come under one roof. It is unlikely the interests of editors and their subordinate colleagues will always confluence, but there are times when they do, as so many of these crises we sketched. We would be happy to see an overhaul of the AMWJU constitution so as to affect a structural reform suitable in meeting present contingencies.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/10/unity-in-crisis/

Manipur`™s cup of woe has never been empty. While it is unlikely any place in the world has not had their shares of misfortunes, Manipur`™s chain of tragedies never seems to end. Not only this, it does not seem it will end any time soon too either. It is difficult to imagine what those who lose loved ones to unnatural death must have gone through, and must be going through, and it is suffocating to imagine that these losses are unlikely be the last. But first, this invocation cannot but recall the nine youth whose bodies still lay in the ill-equipped Churachandpur District Hospital mortuary. We have no desire to comment or be judgmental of the politics that led to this tragedy, but all the same wish the near and dear ones of the nine the strength to live through what must certainly be an endless nightmare. This beleaguered land has lost so many, to pandemics such as AIDS, and to its myriad enduring soul-tearing conflicts. Often, sitting alone in solemn contemplation of Manipur`™s long list of tragedies, it is difficult not to be visited by the haunting lines of Irish poet, William Buttler Yeats, hanging desperately on to hope in a time of overwhelming despair and sorrow, `O When May it Suffice`.

Manipur today has far too many things to mourn, overshadowing its occasions for celebration. There is not a day that passes without somebody or the other getting killed violently, either in fratricidal killings or else in the protracted war between government forces and insurgent fighters waging a liberation war. If the tumultuous winds of rebellion fostered by certain ruptures in the smooth flow of history had not swept them away, many generations of men and women probably would be still living amongst us and become eminent respectable citizens, as eminent and respectable as many who occupy the top strata of the society today. But this was never to be. Come to think of it, the storm of this war having spanned over many decades, practically all of us would have known many of them, some brilliant peers who may have won fame and fortune, others merely ordinary nondescript acquaintances in the neighbourhood, suddenly transformed into heroes and martyrs by the winds of the times.

Yeats`™s song is of such a sense of void he felt remembering the `martyrs` of his native Ireland who he had known in person, and could have been still with him had it not been for those `martyr moments`. In his celebrated Easter 1916, he looks back to that year when government troops swooped down on the brewing Irish Republican Army rebellion in Dublin, and executed many of the movement`™s pioneers. `A terrible beauty is born` he exclaims in the poem, recalling the combine of horror, awe and disbelief he had felt at the time. Ordinary men and women, in ordinary professions, whom `I have met them at the close of day, /Coming with vivid faces, /From counter or desk among grey, /Eighteenth-century houses.` Familiar acquaintances on the streets whom `I have passed with a nod of the head, /Or polite meaningless words, /Or have lingered awhile and said, /Polite meaningless words`. In that September of 1916 everything transformed all of a sudden `All changed, changed utterly: /A terrible beauty is born.` There were also those he envied and did not like very much. `He had done most bitter wrong, /To some who are near my heart, /Yet I number him in the song; /He, too, has resigned his part, /In the casual comedy; /He, too, has been changed in his turn, /Transformed utterly: /A terrible beauty is born.` Yeats also sensed the tragedy that all the spiralling and increasingly senseless violence can bring, and this foreknowledge made his soul burn: `Too long a sacrifice, /Can make a stone of the heart. /O when may it suffice? /That is Heaven`™s part, our part, /To murmur name upon name, /As a mother names her child, /When sleep at last has come, /On limbs that had run wild. /What is it but nightfall? /No, no, not night but death; /Was it needless death after all?`

Nearly a century after Yeats went through his soul scorching self-questioning, many of us in Manipur are still left to go through similar soul searches and ask, `O when may it suffice?` wishing to remind those around us that `too long a sacrifice, can make a stone of the heart.` The tears of sorrow that swell can blur vision as we watch the world move on `“ even our own government contract chasing, easy unearned money loving, little world `“ unmindful of all the sacrifices and martyrdoms. The haunting forbidden question that shapes up within often is: `Was it needless death after all?`

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/10/o-when-may-it-suffice/

An article by Garga Chatterjee carried in the IFP on Sunday, on the move from certain quarters to have auto drivers in Mumbai know Marathi mandatorily said this quite succinctly. In the politically correct stances of unconditionally denouncing xenophobia and racism, what is often ignored is the embedded notion of a certain hegemony of idea. Often these stances are pushed as ideological positions, be it from the right or left wings, or for that matter the centrists. But as Anthony Giddens pointed out, `ideology` may be more than simply a system of ideas and beliefs, and be actually and closely tied to the concept of power. Giddens defines ideology as a `shared idea or beliefs which serve to justify the interest of dominant groups`. The obvious implication is, ideas under the blanket guise of ideology often become instruments for pushing the status quo in which the dominant groups have an ensured position of dominance. It is for this reason that every now and then there arises the need to counter this idea hegemony. It is from this perspective that the xenophobic fears in the northeast today of indigenous populations losing their grip on the power levers must be viewed. To what extent is this fear superfluous and to what extent legitimate, must be the focus of these inquiries, for indeed there is a good measure of both. While racial hatred must be forbidden, the apprehensions of demographic marginalization of small communities is not trivial by any means especially in a democracy where a headcount decides who holds the rein of power. The fact is also that this is an open ended question. If there are fears in Manipur of unending immigration from outside, there is also a fear amongst hill communities of valley hegemony, and both must come under the same scanner and analysed impartially. Sauce for the gander must have to be sauce for the goose too.

We bring up this issue in the wake of the wave of demands for the introduction of an inner line permit system, ILP, or an equivalent law in Manipur, as in the states of Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. One fact is clear, the states which do have this legislation in force are the ones either facing migration problems more intensely, as in the case of Nagaland where there has been large influx of Bangladeshi migrants, or else are much more paranoiac about outsiders, as in the case of Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, where even the presence of tiny populations of Chakma and Bru refugees can create civil unrests. Surprisingly, even kindred Chins tribes are discriminated in Mizoram. The implication is, the ILP is not the panacea for this problem for there are so many other factors behind the fear of demography shifts, needing different treatments. Sometimes the fear of marginalisation by outsiders is real, as in the case of Nagaland and even Assam. In other cases it is plain paranoia. The racial venom more than apparent in the treatment of tiny populations of Chakma refugees in Arunachal and Mizoram would fall in this category.

Where then would Manipur`™s worry fit in this equation? We see no problem if the immigrant inflow is at a pace moderate enough for its impact to be absorbed by the host society organically, without any social dislocation. As for instance, in Manipur, many of the communities which have since become indigenised to varying degrees, are originally immigrant. Except amongst the fanatically purist, nobody believes these integrations have been the cause for any unique social disharmony. We can even say the same of many of the much newer immigrant populations too. It is only when there is an unregulated inflow that xenophobia becomes the overwhelming reaction. The cases of Tripura and Sikkim are too close in the memory of the region to not be alarmed.

The ILP issue in Manipur is today caught in an unexpected and unfortunate controversy, with the hills objecting to it. Hopefully the differences will be sorted out soon enough, for without doubt some sort of regulatory mechanism to check fresh influx of population from outside the state is necessary. This mechanism however must not be about shutting our doors altogether but of regulating. If the move does not go out of hand, and if it does not discriminate in unwarranted manners, it will have to be seen as a self-preservation instinct of small indigenous communities. The concern must however be put through a screen of truth so as to filter the real fears from the paranoiac. This screen of truth is also what is essential in reassessing and distinguishing the real from the unreal apprehensions in the hill-valley relationship too. In this regards, the meeting of intellectuals from both the geographical regions yesterday in Imphal to begin this important discourse is encouraging.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/10/ideology-hegemony/

Some changes cannot be reversed, and this ought to be the biggest lesson Manipur learns from the current crisis. The place cannot continue to live in the past and must begin looking to the future. In different ways, this is true for both the valley and the hills. For the valley it is even more important, and probably more difficult, for it carries a heavier historical baggage predictably not easy to leave behind, much less discard. Nonetheless, it must come to terms with how Ernest Renan once famously defined a nation to be `“ that it is a daily plebiscite. This transitioning from a rich feudal past into a democratic future cannot be without its share of trauma. Indeed as Freud once said, all history is trauma history, for history making necessarily involves penetrating the protective shield of the superego, and then rearranging and redefining the personality dynamics within. This idea of the present renegotiating its civilisational past is not new in world literature, and there are plenty of engaging scholarships on the subject, and how best to proceed to resolve the problem, especially in the wake of extremely violent ruptures in traditionally held ideas of nationhood and peoplehood, as in the case of the European Jews after the Hitler experience. These and many more can serve as the lesson. But it is not as if the traditional valley community, the Meiteis, have not been doing this, politically in the course of history, and symbolically in their arts, therefore it should not be impossible for them to do it again.

In the world of contemporary arts, Ratan Thiyam`™s lyrical allegory on stage, `Nine Hills One Valley` is a shining example of this idea of the present confronting the past. In the midst of all the turmoil, and the blind responsibility heaped on certain chapters of history for all the misery of the present, the director awakens the legendary scholars of the past, the maichou, writers of the sacred Puya scriptures, from their graves, and entreats them to write Manipur`™s history again. They end up writing virtually the same history we know, in the process reconfirming the non-permanence and therefore the inevitability eras to give way to new ones. Two and a half centuries ago, this negotiation was seen poignantly in another traumatic chapter of the Manipur kingdom. The picture of King Bheigyachandra standing on Kaina hillock before the jackfruit tree of his revelatory dream, praying and begging forgiveness of the tree that he must fell it to make the statues of Krishna and Radha, the gods of his new faith that his grandfather King Pamheiba had embraced. To add a little background to this scene, the Meiteis worship nature, and trees acquire godliness with age. This ingrained belief is what King Bheigyachandra had to transgress in order that he may move on into a new era. It is again another picture of the modern negotiating with the ancient, and the resolution here too is not of discarding the past but of coming to terms with the need to move on. Remarkably, this resolution is close to the condition that Freud wrote of and characterised as `Mourning and Melancholia`. Freud`™s melancholia is a narcissistic, therefore destructive engagement, in which the victim begins to take perverse pleasure in the idea of his own suffering and loss, perpetuating grieving. The victim though likely no longer a victim, becomes thus unable to abandon his victimhood. In mourning the victim confronts his past and pledges allegiance that he will remain forever indebted to it, will always cherish its memory, but takes courage to say `you who are dead and I who am alive cannot be the same anymore`, and I must move on and live. This is courage is what is failing the present, especially amongst the Meiteis.

This idea of the transitioning of one era to another cannot also be better illustrated than by the Magna Carta of 1215. The treaty sought to renegotiate the power structure that existed in mediaeval feudal England represented by an unpopular monarch, King John, and his rebellious barons, thereby buy peace for all. The treaty itself did not immediately translate into practice, but it laid the seed for the easing of feudal hold, and the birth of a decentralised polity. It is also considered by many to be the flagging off point for the evolution of modern democracy. What Manipur is confronting today can be such a landmark in its growth as a mature democracy that takes care of everybody equitably, resolves conflicting claims by negotiations, with the end result that every player reaps the dividends of peace together. In this, each player will have to come to terms with the memories of their individual pasts, and without disowning them, agree to the construction of a common future through the generous, or prudent if you like, principle of give and take.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/10/manipurs-magna-carta/

Residents of Wangkhei blockaded the Kongba road and all its arterial lanes today to let the government know their resentment at the continued neglect of the Wangkhei Thangapat road leading to Thumbuthong Bridge. This route, as those living in the southern part of Imphal East will know has become an extremely important link road between Imphal East and Imphal West ever since the main Sanjenthong bridge across the Imphal River was closed for upgrade nearly two years ago. For reasons best known to the government, this road has been allowed to decay all along. It was even missed out in the government`™s desperate road facelifts in and around the Hapta Kangjeibung ahead of the 2015 edition of the Sangai Tourism Festival. While we are not saying this is the only road in the state which has remained neglected, for indeed there are plenty more in Imphal as well as the rest of the state suffering even worse degeneration and disrepair, we are prompted to highlight a general pattern of the working of the Government of Manipur. It neglects what should have been its routine responsibility, and is nudged into action only when there are street protests. While it is good it is shaken awake every now and then, the message that this sends out to the people by and large is dangerous. It translates as: you can only get things done if you threaten agitation. It is not surprising then that today street protests and government inactions have come to be seen as mutual triggers for each other. To state the obvious then, this culture must end, and government must begin acting on its own impulse of responsible governance. If this were to be so, these sporadic street protests too would become redundant and deprived of any sense of moral legitimacy which they today have in ample.

However, the concern of the conscientious public must go beyond this confined instrumentality of public-government relations. It must also importantly be about making sure these road construction works are done as per specifications and that no undue profiteering results from them at the cost of quality. The surest way to ensure this is to insist on transparency. In any given road construction work, and for that matter all other public projects, the government must be made to reveal details of the contracts including who the contractor or contractors are, the specifications of the project to be accomplished and the funds earmarked for it etc. This will not only ensure quality work, but also that no money meant for the project is siphoned off illegally. This will in fact be one of the most effective ways of checking corruption, for indeed, corruption in sponsored economies like Manipur has today come to be to a great extent synonymous with the place`™s contract culture. By perpetrating this culture, those in positions of power, and their power brokers build an elaborate nexus of politicians-bureaucrats-technocrats-contractors, and happily loot and share a percentage of the state`™s annual plan budgets. Maybe the nexus is simpler, much simpler as an observer suggested. Maybe everybody in this nexus is a contractor at heart. In the case of the politicians at least, this observer further pointed out, almost all of them have contractor backgrounds, and almost all of them are still contractors, swarming around the boss of all government contracts in the state with a begging bowl for their shares.

Manipur`™s, and indeed much of the Northeast`™s, economy is today in shambles. These are economies where a primary sector had evolved, but before a secondary sector could also shape up and take roots, a superimposed tertiary service sector, in the shape of government jobs, have virtually short circuited the process, leaving the secondary sector vulnerable in its infancy and grossly underdeveloped. Manipur, in particular the valley, was showing signs of the secondary sector germinating. Professions were multiplying as per the intrinsic demands of the economy, and maturing encouragingly too. Then came the shift in the economy with the introduction of the government service sector, commanding salaries much higher than what the market realities would warrant, therefore killing off the germination process of professions grounded in the economy. Today, with the exception of a few, all the blacksmiths, goldsmiths, motor mechanics, tailors, carpenters, journalists, newspaper hawkers, and the honest money they earn, have become so subordinated to the government services, that those in these professions would sell off their wares to pay bribes so their children would get into the government service sector. The trend cannot be reversed, but with imagination and commitment, the government itself can do the needful to ensure that the economy`™s vital secondary sector does not disappear altogether. It must, with an effort, reorient its investments, of effort and funds alike, towards this end.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/10/road-to-perdition/

The trouble with Manipur is, nothing sounds the alarm bell loud enough for it to remain awake long enough. Nothing, not even the worst crisis, it seems can shake it out of its complacency. And crisis is one thing the state has never ever had a shortfall of. It has been almost by rule, for the state to be on a crisis a week recipe, some not so severe while others nothing less than nightmares that shake up the body and soul of the place. Regardless of the fact that these crises had either faded on their own with the passing time or stemmed by public fading public attention, one thing is clear, given the circumstance Manipur is caught in today, nobody can promise the last word has been said on the matter. Turmoils and upheavals, many of them extremely violent, seem to be an inalienable destiny of the state. One cannot help recalling the words of a former chief minister of the state, the late and irreverent Wahengbam Nipamacha. Harangued by the unending myriad problems besetting the state, many of which act as the trigger for the other, he had exclaimed in exasperation, and therefore a faint note of resignation as well, that even if Bhagwan Shri Krishna were to rule the state, Manipur`™s problems would continue to rage on.

The worrying thing is not so much these crises are extremely stressful, but that nobody ever seems to learn from them. Not even those who consider themselves as storm-troopers, both amongst those in the driver`™s seat of the establishment as well as the vast human-scape outside it that is rather ambiguously referred to as civil society. The state and its people have come to learn superbly to live out crises and even to fight them, but no crisis, however awesome have been able to teach them the lesson that would make them think in terms of putting the roots of these crises safely to bed forever, incapacitating them of accumulating harm potential again. Crises explode like several kilotons of dynamite periodically, and during these crises semblance of masterstrokes of collective resolves emerge. However, once the dusts from these crises settle, the downward pulls of mediocrity once again neutralize and level out everything to square one. During economic blockades along its major mountain passes, especially National Highway-39, war cries to have the NH-53 developed, work up to resemble a mass frenzy. Once these storms pass by, nobody bothers what condition this uncared for highway is left in. Similarly, the talk of cutting a third highway, so desperate and passionate once, has relegated to not much more than idle academic discussions.

There are more sinister ones than these. Take the case of official corruption at high places. It is not a question of excusing corruption at the lower echelons of the officialdom, but it needs no elaboration to convince anybody that the whole enterprise of dismantling the corruption edifice has to begin from the top. After all, if the generals are corrupt, how can corruption be prevented from contaminating the foot soldiers. The generals can discipline the foot soldiers but the reverse can never be a reality. Would we then be needing any more proofs to convince anybody that organized robberies of public coffers still are rampant? That huge percentages are still being siphoned off from development funds and shared between contractors and contract awarders and their deal brokers? It is another story that many insurgent groups have joined this unholy league, but this can be no excuse for those democratically mandated by the people to captain the state, to be corrupt. Unless and until the establishment becomes a credible institution of governance upon which the people can repose faith in, there will always be the legitimacy of alternates, even if they are subversive, in some corner of the masses`™ heart. Herein is the space upon which the foundation of any insurrection is laid. And this space cannot be destroyed physically. It has to be won over spiritually. This is why many have argued that the search for an answer to insurgency is not so much a physical war but will by necessity have to be a moral one. At the cerebral level, everybody gifted with even average intelligence, understands this very well. The trouble is, this cerebral understanding has never been allowed to be internalized to become a matter of the heart and soul.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/10/moral-war-missing/

How much is culture responsible for the progress made or the lack of it of any given society? Or more provocatively in our context, how much is culture responsible for the embrace or resistance to modernity and development? These are questions that keep returning because of their continued relevance. There are any number of books written on the subject, addressing and seeking the roots of so much disparity in development all over the world. The intriguing nature of the question has also assured many of these books to become best-sellers. Just to cite two examples in the possession of IFP are Jared M. Diamond`™s `Guns, Germs and Steel` and Professor David S. Landes`™ `Wealth and Poverty of Nations`. But another one `The Central Liberal Truth` by foreign aid worker, Lawrence E Harrison, which says culture does make a world of difference in attitudes to modernity and development must also be in the list of important works on this subject. The thought if pursued, developed, and applied earnestly and consensually, can also pay dividends for the Manipur society. How much have our own varying cultures been a catalyst or inhibitor of modernity and development? Complaints about the lack of these qualities as consequences rather than causes of lack of development are not uncommon, but what has been uncommon is any sincere, soul-searching attempt to gauge the conditions that might have possibly contributed to things going wrong on the way. What has been the role of culture and tradition in our grappling with this issue of gravity? It would indeed be an interesting academic study to make an assessment of the correlation between development and the willingness of a community to accept change. We would for one vouch that the praxis, at least in this case is extremely strong.

Another study by American economists Raymond Fisman and Edward Miguel, to demonstrate the same praxis between cultural grounding and development is interesting from this vantage. The study takes into account records of illegal parking tickets earned by diplomatic vehicles from different countries in New York. The figures seem hardly a coincidence. The two economists found out that diplomats from countries that rank high on the Transparency International corruption index pile up huge numbers of unpaid tickets, whereas diplomats from countries that rank low on the index get barely any at all. For instance, between 1997 and 2002, they found out, the UN Mission of Kuwait picked up 246 parking violations per diplomat. Diplomats from Egypt, Chad, Sudan, Mozambique, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Syria also committed huge numbers of violations. By contrast, not a single parking violation by a Swedish diplomat was recorded. Nor were there any by diplomats from Denmark, Japan, Israel, Norway or Canada. The reason for this as per their conclusion is, human beings are not merely products of economics, but are also shaped by cultural and moral norms. `If you are Swedish and you have a chance to pull up in front of a fire hydrant, you still don`™t do it. You are Swedish. That`™s who you are.` In this light, another politician thinker of the mid 20th Century, Walter Lippmann, who once said in a speech: `All cultures have value because they provide coherence, but some foster development while others retard it. Some cultures check corruption, while others permit it. Some cultures focus on the future, while others focus on the past. The question that is at the centre of politics today: Can we self-consciously change cultures so they encourage development and modernization?`

The question is profoundly relevant to our situation. How receptive has our own cultures been to a vision of a modernised future. Can we say the same thing that has been said of the Swedish diplomats who would not park in front of a fire hydrant even in the dead of the night when no one is watching, in referring to our own elite? Do we see signs of any moral and social obligations that would stop someone from littering the streets with their kitchen garbage? Do our consciences come to play in checking personal urges for unfair and corrupt practices? Are there any unwritten norms that make people guilty at breaking one-way traffic norms? It is indeed a telling revelation that most often it is siren blaring, flag waving VIP vehicles that violate these norms. There have also been tremendous debates as well as idle talks about the infamous, lethargic work culture in the official establishment. Has there ever been an inherent, cultural checking mechanism that informs the place that such lethargy amounts to dishonesty to profession as well as to self. These data are convincing and they show that there is indeed a correlation between such cultural attitudes and the march of modernity. Shouldn`™t we then self-consciously make the effort to change the detrimental aspects of our cultures so that they encourage development and modernization? We must keep in mind that little brownie points scored, as for instance in the tussles of supposedly disparate interests of hills and valley, will not matter one bit if they stand against the tide of time. In the end, nothing can stand against the future, and there can be no argument that the future is headed for the modern.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/10/future-perfect/

So many times this has been said and by practically everybody. Yet all are still having to say it over and over again. When will the culture of bandhs ever end is an exclamation in resigned exasperation that everybody in Manipur would have one day of the other made. What is general the message anyway of these bandhs? Even if the issues behind them are real and weighty, they do not any longer register in public`™s benumbed consciousness. They have come to mean nothing more than another day of extreme inconvenience or business lost for those who earn their living by their labour. They are therefore a boon for only those who relish no work, and children for whom bandhs mean another day of no school. Why can`™t the habitual bandh callers try exercising their faculties a little to realize that rather than sympathy, their bandhs attract public scorn regardless the issue. What can possibly be the point of bandhs then, we simply fail to understand. Perhaps bandh callers get a kick out of posing themselves as a public nuisance. But the equally important question is, should the public keep on tolerating a known nuisance? Because they have been doing so, bandhs in the state are also getting increasingly trivial and more often than not, farcical too. Today, there is practically a bandh for every occasion, even for the smallest and most localized issues as the non-declaration of government job interview results.

To be fair however, there is another way of looking at the issue. That things have become so bad and nothing moves, especially works that have to do with the government, so to get the government to act on any issue, there is no option but to take the matter out on the streets. There must be a great deal of truth in this for the state`™s experience has been that the government indeed acts on any matter pushed hard enough from the streets. The question is, if these issues are its obligations, and especially if it has given the promise it would keep these obligations, why must it have to always wait for these matters to come out on the streets and then concede. Apart from exposing its lack of commitment, it is also resulting in a conditioned behaviour, whereby it has come to be an instinct of the place that bandhs and strikes are a necessary method to have the government keep promises and obligations. This is not an excuse on behalf of the bandh callers however. They must be made to realize that in demanding through bandhs what they see are their rights and entitlements, they are depriving others who do not share their concerns of their rights. Surely kindergarten students who miss their classes on account of bandhs, or the daily wage earners who miss their wages, or the small entrepreneurs who lose their day`™s valuable businesses, cannot be interested in the non-declaration of government job DPC results or TA and DA increase of government employees. Therefore, if anybody feels an issue is of public interest, deserving to be taken to the streets, they should let the public have the last say on its merit. Let bandhs and boycotts be supported voluntarily and with a free will. Only then would the real worth of the issues involved come out.

We advise the government to begin unwinding the wrongs and flaws of the past. First, let it learn to bite off only as much as it can chew and not make promises that it does not intend keeping or is beyond its means to keep. Let justice and rule of law prevail by doing all that it is obliged to do, overboard. It is acknowledged that the state`™s resources are meagre, but if these poor resources were to be distributed fairly and without ignoring the deserving, there would not be so much discontent all around as now. If inspite of having done all this, there are still strikes and bandhs, let it be firm on them. Let it not bend to each and every arm-twisting manoeuvre. We do respect the right for the subject of a government to protest perceived injustices, but when matters get pushed too far, and the welfare of a greater section of the people are put at jeopardy to serve the selfish interests of a few, the government must even oppose the moves. For in such cases, it amounts to these selfish vested interests holding the larger public to ransom to meet their ends. If the government gives in to these pressure tactics, it would amount to encouraging other vested interests to resort to similar means too.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/10/tyranny-of-bandhs/

Poverty can be extremely depressing. There is no gainsaying that it can dehumanize, depriving self-esteem as well as human dignity from those caught in its trap. If not for the support of the joint family institution, still very much a tradition in the Manipur, the number of absolutely poor, with absolutely no income source at all, would have become visible in very many ways. Nearly eight lakh unemployed youth, (as is what the registers in the state`™s employment exchange shows), out of a population of 28 lakhs, would have been simply socially explosive and devastating if not for this generously elastic shock absorber. Indirectly, we may already be witnessing the strain on the society in the rise of delinquency, prostitution, drugs abuse, street crimes and even organized extortion gangs. The tendency of street protests in the state these days to get mindlessly violent could be still another manifestation of mounting youth frustration. However, although related, it would be wrong say poverty is the only cause for this show of desperation, deviant behaviours. More often than not, it is the poor who are more generous and humane than the rich. Only when hopes for a redemptive mechanism that the state is duty bound to guarantee become lost, or when the conditions for poverty begins to be seen as a result of unjust administration, or when the disparity between the rich and poor become unfairly stark, that attitudes harden. No wonder than that most religions eulogize the state of material poverty, for it is assumed poverty in the external world is an indicator of the richness of one`™s soul. No other religion says this more explicitly than Christianity, when Christ in what is today considered one of the greatest and most poetic sermons ever, tells his disciples during the `sermon on the mount` that blessed are the poor for they will inherit the kingdom of heaven. In practice however, it is Buddha who showed by putting sermons into practice, how renouncing the material world and self-embraced of poverty, is the way to attain enlightenment. There are also so many other messiahs, from all regions of the world, who have followed this same path.

But the poverty that religions envision is more a metaphor of a spirituality to which material conditions make little difference. It probably referred to a life free of avarice and greed, and all other transgression into human understanding of ethical behaviours, which are generally associated with the way to material wealth. This poverty cannot however be the same, agonizing, life-sapping impoverishment that the modern world knows and sees on its urban streets. For this is a poverty that crushes not just the physical world of those it burdens but also their spiritual landscape with its sheer weight, and more importantly, hopelessness. Under such a circumstance, it is more a curse than a blessing. And this is the kind of poverty that is taking shape in our society today. We cannot see a bigger challenge before any government, our state government in particular, than to arrest the slow but sure onslaught of this poverty.

There cannot be any miracle solution to remove factors in an economy that leads to impoverishment of a population. It will have to be by a multi-pronged, long term, well thought out strategy that the problem is tackled. It cannot also be the government alone that fights this battle. The people and the government will have to make this a common battlefront. However, for the people to feel empowered to join the battle, the government`™s initiatives are vital. Poverty is terrible, but it would not have been so terrible if hope remained alive that given the will, this condition can be overcome if not in one generation, then in the next. That is to say that parents living below the poverty line must still be given the confidence that they have the means to equip their children to compete legitimately for the best life the system can offer, dependent solely on their individual diligence, industry and aptitude. The most important thing that the government can and must do, as we have been arguing in our editorial columns over the years, is for it to lift the standard and discipline of its moribund school system. Together with it, the shameful culture of corruption and nepotism must be put an end to. The elixir to instil hope even in the poorest is the sense that they can still empower their children with the appropriate knowledge and skills demanded by the modern world regardless of their poverty. Let the government not wait for miracles to drop from heaven, but begin fashioning it here on earth.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/10/salvage-hope/

Can development be without price? Much as anybody may wish it, this cannot be so. Hence, the more realistic and pertinent question should be, what kind of price is worth paying for any development project. The basic principle in any walk of life `“ that of minimizing losses and maximizing gains, should very well apply here too. Just as in the law of physics which says matter (or energy) can neither be created nor destroyed, development, or for that matter anything else, cannot be snatched out of nothing. Literally speaking, only God knows how to do that and we are sure He would not be keen to demonstrate. Jokes apart, development must have to be a rational negotiation process in which we weigh the pros and cons of all projects envisaged, and then lean our decisions towards the arguments that are honestly weightier. Often this logic is abandoned in all our ongoing debates on the issue.

The need to pursue this debate has acquired a sense of desperation in our situation. Just the consideration of the example of the acute power shortage should validate our contention. On the one hand we have not enough electricity and on the other we also often put up non-negotiable oppositions to electricity generating hydel projects. It is true these projects will command a price but shouldn`™t the debate be also about how heavy the price would be and how worthy it is to pay the price. If we foreclose the issue and say we should not pay any price at all, whatever the circumstance, then we should also not be complaining the scarcity of electricity, and in fact the absence of the fruits of development in our lives. Our point is, we do not have to sell ourselves and our future just for the sake of development, but all the same, we must also have to be prepared to pay some price at least. As the saying goes, you cannot make an omelette without breaking the egg. Hence if we think it is absolutely wrong to break the egg then don`™t even imagine how the omelette can be relished. We are not suggesting that there should always be a ready green signal to all development projects. We are only saying that the effort must be to seek to strike the right balance between what we end up paying and what we end up getting. To extend the aphorism of the egg a little more, the debate must be about taking care not to cook the goose that lays the golden egg just for one sumptuous meal and then lose a future that golden eggs can guarantee, but also to not deprive ourselves of the simple gastronomical delight of omelette and toast for breakfast when we do want it. As practical optimists, we believe there is such a balance. Maybe high dams are bad, but must we also have to say all dams are bad?

Take another case. Other than electricity, tap water is also in acute shortage in the state. In rural areas, since there are still clean natural sources of water, the problem although bad, is not as desperate. But in the urban areas, say for instance Imphal, what would the people do without treated water. Luckily, there are some very well maintained community artificial water bodies which are an important substitute in times of extreme scarcity, but the problem can only grow in the days ahead. Under the circumstance, imagine what would have been the scenario if the Shingda Dam were not there and Imphal did not receive even the existing supply of tap water. Perhaps, Imphal with its ever growing population would not have been liveable at all by now. Here is, right in front of our eyes, what we may say is a successful, life supporting, small dam, and yet so many still insist on opposing any mention of dams. Of course, even in the case of small dams, the question of compensation and meaningful resettlement of affected population, if any, must be addressed seriously and adequately. In the meantime, our negotiation with the idea of development, as well as giving it material shape, must be in more earnest and governed by a heavier dose of rationality.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/10/egg-and-omelette/

One of the worst crimes that the media can commit is to create a false consensus on any given issue. It is not always the fault of the media, but the fact is, these false consensuses exist, and more often than not, they are not part of any conscious campaign or propaganda, but a result of general insensitivities and inbuilt cultural biases. This is even more dangerous, because overt assaults evoke resistance, but these soft and slow pushes far too often go unchallenged. These falsities also result because of certain inherent paradoxes embedded in the semantics of human language. We bring up the topic, because we do notice the northeast has been in many fields at the receiving ends of such false consensuses. But let us first qualify our statement by explaining what we understand by the embedded paradoxes of semantics by quoting an authoritative logician, Burtrand Russell. The famed mathematician and philosopher who received a Nobel Prize not for the discipline he is trained for, but for literature, came up with the now equally famous Russell`™s paradox, more popularly known as the `Liar`™s Paradox`. This was as a follow up to a BBC debate he had with Jesuit priest, Rev Fr. Copplestone on the existence of God. The debate is reproduced in Russell`™s book `Why I am Not a Christian`. Fr Copplestone, at a point in the debate, came up with the argument that nothing that does not exist can have a meaning, or would be within human understanding, and since the concept `God` has a definite meaning that is well within the grasp of human understanding, this must be a definitive proof that God exists. Russell argues against this insisting not everything that makes sense exist. Much after the debate, he was to back up the argument with his famous semantic paradox. In it he says the statement `I am a liar` at the semantic level makes sense, but at its core is false, for if I am a liar then I am lying about the statement, which would mean I am speaking the truth, implying again that I am lying`¦ and the cycle goes on`™ taking the quest for an answer nowhere.

We have no intent of joining issue in the debate on the existence of God, but are interested in the particular problem of semantics thrown up, for this may also be at the core of the false consensus that the media often is guilty of. After all, the media deals in words and words can be played around until they begin conjuring up realities devoid of, or at the most remotely connected, to reality. Images of endemic backwardness of the northeast, the lahe lahe stigma that hangs around any portraiture of Assam, tribalism, matrilineal Khasis, violent Nagas, orthodox Meitei, non-sedentary Kukis`¦ all these, despite their semantic falsities, have stuck, and often pose as hurdles in the region`™s coming to terms with the modern scientific age. They would have also resulted in biases in policy framing. Take for instance the often repeated assertion that the Centre has been pumping in money into the northeast. True money has been flowing in from the Centre, but can it really be described as pumping in money. The deceptive scale has been to measure in terms of per capita investment or talk in terms of percentage. For sparsely populated northeast, we can imagine what disadvantage such a scale would put it in. At least in infrastructural investments the talk should be of quantum and not percentage. As we have argued before, a bridge in Mumbai would cost the same as a bridge in the northeast, but if per capita investment were to be the criteria, it is obvious the northeast would end up with only partial bridges and roads, as perhaps it is happening.

This being the case, the challenge, indeed duty, of the present generation of media professionals, especially those from the region, is to deconstruct or dismantle these falsities and rebuild newer and rejuvenated images that are closer to the reality on the ground. Just as the false consensus came about as a residue slowly over years, the challenges must not also be in aggressive haste. Such an approach would rob the campaign`™s legitimacy considerably. This would be how we define journalistic activism in our present context. The role of course must be shared equally by the rest of our by and large silent academia.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/10/dismantling-false-image/

The issue of globalization cannot but be tackled at two different planes. At the one level it is about an inevitable process of the world shrinking, chiefly because of quantum leaps in communication, both physical as well as in terms of information technologies. As for instance, if physical movements of people were limited largely within their own countries as in the olden days, the dreaded viruses like the one that causes SARS or the later bird flu, which periodically break out usually in remote provinces of China and South East Asia, could not possibly have created the worldwide scares as they have done without fail. In fact, we all remember how the SARS epidemic had a toll even in Canada, located half way round the world from China, within days of its outbreak. But more than the movement of people, it is flight of ideas and ideologies which has become virtually impossible to restrain. Who can dam the flood of information entering everybody`™s lives wherever they are through satellite television, and more than this, the omnipresent broadband internet these days? Not even tough dictatorships, including once in our immediate neighbour Myanmar have managed to do this. True, this new world order has globalized even terrorism, but as former American President Bill Clinton said with such incisive vision in his 2001 BBC Dimbleby Lecture, the peoples and nations of the world cannot simply afford to return to their respective boxes despite whatever the ugly fallouts of this opening up to the new global universe are. This is the Brave New World, to twist and use a phrase author Aldous Huxley made famous, which we have no choice but to face.

But to believe this coming closer together of the world communities is all there is about globalization would be naivety. For tagged along equally inevitably is the market, much bigger now because it is globalized. Despite whatever all the unabashed market worshippers think, it is difficult to believe globalized market, or for that matter any market, can be a laissez fair. It can be a brutal tool in the hands of unscrupulous players, and of this breed there can never be a shortfall in the world of business. In an uncontrolled situation, the market is not at all about fair competition or honing pursuits of excellence through competition, but can be about finishing off competition by big bullies of the game. The repeated failure of the WTO talks to have a smooth sailing is precisely because of disagreements on the insistence of developing countries to have the playing fields levelled out first before a regime of fully open competition is introduced. Moreover, the market forces being driven by profit motive alone, it is devoid of any intrinsic moral. It exploits the weak, but more than that, it also has no real concern for ecology, air pollution, public health, gender sensitivity, child right etc.

We would however not also reject the market outright but take it after necessary controls are introduced. As an example, we are reminded of the private schools and their meteoric rise in Manipur vis a vis government run schools in recent years. And this is a phenomenon repeated in every other field, including the media. At this moment, there is absolutely no point of comparison in terms of the quality of education provided by private and government schools. While the former continues to better their results every year, the latter has been showing a growth in the reverse direction. Yet, it is a foregone conclusion that private schools are not the final answer to quality education for they cannot avail their service below a certain income line. The market logic will ensure that they cater to only those who ring their cash registers. Without some sort of a regulatory mechanism from the powers that be, the service condition within even the most profitable organizations can and would probably get exploitative. In this Brave New World, big players are also always on the lookout to destroy competition and gobble weaker players. We are witnessing how this is happening in the media business in cities like Guwahati which has become the latest battle ground for big money media moguls. Democracy is often described as freedom defined by judicious laws. The free market too needs such a defining criterion before it can actually be free and fair. Free for all is far from freedom. Or to put it another way, freedom cannot be equated with license.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/09/freedom-is-not-license/

It has been years since the Rights to Information, RTI, Act was implemented in the state, and as is its wont, with a dose of fanfare. However, in the years that have passed by, it has also been so successfully ensured that all voices seeking government transparency are silenced. The Act which was at the time of its inception, described as arguably the best anti-corruption legislation ever, remains largely unused in the entire country, except in pockets where conscientious and enlightened citizens have taken the best advantage of it to make government policies and the policy making processes as transparent as possible. It is quite a surprise that while there is a deluge of social organizations and NGOs in the state, pushing so many varied issues, none have found policy transparency, and corruption resulting out of the lack of it, important enough to reserve some focused attention. This understandably also suits the government and its machineries well. Years ago, it nervously constituted the mandatory Information Commission, and then probably heaved a sigh of relief that nobody is interested in it. It must be said the government contributed guilefully to making the State Information Commission redundant by default. As per the RTI Act, the government is called upon to publicize the Act`™s applications widely so that every citizen gets to learn them, and empower themselves with the Act adequately, though very simply and inexpensively, to challenge corrupt practices of the powers that be. Today, hardly anybody knows the mechanics of this Act, and most remain overawed and desist from approaching the Information Commission, presuming understandably, it is only another part of the same forbidding bureaucratic castle.

This being the case, it is still an open secret that official corruption is still rampant, and yet, none of these issues is ever brought up before the Information Commission. It never seems to occur to even those many who know of the Act, that these cases of possible official corruption can be dug out and made open, therefore checked. Except in the case of a few subjects, no government files can be withheld if sought through the prescribed procedure of this Act, although it must be added, the list of protected subjects seems to have grown inordinately in the decades that have gone by. The failure to check official corruption despite this legal handle, in our opinion, is yet another evidence of either the resignation or complicity of the elite of our society in this corruption scourge. Between their knowledge and their actualization, still falls the infamous shadow described by TS Eliot in `The Wasteland`. Despite being the custodians of knowledge, they remain un-empowered and to that extent, cowardly, turning into incorrigible cynics, perpetually complaining and fretting in private, but never bold enough to come out of their intellectual ennui to take the bull by the horns, as they say. And so, even as those in the Information Commission are left to fight the boredom of having nothing to do, even those who complain of being victims of official corruption, only fume and fret, and do nothing.

Meanwhile, Manipur continues to sink deeper into the abyss in many different ways because of the culture of self-obsession of the government. There is no gainsaying that most employees have paid heavy bribes, which are today almost mandatory, to enter their services and later for plumb postings, and are unabashed about their intent to recover what they have paid as they have paid. In this way, the entire government service sector has become self-serving and the very meaning of the word service has come to be skewed beyond recognition. Today, it is as if the government is meant only for government employees, concerned about salary hikes and perks of employees, and nothing beyond. Other than a few shining examples, private entrepreneurships have been condemned to remain stunted because the tertiary pillar of the economy government services are supposed to provide are non-existent. This despite the knowledge that the government job ceiling has already been touched and it cannot absorb more job seeker with benefit. The only solution to the growing unemployment problem in the state, under the circumstance, nobody will doubt, would have to be through an expansion and maturing of private entrepreneurships. Yet the government would rather have them bound down to the contractor-patron relationship, virtually making them run pillar to post to seek their entitlements, and by the same notorious contractor-patron culture, seeking percentage cuts from their earnings. We also wish that the NGO sector in the state, which is known for flocking to where donor funds are, would also be a little more pro-active, and start paying some attention to the use of available legal tools such as the RTI, to challenge and expose corruption. Until such a time as the RTI becomes very familiar and therefore everyman`™s weapon, it would be extremely helpful if organised civil society bodies were to take on the responsibility, in collaboration with the media as force multipliers, if need be.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/09/civil-society-and-corruption/

Home is where the heart is, and Manipur is home for many of us not just in the sense of a physical structure, a house, in which we take shelter from the elements, but a place which has grown into our hearts. However comfortable and secure a house is, it cannot be anything close to what a home represents. A place associated so intimately with so much memories not just of one`™s immediate experience in a lifetime, but equally of an archetypal that stretches back into hoary times of fables and folklores. The land of grandmother`™s bedtime stories on the cold winter evenings around the warmth of glowing charcoal briars; a land of the tears and sweats of our parents and their parents; a land of our childhood playgrounds, of fun games and occasional fights. The trees we climbed, the ponds we swam in, the spankings we received for doing so, all make for the rich kaleidoscope of nostalgia in anybody`™s memory of home. Many of the ponds have disappeared, the trees too, the hills we trekked and picnicked are barren, each of their demise is like a stab wound for the soul. That good-hearted rogue, sozzled out of his mind from high noon, and a terror of our childhood, he too is gone, like so many others, having come to the end of his journey rather early. But that is life. Time and tide wait for no (wo)man. But the transient nature of life is what makes it all the more dear. In sublime irony, everybody wishes for immortality, but its impossibility gives the tale its sad and grand rings, all at the same time. This sad tale; this grandeur; joyous occasions; grieving moment; are all the stuffs that memories are made of. They are also what home is about `“ a love story in everybody`™s life. For many of us, this love story is Manipur. In good times we have enjoyed its bounties, played and sung on its lap, and in bad times we have stuck with it for no other reason than that it is home.

So what is it to love Manipur? How must we love it? Set it on fire? Exploit and commercialize its resources? Pollute its lakes and rivers? Fell its trees? Amidst so much turmoil that has come to be its present, amidst so much of ethnic anxieties and mutual suspicions characteristic of this era, amidst so much hate literature against this place we call our common home, perhaps it will be helpful to mentally strip Manipur of its political garb for a while, for it is also very much a political entity, and refer back to just its memory contents. Hegemony, coercion, fiefdom etc are notions associated with politics and even culture. Manipur has not been innocent of these aberrations in its political life by any means. In any contest for power and dominance in a multi-ethnic situation, un-arbitrated by judicious, democratic laws, these are inevitable. But beyond the ugly fallouts of these contests there are also the memories nobody can monopolize or claim propriety right over. Let us search our souls and see what these memories tell us. Perhaps they will tell us of our common salvation.

Manipur is on fire and it is the duty of every one of us to see to ways the fire can be doused. Our values have been mutated unrecognizably, killing is no longer an act against conscience, corruption has come to be institutionalized, unjust ways to riches and status have become a norm rather than exception. Violence has become a language, and when this happens, all other languages recede into the background. Everybody wants to be heard but nobody wants to listen. How can reason rule in such an atmosphere? These are by no means expressions of love. We need to be honest, but equally we need to be brave to stand up to oppression of any form by anybody. We need to respect ourselves and our honest individual convictions and stand by the dictates of these inner voices unwaveringly. There are external factors to Manipur`™s damnation but a larger part of this damnation come from within. In similar proportion, a greater part of its salvation too must come from within. Democracy promises the external factors can be negotiated and resolved. It must be said, the present generation, at least has a memory to cherish despite all the anarchy around. Things were not as bad as it is now. It is the responsibility of this generation to ensure the next has something to inherit other than just nightmares for memory.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/09/to-love-manipur/

It will come as no surprise that there is an exodus of young aspiring professionals away from the state. In a way it is good, for if and when they return, they will bring back new skills and outlooks. However, there is also a fairly good chance that a majority of them will not return, for at this moment, job prospects for them are virtually nil in the state. Nor is there a climate for them to want to return and build enterprises from scratch. It is in this sense a very critical period for the state. Push matters a little farther and things can reach a point of no return, where the best talent leave permanently to find their fortunes elsewhere. If however it does not allow situation to drift beyond the critical point, who knows, in the years ahead, it may be time for a new renaissance, when the prodigals begin heading home. At this moment though, the picture is rather grim. As for instance, few jobs outside those offered by the government are worth today`™s wage standards, and the government job sector is super-saturated. A selection test for a few dozen state civil servants, or lecturers, once or twice a decade, cannot come as any consolation to the ever growing number of job seekers. There are no signs that the situation can improve in the near future either. The government neither has the resource to create more direct jobs, nor the will or imagination to foster the growth of employment outside itself. All it can do, and has been doing, is to blame the bad law and order situation for its failures. Nobody can deny this is a factor, but it is precisely its duty to ensure the rule of law exists, and it can best begin by practising what it preaches.

The rule of law is another story, but the immediate challenge is about creating jobs and since the capacity of the government to employ has a definite ceiling, it will have to look at the private sector. For this sector is multidimensional with practically the sky as the ceiling. It can in fact accommodate all, provided the atmosphere is right. An article by journalist Michael Hasting some years ago, in a popular American weekly comparing the resurgence power of Vietnam and Iraq, is interesting. Hasting who was for a long time assigned the Iraq beat, visited Saigon (now known as Ho Chi Minh City) for the story. Decades after the war, Vietnam is bouncing back. Its economy is buoyant, everybody is raring to go and win his share from it, and in the process contribute his share too. By contrast, he is however not hopeful Iraq can emulate the same feat in the decades ahead. Individual entrepreneurship was always very strong in Vietnam, unlike Iraq which was for too long hooked to easy petrodollars. Vietnam`™s economy was built around the enterprising spirit of its people, as well as the skill and discipline of its labour force. By contrast, Iraqis in general have come to be addicted to subsidies, so that in times of crisis, such as wars and their aftermaths, while Iraq had nowhere else to look for resurgence, Vietnam could draw strength from within and pick itself up much sooner. Moreover, unlike Iraq which is dominated by a revenge culture, Vietnam was much more practical and outward looking. Even in the midst of the bitter war against America, it was never bitter toward Americans, so much so that Ho Chi Minh was supposed to have written a letter during the war to the American President, Lyndon Johnson, that Americans would be welcomed back as friends after the war. And Americans are now indeed rushing back to Vietnam, not to make war but as tourists and businessmen.

The uneasy thought is, Manipur seems to be much closer to Iraq than Vietnam. It is possessed by a culture of revenge and bitterness. It is also almost completely dependent on government subsidies. Private entrepreneurship has been dwarfed, and at best it is about dishonest government contract works or else has not risen above retail trade, which promise money perhaps, but no creative contribution to the economy, capable of generating jobs. Its government schools and colleges are still in the pit, though in recent years there have been some improvement, and therefore are still incapable of producing quality skills or knowledge. Parents who can afford the cost send their children to private schools now-a-days, but have little option than to send them away from the state for higher studies. These children may not feel inclined to return when they come of age, and they are not at all to blame. Shouldn`™t a rethinking process begin? Shouldn`™t the government be thinking of evolving policies to nurture back to health the general entrepreneurial spirit before it becomes too late for the state?

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/09/nurturing-enterprise/

Let all stakeholders agree to have the trouble in the state end. Let those who agitated for the introduction of the ILPS, for which they got the three contested bills, and those objecting to the three bills, agree to sit down to come to a consensus on necessary rectifications, so that the contentious issue can be once and for all put to rest. Although the amendment sought to the existing MLR&LR Act has been cited as the most objectionable by those opposed to the three bills, we see the bigger problem actually stems from the definition of “Manipur People” in the first and the only original of the three bills, which takes 1951 as the base year for deciding domicile. As had been explained by many, the 1951 census could not have had the reach and spread to cover all sections of the population, especially those living in remote tribal pockets. To this we may add, there would have been people moving gradually into the state after the date, both non-sedentary tribes on the eastern borders as well as economic migrants from the western border. This nature of migration has been happening through human history, and all must be ready to take cognizance and absorb this, for it harms no one. It is only the sudden bursts of population movements, caused by wars, natural disasters, economic collapses which are causes for alarm. As a thumb rule, population movements which are gradual, and which tend to integrate with the local milieus and become part of it, enriches the cultures of the places, while those who come with the intent of colonising are the ones who can pose a threat to the local populations. It is important to distinguish between the two.

Manipur’s culture has been enriched and nurtured through the centuries by the earlier kind of cultural cross-pollination. Look at our cuisines, both non-vegetarian and vegetarians. Of the non-vegetarian dishes, there is a rich array, perhaps as many as there are different ethnicities in the state, as most communities here are meat eaters. The richness of meat being such, it does not need too much embellishment to become an attractive meals. However, it is vegetable dishes which need this extra treatment to delight the palate. The Meiteis especially have evolved their vegetarian meals into fine art, and it is not too infrequently that one encounters people, especially from vegetarian India who have visited Manipur, vouching from the heart that Manipur’s vegetarian meals served at its temples, are the tastiest anywhere in India. This tribute comes from a nation which has more vegetarians than all vegetarians from the rest of the world put together. Obviously, in this case the cross-pollination has been from the west. Take a look at the fruits and flowers whose names suggest they were originally not indigenous, but later came to be indigenised. Awa-thabi from Burma, pung-ton from Shan, khaki- leihou from China, awa-phadigom, mayang-ton, etc., and the list is long. All these also suggest the cultural influences which came from the east brought in by migrants, travellers or else brought back by travellers and traders from here. This is why, all over the world, open cultures rather than closed, xenophobic ones are the richest. Surely we do not want to trickle off this glorious tradition of openness, and the rich dividends this has paid throughout history.

Manipur’s demographic situation is nowhere near critical yet, unlike many other Northeast states, Assam included. But it will become so if further influx is not checked. The moot point is, let the objective be to check further influx and not worry too much about what has already happened. Either take the current date as the cut-off, or else back date by about a decade or so, just the time internationally accepted as the period for naturalisation of citizenship. This will be fair and humane, therefore also acceptable before international law. The MLR&LR Act is another thing altogether, and let it be where is has been all this while, until the hill districts feel ready to be integrated into the march of modern economy. Assure this too, to those opposed to the three bills. In the meantime, we are convinced that some degree of autonomy of the two regions from each other is essential so that each can be their own selves without the other coming in the way.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/09/seeking-a-resolution/