Tag: Editorial

(Brave sons and daughters of the land, Your fatherland is on fire. The flames are rising roaring and cracking, Come and douse the fire, Come and douse the fire). This is the translation of a Manipuri patriotic song lyric which goes: Pari Imom Shamu Pangalba-sa, Napam Lamdam Khambi Meihou-re, Chaklak-le Mei-se, Lao-na Khong-na, Khambi Meikal Houro-ne, Khambi Meikal Houro-ne. Like all good poetry, this one too has a rich array of meanings leaving ample room for variegated interpretations. Our fatherland, or motherland if you prefer, Manipur today is on fire. Brave and nimble sons and daughters of the soil, let us put our heads together and think of a way to douse this fire. We have come to be a society on the precipice, let us pull ourselves away from the death trap. We can only do this by keeping a cool and thinking head, and never by blind fury. On our success or failure in this enterprise hangs the fate of all of us and our children, so the stakes are extremely high. Let us remember also, our problem is hydra-headed and each of the heads of the monster can deliver us the death blow. We have to see the monster in its totality and not get absorbed and engage all our attention to any one of the heads alone lest we fall easy prey to the other heads.

The territory entangle is not something that can be wished away, much as many of us would like to believe this is so; the ever deepening financial crunch the state is in is threatening to ruin the place and sink more and more of our population into abject poverty; the development agenda is all but forgotten; unemployment is spiraling; rule of law has disappeared for far too long and the law has instead come to be synonymous with the gun, regardless of whose hands they are in; it is only expected in such a circumstance that individual insecurity is the order of the day… each one of these is awesome and each one of these can put our lives to ruins form which there will be no easy salvation. All of them together may actually seem impossible to overcome. Impossible maybe not, but definitely it will be a treacherously long and arduous climb. What then must be our approach to this overwhelming problem before us? A single-mindedness of purpose will be essential but this single mind must be informed constantly of the ever changing reality in the backdrop. For all such single-mindedness if they occur in an insulated environ can very well land in a time warp.

A clear-visioned and committed politics must lead the way. By politics we do not necessary mean only the “mainstream” politics of the state Assembly variety that we are so accustomed to identity with greed, avarice, petulance, meanness and above all an insatiable lust for power. We do wish this important forum too is cleaned up but the politics we talk of goes much beyond. It would involve the way any individual or organization with a will to affect some changes to the society see the consequences of his or their actions. True politics in the end is about power negotiations between various sections of the society so that a just equilibrium is brought. Inalienable to this negotiation, we tend to subscribe, is the view that politics is also very much about the art of identifying and pursuing the possible. For abandoning this principle can very well reduce politics to foolhardiness and therefore a meaningless exercise that can only prolong the agony of those subject to it. This principle must apply to every level of politics, be it peace negotiations, revolutions, Nupi Lals, students’ agitations, and most immediately in our case, to the effort at bringing about a resolution to the standoff in the agitation for justice in the tragic case of the custodial killing of Thangjam Manorama. Let us not allow ourselves to be condemned to, as Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a man who has had a lived experience of a society as tumultuous as our own during his lifetime, so succinctly put it – one hundred years of solitude.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/11/art-of-the-possible/

One of Manipur’s most problematic issues awaiting a resolution is a general mindset that still perilously entraps the vision of the individual in a pre-modern time frame, when the rest of the world have moved into the postmodern era – a mindset which can perhaps be accurately generalized on the entire ethnic world, a global constituency which some scholars have provocatively categorized as the Fourth World. It is in a way the direct outcome of a tragedy of destiny that political and social formation amongst the human race should have become so unequal after the last Ice Age about 12,000 years ago. The end of the Pleistocene Epoch is generally taken by historical anthropologists to be the flag-off point for the development of modern civilizations. But the fact remains, while many societies are in advanced stages of civilization, with extremely well developed and sophisticated economies, political systems, art, literature and aesthetics etc. many others who come under the broad categorization of the Fourth World, are still on the edge of the Pleistocene epoch, with even settled agriculture still an alien occupation, subsisting on primitive economies constituting of nothing much more than hunting and gathering food. The paradox about the situation is, these communities live in two different time frames. In evolutionary time they are midway between the Ice Age and modern civilization, but in chronological time, they live side by side with postmodern societies. There are some very interesting theories on why this has happened, and many articulations of these theories have as a matter of fact become hugely successful bestsellers, anthropologist Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel, being just one of them. The term postmodern, we know is a very wide concept, with greatly varying nuances in its manifestations in art, literature, philosophy and most prominently, architecture, but the connotation implied in our usage here would be closer to its manifestation in literature and philosophy – a continuity of the reconciliation process of the modernist’s dilemma in discovering that there may be nothing intrinsic about values. That values may not be the outcome of preordination by divinity, but man-made, so that the meaning of life becomes not God given but man-made too. Despairing questions such these made them lament the loss of belief and faith that the past eras so richly possessed. The postmodernist undoubtedly inherited all the despairing thoughts, but not the lament, thus in a way coming to terms with a harsh vision of life.

The philosophy and anthropology is merely incidental to the intent of this editorial. We are here interested in the real problems faced by those who missed the bus of this model of rectilinear progression of societies. The fact is, the Fourth World awoke late, and within this world itself, not everybody woke up at the same time, leaving the them at varying stages of social and economy formation, and this in turn created its own mesh of mutually entangled problems. Those of us in Manipur should have no great difficulty in understanding this. We see some very fundamental problems of irreconcilability in even very basic issues such as territory. Why do for instance, the Naga, the Meitei and the Kuki, to take just three of the major groups in the state, see so differently on the question of territory and its possession? It is not an accurate comparison, but the difference in vision is almost what is expected between the settled agriculturist, the shift cultivator and the hunter gatherer. The fact also is, all of these three visions are far, very far away from the modern paradigms that determine territory. In their closed world, the difference between them may be perceived as great, but from the distance of the truly modern world, all of their visions are extremely circumspect, just as the mathematical axiom informs us: any two points is equidistant from infinity. We are more than ever convinced today that peace in the Fourth World can come about only if its denizens make the supreme effort to rise above their world and come to terms with the modern.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/11/fourth-worlds-strifes/

Irom Sharmila Chanu has completed 11 years of an epic protest against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA-1958. She has not managed to bend the will of the government yet, but definitely has had liberal India campaigning behind her in a big way. Fanatics of course are not impressed as was evidenced by the attack on her supporters in New Delhi recently during their campaign to drum up nationwide awareness of her uniquely democratic protest against an Act with is by contrast, equally unique by its lack of faith in democratic values. The campaign nevertheless was not deterred and November 5, the day Sharmila officially completed eleven years of her fast was observed as a day of the democracy’s resilience throughout India, human rights workers as much as anybody who swore faith in democracy.

The more important question is, what it the way forward. This, as everybody will understand is the most difficult question of all. To encourage Sharmila to fight on would almost be like asking her to die. On the other hand, to ask her to quit would also be another death. After 11 years of an epic struggle, how can she be asked to give up her high profile struggle just like that with any sense of justice? It is understandable that many think she has a right to not live through more of this self inflicted torment. However the paradox is, her fast has now become a compelling reality of its own. She understandably knows choosing between what so many think is the life she has given up and what could ultimately have become her true reality, is not going to be easy. The point is, there is no other answer now on what the next course of action for her should be other than what she decides what it should be. In this sense, those who egg her on to continue with the fast and those who think she should be persuaded to abandon her fast, belong to the same camp, though seemingly desiring different outcomes of Sharmila’s fast. This is also one way of saying the alternatives before any arbitration in the case, how much so ever difficult, does not have to be always between the black and the white. Between these to extreme poles, there are millions of shades, or colours, if you like. Right and wrong do not always have to be on extreme poles.

To believe that Sharmila is acting solely on the pressures or expectation of others, is to believe Sharmila is a puppet dancing to the tunes of her puppeteers. A woman who can endure 11 years of doing away with the sense of taste can be anything else other than this. No other insult heaped on her, and indeed womanhood as such, cannot be more patronising than this. Let it be acknowledged by one and all that she entered this battlefield of her own will – a will that is stronger than almost all, if not all, including her male counterparts who often tend to be paternalistic on the matter. If at all anybody thinks she should carry on as she has been, or else leave and get back to the so called “normal life”, they must first take the trouble of meeting and persuading her why she must take one course or the other. To do anything else is to undermine her strength of conviction in what she had set out to do eleven years ago. In other words, let anybody who is concerned enough be so bold as to advise her to take one or the other course not be so arrogant as to think in terms of pronouncing a verdict on where she has gone wrong or right. Even if this judgment is justified from the objective approach this cannot be so from the spiritual vantage. Certain senses of defeat or success are merely administrative in nature and in this sense never has managed to present the complete and thereby the correct picture. Irom Sharmila presents this paradox more than most other examples history has thrown up. She is a woman who has virtually given up life, or its finer flavours that give it meaning, in the pursuit of a cause she is convinced is public justice. Who then is any of us to merely pronounce what is good or bad on the matter? Give Sharmila the latitude to decide on matters which she has demonstrated she can give her life. Those eager to advice Sharmila should be humble enough to acknowledge Sharmila is an individual with a fierce sense of independence and not anybody any “thought tyrant” can bully or be simply pushed to do their biddings.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/11/landmarks-sharmila-set/

Irom Sharmila Chanu has completed 11 years of an epic protest against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA-1958. She has not managed to bend the will of the government yet, but definitely has had liberal India campaigning behind her in a big way. Fanatics of course are not impressed as was evidenced by the attack on her supporters in New Delhi recently during their campaign to drum up nationwide awareness of her uniquely democratic protest against an Act with is by contrast, equally unique by its lack of faith in democratic values. The campaign nevertheless was not deterred and November 5, the day Sharmila officially completed eleven years of her fast was observed as a day of the democracy’s resilience throughout India, human rights workers as much as anybody who swore faith in democracy.

The more important question is, what it the way forward. This, as everybody will understand is the most difficult question of all. To encourage Sharmila to fight on would almost be like asking her to die. On the other hand, to ask her to quit would also be another death. After 11 years of an epic struggle, how can she be asked to give up her high profile struggle just like that with any sense of justice? It is understandable that many think she has a right to not live through more of this self inflicted torment. However the paradox is, her fast has now become a compelling reality of its own. She understandably knows choosing between what so many think is the life she has given up and what could ultimately have become her true reality, is not going to be easy. The point is, there is no other answer now on what the next course of action for her should be other than what she decides what it should be. In this sense, those who egg her on to continue with the fast and those who think she should be persuaded to abandon her fast, belong to the same camp, though seemingly desiring different outcomes of Sharmila’s fast. This is also one way of saying the alternatives before any arbitration in the case, how much so ever difficult, does not have to be always between the black and the white. Between these to extreme poles, there are millions of shades, or colours, if you like. Right and wrong do not always have to be on extreme poles.

To believe that Sharmila is acting solely on the pressures or expectation of others, is to believe Sharmila is a puppet dancing to the tunes of her puppeteers. A woman who can endure 11 years of doing away with the sense of taste can be anything else other than this. No other insult heaped on her, and indeed womanhood as such, cannot be more patronising than this. Let it be acknowledged by one and all that she entered this battlefield of her own will – a will that is stronger than almost all, if not all, including her male counterparts who often tend to be paternalistic on the matter. If at all anybody thinks she should carry on as she has been, or else leave and get back to the so called “normal life”, they must first take the trouble of meeting and persuading her why she must take one course or the other. To do anything else is to undermine her strength of conviction in what she had set out to do eleven years ago. In other words, let anybody who is concerned enough be so bold as to advise her to take one or the other course not be so arrogant as to think in terms of pronouncing a verdict on where she has gone wrong or right. Even if this judgment is justified from the objective approach this cannot be so from the spiritual vantage. Certain senses of defeat or success are merely administrative in nature and in this sense never has managed to present the complete and thereby the correct picture. Irom Sharmila presents this paradox more than most other examples history has thrown up. She is a woman who has virtually given up life, or its finer flavours that give it meaning, in the pursuit of a cause she is convinced is public justice. Who then is any of us to merely pronounce what is good or bad on the matter? Give Sharmila the latitude to decide on matters which she has demonstrated she can give her life. Those eager to advice Sharmila should be humble enough to acknowledge Sharmila is an individual with a fierce sense of independence and not anybody any “thought tyrant” can bully or be simply pushed to do their biddings.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/11/landmarks-sharmila-set/

Leader Writer: Wangkheimayum Bhupendra Singh
The state as it is has become a long story of agitations and demands cropping up on a daily basis and the never ending construction works of various developmental projects. Demands for separate districts, alternative arrangements, territorial integrity, compensation for the dead, and so on have ruled the state for quite sometime. It is high time that both the people and the government realized the depth of the crisis which is fast engulfing the state, before only the proverbial ashes remain of the state. The people of the state as it is seem to be only trying to find fault with every action of the government, whereas the government is happy to ignore them all and let it linger a little bit longer before the issues subside by themself. In the process, both the people and the government are left high and dry. The people who had elected the government are frustrated at the government’s apathy, while the government is anxious as to what new demands the people could bring up next. The problem lies not only with the government but also with the general public. While it is important for every community to think for the welfare of the community and have all the fine intentions towards the future of the community, what should be all-important is not to offend the interest of the others while making their demands. The means to realize my own good and wants should not at any level affect the overall good of the society. The time is such that all the three major communities of the state feel threatened in the company of one another, which certainly is not only bad for the communities concern but for the overall good of the state as well. The insecurity between the major communities should be checked before it gets out of hand and leads to such catastrophe from where it would be hard for the state to bounce back. The people before making their individual or separate demands should first consider its impact on a larger scale. However reasonable the demands may be it will lose its credibility if it will hurt the interest of the general public or other communities. Though we are all the more happier that no communally hyped incident has come up so far, nonetheless, we should understand that we are already on thin ice and it is upto the people of the state to divert any situation which may destroy the very existence of the state.

When the world over people are racing towards development, the state seems to be going backwards into history with all major players in the state happy with thinking only about their own good and forgetting the collective good of the state in the process. It’s time for all players to start thinking about the collective prosperity rather than confine oneself to just oneself. When the world over, people are fighting for peace and unity, the players in the state are disturbing peace for division of the state. People of the state are happy with building walls around themselves, happy in their own small world. We are fighting for what we want before realizing what we need. There should be a certain divide as well as a connection between want and need. For obviously it should be impossible to realize one’s want before realizing one’s need and vice-versa. Like-wise there is a certain divide between one’s own good and the collective good of the society. While it is all-important for someone to have fine intention for himself and his community, the fact remains that his good intentions should not harm his neighbours. However, the people should also realize that tolerance and acceptance are needed for a peaceful co-existence. People should not oppose a demand just for the sake of opposing. Tolerance of what is just and reasonable and the ability to accept the demands will certainly help in unifying the society. 

The end point is it will not serve any purpose for all concern if we remain adamant with the demands for our own good at the expense of the others and if the others oppose the demands just for the sake of opposing it.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/11/of-oneself-and-the-collective-good/

A very frequently debated question in Manipur is what constitutes freedom of the press. The classical definition of this freedom is that while news is sacred, opinions are free. That is to say, freedom of the press does not give the liberty for media organizations to tamper with news, but it gives these organizations every right for its editors and leader writers to interpret news events the way it pleases them, just as it is in everybody’s right to agree or not agree with these opinions. In fact the very idea of a meaningful problem solving discourse presumes everybody has the freedom to keep and express opinions without fear or apprehension. The object of a serious discourse hence is to discover a “site” where ideas can interact, interchange, replicate and expand themselves, to borrow a very intellectual understanding of the proposition from the French Philosopher, Michel Foucault, as elucidated in an essay “What is an author?” Against this backdrop, we are of the opinion that even the phrase “freedom of press”, is limited in its scope for the right to keep and express opinions cannot be exclusive to the press alone, but anybody who believes and values a discourse. This dictum that facts are sacred but opinions free must apply to everybody. Any objection to this betrays a fascistic mindset which informs itself that nothing else is worthwhile except its own opinion. This is the surest obituary for the civilized problem solving mechanism (in our case conflict resolving mechanism) known as “discourse”.

We are at a loss to remember how many times this obituary has been written in our society in the past. The bans, the boycotts, and worse still, threats to life and limbs to those who raise dissenting voice have obliterated all scopes for any healthy discourse. Our society has become so rectilinear in its approach and vision of its past, present and future, so very contrary to life’s multifarious nature. It is not just the press alone but practically everybody is expected to fall into line with these approaches and visions. But it is not too late yet. We can still allow the age old wisdom of the free media – that “news is sacred and opinions free” – grow and flower again in our society. Only when this happens, our ideas and visions can have the chance to rejuvenate. As of now, let us be honest, they are aging. We continue to live our lives on yesterday’s slogans, extracted from dog-eared manifestos of a bygone era. Only freethinking debates and discourses can tune our society out of our anachronistic present.

How free is the Manipur press then? We suppose we can only justifiably answer for ourselves. How free has the IFP been in discharging its important duty of providing informed views on events that happen in the state? Our honest answer is, while we have tried our best to work as per the dictum that news is sacred and opinions free, which we whole heartedly believe in, we must have to confess that we too have been guilty often of shooting the piano player after ignoring the bandmaster and the composer. We too cannot wash our hands of the guilt of blasting the government only, for the carnages committed by other agencies. In the cases of some of the most atrocious public crimes in the present times, such as that of the library arson in the wake of the Mayek agitation or the ban on Little Flower School by a students’ organization at about the same time for the school refusing to allow its students to enlist in students to public “students’ unions” (which are actually political proxies of various radical organisations) or other such coercive campaigns some of which ironically direct attacked media freedom, and over which the entire state media even have had to stop publication for days together, it is surprising the only agency the media was ready to blame was the government. The government perhaps deserves all the choice sound bites, but when the criticisms are silent on other agencies responsible for these affronts, something terribly rings hollow. As for instance, the government failed to anticipate the library arson but it did not burn the building. The government failed to prevent the routine bomb blasts in the state but it did not throw the bombs. We fear that this hollowness, if allowed to linger on, will be the demon that destroys the credibility of the media in the state before the eyes of the world. Such an outcome would be such a great loss for everybody. The media’s biased discretions in these matters of course speak of the liberal nature of our so called democratic polity. Our plea then is also for this liberal spirit of democracy to be imbibed by all so that true and honest discourses can begin happening again in our society.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/11/a-view-on-views/

This editorial is prompted by reprimands from readers and well wishers who pointed out the insensitivity shown by the IFP in publishing the vividly clear picture of a raped and murdered girl some days ago on its front page. We do apologise for the serious slip, and hope not to repeat the mistake again. Our excuse is the usual. In the late evening rush hours of newspaper production, sometimes it is difficult to keep out the printer’s devil from playing havoc. Everybody who has had a formal academic course in journalism would have been told of this in their classes and also shown glaring bloomers even in very reputed newspapers in the past. But as we said this is only an excuse of a mistake we have made but not by any means an indicator we will continue to be lax in guarding against such insensitivities slipping past our news and image vetting procedures. This brings to the fore one other concern. As in academics, journalists too need to be put through occasional refresher courses in new developments in the professions as well as standards of general ethics which undoubtedly have a profound bearing on the discharge of their duty. After all, although in a different way, much of the terms of conduct of this profession too are cerebral in nature.

The Department of Information and Public Relations, DIPR, government of Manipur has a fortnight long certificate journalism training course each year with the objective of grooming young men and women on the threshold of choosing a career to develop an interest in the profession by getting them to have a glimpse of its inner dynamics. Senior journalists in the state are the resource persons for these annual events and the trainees are taught the classical definitions as well as practical problems of the profession. While this is a good effort, the point to be noted is, not many of those who undergo these courses ever join the profession. At the local level, the working conditions of the profession cannot match government jobs, so the brighter ones normally opt for the latter. Indeed many of them enlist in the DIPR courses for the certificate in the hope this would enhance their chances of getting into “any government job”, even a grade three or four one. The quality of education in the state being such, not many of them would also be able to match their competitors from many other states for journalistic jobs in the open market in better paying environs of other Indian metropolises.

This being the scenario, we would like to suggest that it would be much more profitable for the DIPR course to be converted to a refresher course for working journalists. The lectures then would not necessarily have be about news gathering or newspaper production, but can have a much larger parameter. As for instance, the course could orient itself towards issues like gender sensitivity, child rights, human rights, law, or for that matter grassroots welfare programmes of the State as well as Central governments, all of which the profession has to deal with, and all of which undoubtedly would have a strong bearing on the quality as well as efficacy of journalism in the state. The government could also tie up with the Manipur University, which already has a journalism department, and conduct such refresher courses periodically. Such an arrangement would be ideal, for the resource persons, not just in journalism but also in the other subjects of relevance to the profession would be readily available. Besides the government, we wonder if it would not be possible for some of the well-funded NGOs to hold lesser versions of the courses by way of workshops and media seminars. While there is a profusion of NGOs in the state working in the areas of HIV/AIDS, environment, gender issues, conflict resolution, we wonder what is keeping a sound media NGO from materialising here. Nobody will doubt how important the media in a situation such as Manipur’s, and in fact, the media’s relevance is also profound in the success of the campaigns by NGOs working in the above named fields. So these media refresher courses could become part of their overall programmes. How for instance could an average reporter know the nuanced issues involved in HIV/AIDS, environment or gender reporting? What is not understood is, few if any journalists in any newspaper in the state, and indeed in most media organisations anywhere, get to specialise in any particular field and thus they all tend to be generalists. The pitfall of this predicament is what the IFP is also having to apologise in this editorial.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/09/to-refresh-journalism/

September 9 is already going down in history as one of the darkest day of human civilisation. This the day many paradigms of basic humanity changed so dramatically and drastically. Not the least important of these is the paradigm of human conflict. Regardless of what has been said of America or the Capitalist ideology which drives the country, basic humanity was compromised in a big way on this day when fundamentalist Islamists hijacked four planes in the USA and attacked and destroyed some of America’s most important symbols killing close to 3000 innocent civilians in the process. Of the four plane hijacked, two destroyed the famous World Trade Centre buildings in New York city, one rammed into the Pentagon building near Washington DC and the third crashed somewhere in Maryland, but according to experts, was probably headed for the White House. Apparently some passengers in the last plane got into action fighting the hijackers, in the process crashed the plane. Although they did not manage to save themselves, they prevented further damage to the American morale, thereby died heroes’ deaths in their own ways. The event on the day shook not just America, but also the rest of the world and indeed it was to have grave consequence on everybody else in the world, in particular two countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, which bore the brunt of the ire of the richest and the most powerful country in the world. National regimes in these two countries were dismantled in the most brutal and violent ways by invading Americans. What was a black day for America was soon to become the black era for many other nations. Pakistan and Indonesia to name just a few were also to soon feel the heat in big ways.

While there can be no dispute about the attackers of America on September 11, 2001 were making Afghanistan their stronghold, America’s retaliation against Iraq and the ultimate hanging of the President of the country, Saddam Hussein, remains a big controversy. The excuse for that attack was that Saddam’s regime was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction meant ultimately to be used to create terror in the world and that the country was in league with the Al Qaeda the organisation behind the attack on America. Nearly a decade after the invasion of Iraq, there are still no traces of any weapons of mass destruction found in the country. In the end, Iraq is turning out to be a country, the centre of the ancient Mesopotamian civilisation, a mistaken victim of the America’s and those of its Western allies’ unfounded suspicion. Can history ever excuse this mistake or highhandedness as the case may be?

But the event which has today come to be simply known as 9/11 has had other profound influences on the way the world conducts its business. It cannot be all by coincidence that while America remains extremely sensitive and as well as unable to come out of extremely expensive wars that it waged in the wake of 9/11, other thus far sleeping economic and military giants have not just begun stirring but also to wake up to prepare to change the power and economic equations in the world forever. China is leading the way, so are India, Brazil and Russia among others, making big headways. Once moribund economies of South East Asia too have begun making their presence felt, and Vietnam in particular is growing at a rate that would in another decade put it above many much larger nations of the world in terms of economic strength. At the end of the Cold War in the last decade of the 20th Century, marked most dramatically by the fall of the Berlin Wall and then the crumbling of the Communist bastions in Eastern Europe, most political analysts around the world had come to be convinced and some to lament, that the world was headed to become a uni-polar one with the USA as the only power centre. In just a matter of a decade into the 21st Century, this popular prediction is proving to be nothing but too far from what the picture ultimately would be. It is not even a bi-polar world as during the Cold War, but a multi-polar one we are looking at now. Indeed 9/11 is proving to have much more significance than apparent. To indulge in a bit of counterfactual speculation then, the interesting question now is, if the cataclysmic event had not occurred, would the world today have been the same? Would what Newsweek Magazine often described as “the rise of the others” been as pronounced as it is today. Again, the concept of war and conflict has been rewritten. Except for the USA which is in the thick of it, wars of nations are increasingly becoming a thing of the past. The new wars are against terrorism most visibly, but perhaps more importantly, though not acknowledged so readily by many of the richest nations, issues like global warming and shortfall of food to feed the ever increasing human population etc.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/09/black-september/

We have personally seen and experienced this before. Anything that appears in a newspaper which is not to the taste of an interest group and the next day the group would ban the particular media. The Imphal Free Press has gone through this on at least three occasions, and one of the bans in the Naga districts lasted nearly a year. Why is it that so many are so unable to tolerate and accommodate dissenting views? It is depressing that there is such a lack of respect for democratic values amongst the people here by and large, although everybody swears by it. We refer now to the current ban on The Telegraph that the Apunba Lup has imposed in protest against the newspaper’s report on a love affair of Irom Sharmila with a foreign resident of Goan origin and the supposed statement made by her that she had fallen out with her supporters on the issue. On its own the importance accorded to the story seemed a little too disproportionate for it was given front page lead space together with a picture and several blurbs punctuating the story. One would have expected such a treatment of the private affair of a woman from a tabloid (so aptly also referred to as gutter press) and definitely not from a respectable broadsheet with very wide circulation in East India, including the Northeast. In any case the story of Sharmila’s love affair had already been carried in the same newspaper in July, although on that occasion it was sensibly on an inside page hence not many noticed it or gave it much importance. In the current case the newspaper has done a follow-up the very next day in which it highlighted Sharmila’s statement on the state of Indian politics which is marginalising the Northeast apart from condemning the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, demanding its repeal. This story ought to have appeared ahead of the one that sensationalised a personal affair.

But the ban on the newspaper was unreasonable for one more thing. Although as we said the display which sensationalised the story could have been better, the fact is the reporter who did the story was not writing from his imagination, but faithfully reproducing what Irom Sharmila had told him. All these statements by her were recorded too. Another news channel, NDTV has also since broadcasted a recording of Sharmila saying precisely these things on camera in her hospital cell to a reporter on the same day as The Telegraph reporter, so there can be no dispute whatsoever the story was not concocted. Even if suspicion of this persists, Sharmila is in Imphal, and somebody should go to her and confirm the veracity of the claim by the newspaper. If she denies she made these statements, then perhaps the outrage leading to the ban would become justified. But if she confirms she did make those statements, let it just be said the newspaper in very bad taste sensationalised the report by the display and prominence the story was given, and leave it at that. Let its subscribers in Manipur decide if they should continue their subscriptions.

Let moderating voices prevail. Let Sharmila be where she wants to be and do what she wants to do. If she chooses to step down from the exalted pedestal she has come to be elevated on and live an anonymous and ordinary life, let it be her choice. Nobody should expect her to be a martyr, and in fact everybody should be dissuading her to not seek to be a martyr. The movement against the AFSPA is a just and honourable cause and therefore does not need any martyr to sustain the energy which has been driving it in all the years. To repeat what we have already said in the wake of the present tension over the revelation of the news, at its most fundamental, the issue is AFSPA and not Sharmila. It will help if she remains part of the campaign for she is so well known now and can attract international audience much easier than anyone else behind the campaign can, but if she wants to call it a day and get back to normal life, let her have her wish. The ban on The Telegraph too should be lifted unilaterally without further ado. At the most The Telegraph will lose a few thousand copies from its circulation figure, which though important is not vital for the newspaper with several lakhs print order daily. However the image of intolerance the drastic step would send out to the world will be much more damaging for the state and its people in the long run. Conversely, a show of magnanimity on the part of the Apunba Lup now will give itself, and through it, to the image of the rest of the state, a liberal democratic credential which can win over many friends in the days ahead.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/09/intolerance-unlimited/

The fact that a personal decision of Irom Sharmila is now seen as a threat to the campaign against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA, in Manipur is a demonstration of the strategic and structural flimsiness of any protracted struggle to resort to hero worship. It has to be said that Sharmila’s direct followers are guilty of having done this to a great extent. Even if it is not hero worship, they had built their campaign with her as the major, if not the only prop. The approach should instead have been to see Sharmila as a star campaigner, but not the heart and soul of the campaign, but unfortunately, for whatever their reason, this route was not given much importance. And so a single report of Sharmila’s love affair with a hitherto unheard of man, and her reported statement that she is disillusioned with her followers, which appeared in The Telegraph September 5 issue, displayed prominently as the Page-1 lead story, caused so much trepidation and even the fear that the campaign against the AFSPA would lose much of its steam. We hope this does not happen and the movement is able to find new legs that could do with but did not absolutely need Sharmila as a prop if she at all becomes unavailable. Indeed, the myriad human rights organisations actively involved in the campaign must now take time off to rethink, retrospect and reorient their future strategies. Meanwhile leave Sharmila to be where she wants to be.

But increasingly confounding is also the reason why The Telegraph chose to give so much prominence to Sharmila’s declaration of her very personal affair. This is even more intriguing for in all of the 11 long years she has been staging her protest fast, even on the day she completed the 10 year landmark, she was not seen as deserving headline space by this newspaper. Many other newspapers and television channels even ignored the event. So why this sudden interest in her personal affairs, even though it is clear she was the one who revealed it to the journalist who did the report. The timing, whether by design or coincidence is also curious for only a few days earlier the Union home minister, P Chidambaram had announced in New Delhi that the government was considering a review of the AFSPA. Moreover a reflected halo form the Anna Hazare blitzkrieg in New Delhi was beginning to hover over Sharmila, signifying perhaps liberal India’s conscience was being awoken, and the issue of AFSPA was beginning to attract national attention. It was in the midst of this that the story of Sharmila’s love affair butted in rudely. The story was heart warming no doubt despite the hiccups caused by a passage suggesting Sharmila was having very serious differences with her supporters, still the question of its timing as well as the prominence given to it, would undoubtedly make many suspicious that it may have motives other than plain journalistic calibration of news value. Thankfully however, it does now seem the sensational revelation is unlikely to sidetrack the anti-AFSPA campaign.

The development also should bring back the old debate of whether leaders make situations or the situations make leaders. The Sharmila case should again highlight the need to find the right balance between two. Leaders with vision give any movement the right focus and charisma, but it is also equally true that it is the peculiarities of a given situation which throws up a leader. For instance it is unlikely Gandhi could have happened in the 18th Century or Abraham Lincoln in the 20th Century. However, it would be wrong to also dismiss the contribution of human agency in shaping event and indeed history. If everything were to be predetermined by circumstance and leaders too were forged only by the impersonal forces of history, as Isaiah Berlin noted in “Crooked Timber of Humanity” a difficult ethical situation would arise whereby it would become impossible to hold anybody accountable for history’s many atrocities. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and all the other mass murderers of history would then appear to be no more than quasi-tragic figures, compelled by historical circumstances to do what they did. In this context, Pol Pot who killed two million of his countrymen in the span of a decade of his rule, believed what he did was for the good of his country even on his deathbed as became evident in what was to be his last interview by Far Eastern Economic Review. It would thus be prudent for the human rights movement in the state to assess the situation arising out of Sharmila’s changed emotional constitution from this light.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/09/leaders-and-followers/

The fact that a personal decision of Irom Sharmila is now seen as a threat to the campaign against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA, in Manipur is a demonstration of the strategic and structural flimsiness of any protracted struggle to resort to hero worship. It has to be said that Sharmila’s direct followers are guilty of having done this to a great extent. Even if it is not hero worship, they had built their campaign with her as the major, if not the only prop. The approach should instead have been to see Sharmila as a star campaigner, but not the heart and soul of the campaign, but unfortunately, for whatever their reason, this route was not given much importance. And so a single report of Sharmila’s love affair with a hitherto unheard of man, and her reported statement that she is disillusioned with her followers, which appeared in The Telegraph September 5 issue, displayed prominently as the Page-1 lead story, caused so much trepidation and even the fear that the campaign against the AFSPA would lose much of its steam. We hope this does not happen and the movement is able to find new legs that could do with but did not absolutely need Sharmila as a prop if she at all becomes unavailable. Indeed, the myriad human rights organisations actively involved in the campaign must now take time off to rethink, retrospect and reorient their future strategies. Meanwhile leave Sharmila to be where she wants to be.

But increasingly confounding is also the reason why The Telegraph chose to give so much prominence to Sharmila’s declaration of her very personal affair. This is even more intriguing for in all of the 11 long years she has been staging her protest fast, even on the day she completed the 10 year landmark, she was not seen as deserving headline space by this newspaper. Many other newspapers and television channels even ignored the event. So why this sudden interest in her personal affairs, even though it is clear she was the one who revealed it to the journalist who did the report. The timing, whether by design or coincidence is also curious for only a few days earlier the Union home minister, P Chidambaram had announced in New Delhi that the government was considering a review of the AFSPA. Moreover a reflected halo form the Anna Hazare blitzkrieg in New Delhi was beginning to hover over Sharmila, signifying perhaps liberal India’s conscience was being awoken, and the issue of AFSPA was beginning to attract national attention. It was in the midst of this that the story of Sharmila’s love affair butted in rudely. The story was heart warming no doubt despite the hiccups caused by a passage suggesting Sharmila was having very serious differences with her supporters, still the question of its timing as well as the prominence given to it, would undoubtedly make many suspicious that it may have motives other than plain journalistic calibration of news value. Thankfully however, it does now seem the sensational revelation is unlikely to sidetrack the anti-AFSPA campaign.

The development also should bring back the old debate of whether leaders make situations or the situations make leaders. The Sharmila case should again highlight the need to find the right balance between two. Leaders with vision give any movement the right focus and charisma, but it is also equally true that it is the peculiarities of a given situation which throws up a leader. For instance it is unlikely Gandhi could have happened in the 18th Century or Abraham Lincoln in the 20th Century. However, it would be wrong to also dismiss the contribution of human agency in shaping event and indeed history. If everything were to be predetermined by circumstance and leaders too were forged only by the impersonal forces of history, as Isaiah Berlin noted in “Crooked Timber of Humanity” a difficult ethical situation would arise whereby it would become impossible to hold anybody accountable for history’s many atrocities. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and all the other mass murderers of history would then appear to be no more than quasi-tragic figures, compelled by historical circumstances to do what they did. In this context, Pol Pot who killed two million of his countrymen in the span of a decade of his rule, believed what he did was for the good of his country even on his deathbed as became evident in what was to be his last interview by Far Eastern Economic Review. It would thus be prudent for the human rights movement in the state to assess the situation arising out of Sharmila’s changed emotional constitution from this light.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/09/leaders-and-followers/

Irom Sharmila is in love with somebody who has been communicating and sharing soul anguish with her in her confinement through letters. A report in a national daily today said so. Nothing very strange about this, after all she is only 39 years of age, and living alone in a prison cell after having vowed to sacrifice eating to demand the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA, for the last almost 11 years. Her fast will complete 11 years on November 2 which is the day her family says her fast began, or November 4 when the newspapers first took notice of her fast and put it on record in the next day’s edition. The terrible privation she has inflicted upon herself and how she has been coping with it is next only to superhuman and it is a wonder that her spirit had not broken down long ago. Ordinary men and women would have probably lost their sanity by now. She is still very much alive today, carrying on the fight she took upon herself to shoulder. It must come with a great deal of bewilderment for many to discover that a superhuman has the heart of a human within. This should not be a matter of discouragement but of elation. After all, what we want to see demonstrated is an ordinary human pushing the boundaries of achievement and not a god doing what are humanly impossible.

We would in this sense give three cheers to Sharmila for the revelation and not downgrade her stature in any way, although we do feel as a public figure she should have been a little wary and discreet about going public with her very private life. It is also unfortunate that she had not indicated this to the local media, making it seem as if the local media has been party to keeping her feelings under wraps, or has there been such an effort by interested parties. This should become known sooner than later. But no great damage done, the truth is out, so be it, and hopefully for the better towards the actualisation of the noble cause she is fighting for. Her direct supporters, and all the rest of us, must come to terms with the new and more human image of the lonely tough-willed fighter, and carry the movement forward with renewed vigour. After all the movement is what is important, and with or without an iconic figure like Sharmila as standard bearer, it should carry on without any sense of loss or that the wind in the sail has diminished. She has done enough to highlight the issue, more than anyone behind the cause can imagine every doing. We should not be on the lookout for a martyr in her. Instead we should be encouraging her to end her self-inflicted privation and carry on the struggle without having to go through all the torture of unending hunger. The issue is the draconian AFSPA and not Irom Sharmila, however great she is.

We cannot however help wondering if Sharmila is not under psychological stress more than ever in the past few months. It is learnt that meeting her even by her own family members is no longer as easy as it used to be, permission now having to be acquired from the chief secretary of the state himself. All of us who have visited the iron lady in the past know her confinement was not so strictly guarded. For whatever the reason, her privation was being deepened and surely her loneliness too in equal measures, after all she is a human too. Imagine 11 years in a prison cell all alone, not even in contact with other prisoners as she is in a special jail ward in the Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital Porompat so as to enable medical care and nose feeding. Not only this, going without food is not just about tolerating hunger. In fact, in her case, hunger may not be much of an issue for she is fed through the nose and kept alive. But her self-denial is more about foregoing taste and smell of food, some of the most gratifying of all human senses. Any lesser person would have lost sanity under the circumstance. Is this additional stress having a toll on her? We hope not. In any case, the campaign against the oppressive AFSPA has been allowed to hinge on Sharmila alone for too long. This was not good for her as she is finding out now, or for the movement, for it deprived individuality of individual campaigners, most of them having simply to rally behind Sharmila, abdicating in the process the need to take individual stances in the manner Eric Fromm described the emergence of dictatorships in “Escape from Freedom”. The episode is sad in another way though. The paradoxical thing is, to be a public leader entails a great deal of sacrifice of private life. Sharmila as a selfless crusader against the embodiment of an oppressive law automatically came to be lifted on an exalted public pedestal. Sharmila as a shy private woman can lead a happy individual life but will disappear from the public domain. This is the difference between an inspirational leader and a common citizen. The freedom to aspire for either should remain with the individual. Let Sharmila decide her own future without any guilt. She has contributed enough already. Manipur and its resistance against the AFSPA must however continue undeterred even if she decides to retire to a peaceful normal life.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/09/sharmila-in-love/

If tomorrow the agitators demanding the SADAR hills be upgraded to a full-fledged district want to end their strike after a discussion with the chief minister of the state, Okram Ibobi, it will not happen as the latter is, as reported in the press, on a foreign tour. The agitators will have to wait till the leader is back in station. The message this untimely travel is sending out to the public has been commented upon by so many columnists already and little is left to be said of the parallel this travel has with the Roman Emperor Nero, one of the most written about tyrants of history, playing fiddle while a devastating fire engulfed his city state of Rome. In equal measure one is tempted to quote another famous episode from history, that of Queen Marie Antoinette of France in the heady days before the French Revolution, in which queen is famously believed to have remarked, “Let them eat cake”, when she was told the French people do not have bread to eat.

But then, the disturbing question remains what if he chooses not to explain? There is nobody who can do anything about it, not the least his ministerial colleagues or his party bosses. In his nearly 10 years unbroken rule, the chief minister has ensure there is nobody who can challenge or influence him in any way. The notion of collective leadership is a long dead memory and the impression before everyone in the state is that only he makes the key government decisions and his colleagues are merely eager rubber stamps to approve whatever he suggests or intends to implement as government policy. But the blame is not to be on the ministerial team alone. Equally, the finger must be pointed at the people by and large, after all the leaders are where they are because the people chose them. In not exercising their right to franchise in the way that it is meant to, they have all surrendered a vital handle to democracy’s power. Because of this lack of discretion, today what our leaders do or fail to do, have ceased to be a factor in elections. Elections are instead decided by the depth of the pockets of the candidates. Since votes can be bought and sold for a price, no elected leader, not the least the chief minister, feel the need to acknowledge they are accountable to the people. So in all likelihood if the chief minister, after his return from his foreign jaunt, decides not to go through the ritual of an explanation, it is unlikely to make a dent on his prospects politically. This ought to be a matter of shame for the people, but this money worshiping state has lost this damning and yet refining quality called shame long ago. On the altar of easy money, they have surrendered every civilisational value handed down from generations and are ever ready to compromise anything for quick lucre.

To be fair, the chief minster did declare that his government would take any decision on the question of creation of any new district until the high-powered committee he had appointed headed by the chief secretary, D.S. Poonia, completed its study of their feasibility of the proposed new districts from the point of view of administrative convenience alone. The deadline for the term given to the committee being still a long way off, he probably is thinking that it would make no difference whether he is physically in the state or elsewhere. In a way, this is a way of strengthening the hands and importance of the ongoing probe by the committee. There is also perhaps a second message intended. He is telling the agitators that they cannot have their way even if they continue with their protest till kingdom comes: that the only determinant of the outcome in the end would be the government’s will forged by an objective study of the situation. But the point also is, the chief minister’s responsibility is not just to negotiate with the agitators, who it is now clear, are obdurate and would not climb down from their position, but also to ensure the highways which serve as the state’s lifeline are opened, if necessary even by the use of legitimate force the state is empowered with, so that goods traffic can resume. So if poor wage earners and their children have to miss a meal a day because of the blockade induced price rise, they too would have to wait till the chief minister returns. Since the chief minister also holds all the major portfolios of the state cabinet, including home and finance, his absence would be missed much more than normally would have been the case.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/09/abdicated-duty/

Now is perhaps the time for the government to begin thinking in terms of a special administrative arrangement not just in keeping with the demand of the United Naga Council, UNC, for the Naga areas, but for the entire state. We had made a similar suggestion before but the matter is becoming even more urgent. Manipur as it is has been described in various quarters as a failed state, and indeed this is beginning to look to be what it really is. It does seem nothing can function and no substantive progress can result. The chief reason for this is that Manipur is today a hopelessly divided house. Every horse in it is pulling the wagon in different directions with the result that nothing ever moves or is allowed to move, even those who are willing and are capable of doing so. Each of the major communities in the state are acutely suspicious of each other and are quick to attribute sinister motives behind every one of their moves without even a thought on the possibility that these moves may actually be perfectly innocent ones. This is a state which cannot even think of creating a new district for administrative convenience without kicking up ugly and quixotic uproars that even threaten to explode into ethnic violence. The current unseemly tussle over the proposed creation of SADAR hills district is just the most immediate and prominent example of this hopeless situation.

It is long overdue that each of the communities be liberated from each other. There is at this moment no single oppressor and no single victim. Each has come to be an oppressor and tormentor of the other and equally each has come to be the victim of the other. This being so, let the special arrangement asked for be expanded to mean special arrangements for all the communities so that each can be themselves for once. At this moment, everybody’s creative energy is being sapped so senselessly, and each has to be always cautious of offending the other even by being honest to their own instincts to be themselves. The way things are heading, anything that one community does is beginning to be interpreted as an attack on the interest of the other. Partly, this has to do with the government’s indifference in clarifying serious allegations resulting out of what are quite possibly misconceptions. The government employment scenario for instance is a sore point, with those in the reserved category always believing they have been short-changed. We had been recommending the government to clarify conclusively and officially what the exact situation is on the matter. Let there be a white paper on it with the objective of not just laying bare the facts of the matter, but also to see how any discrepancy, if any, has happened: whether those in the general category have been responsible for these as always alleged, or if it is the result of corruption, not necessarily of officials in the general category alone.

In the area of private enterprises, this blame game should not be there at all. This is an open field and only individual enterprise, perseverance and a willingness to work and sweat it out with dedication in whatever profession one is in, is the key to success. Thus, a tailor, a carpenter, a motor mechanic, a cycle repairman, a journalist and so on, must, as suggested in the Bhagavat Gita, make their given professions their worship. The near total collapse of work culture of the government is on account of a lack of this attitude, and equally the rise of individuals and communities in any of these fields of work is also precisely because of this dedication and belief in their work and nothing else. Of course, there are other factors like availability of seed capital to launch commercial enterprises. In this regard, it is also a fact that those with landed property for obvious reasons will always have more of it. A farmer in any of the revenue districts of the valley, if his son wants to start a new business venture, can always sell off a part of his land holding and raise the necessary money, or else mortgage it to get a loan from the bank. No bank extends loan, especially entrepreneurial loan for this involves recover risks, without collaterals. In many ways, the ease with which an economy moves forward in the modern context, depends on the shape and quality of superstructures within which the economy operates. These superstructures, of which the pattern of land ownership is a very important one, are radically different from one community to another. The upward mobility of the non-government, therefore unsponsored economy of the private market therefore is destined to be unequal too. Unfortunately, a very vicious circle has today come about form this and this inequality in turn is breeding the contempt of the kind we are witnessing today. No community trusts the other. The state cannot carry on like this. Let the government then work out a consensus on bringing about some parity of superstructures, or else give a serious thought to the idea of “separate arrangements” for everybody.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/08/parity-and-equality/

Leader Writer: Paojel Chaoba
It is fact that State now suffers, the economic blockade imposed by the Sadar Hills Districthood Demand Committee (SHDDC) which is nearing a month have taken its toll on the populace. The UNC openly opposes the district status demand and counters it by imposing an indefinite bandh along all national highways and Naga inhabited areas. The MLAs representing both communities in their contrasting stances have fired verbal bullets along the issue at the State Legislative Assembly sittings presently going on.

The state government also seems caught in a dilemma between the demand and the counter demand. Yet, the formation of a District Reorganization Committee by the cabinet seems to be the only ace up the government’s sleeve in addressing the impasse and the murky state of affairs.

Demarcation of district boundaries and the call for time (three months) to execute the workings is offered from the government, in reciprocation to the districthood demand. Maybe, after the process has been implemented, the UNC and the SHDDC may also arrive to an understanding, hopefully. The SPF governance needs to act fair and square as the issue of land is the major point of contention and has been the cause of many a communal uprising.

Each and every demand made in a democratic set up, however justified needs to be negotiated and tabled according to the circumstances prevalent. The Sadar Hills demand has encompassed more than four decades, what will be the harm for waiting another three months, in the interest of the public, one ponders ? It would be a more mature stance and yet still provide a breathing space to the suffering public. Besides, the National Highway 39 can anytime be again subjected to economic blockades or indefinite bandhs as usual if the government’s promise fails to deliver. It is understood that, the will of the Sadar Hills brethren need not be questioned, as one has observed the condition of the inhabitants of the area bearing the brunt of the blockade more than their valley counterparts. The ‘mass exoduses ‘ by the villagers due to complete breakdown of transport braving the harsh elements, lack of medical facilities, affect on educational institutions and want of essential items have taken its toll more in the striking Sadar Hills area.

Nevertheless, the SHDDC must weigh the pros and cons and address the issue in a humane manner, as since the attention of the government has been drawn. It is questionable to hold one own people at ransom when a solution of sorts has presented itself. The right to life of the public of the state should not be compromised.

Interestingly enough, when the human rights of the entire citizenry is at peril, the so called ‘defenders’, represented by various individuals and ‘organizations’ adopt a ‘wait and watch policy’. A minimal effort of sending out a press communiqué appealing to all concerned to resolve the impasse is not had at all. Many of them in their monocular vision seem content with addressing press conferences with bravado and the idealism of upholding the rights of the people, while remaining blissfully unaware of the ground reality. Maybe,it is due to the fact that their workings are objective to HIV/AIDS, environment, children or AFSPA and the sufferings of the public as a whole is inconsequential. The funds pouring in through their Foreign Contribution Regulations Act number in Euros and dollars must have to be utilized in a marginalized area. Money definitely talks and attending conferences abroad are more significant.

As of late, the concentrated outlook of many an activist, self styled intellectuals etc. nowadays lies in comparing the Anna Hazare issue to that of our own Iron Lady. Irom Sharmila , a living legend, her determination, a testament of the prowess of a Manipuri woman. Compare her with Aung San Suu Kyi  or Mahatama Gandhi or any notable figure, but positively. Mentioning that Sharmila’s struggle has been sidelined whereas Anna’s is reciprocated by the centre may be a means of propagating her stance and showing the lopsided attitude of the Union Government towards the North East, but it also shows the weakness of a society to rally to her just cause. One can’t help but feel that her agitation has been more or less ‘commercialized’ by NGOs while forgetting the actual protest stance.

But for every reasonable demand, it may be creation of the Sadar Hills district, removal or AFSPA, endeavor for a less corrupt sub continent, needs to be endorsed by the public and the concerned. Those who are rallying behind must drop their masks, rethink their myopic mindset. Let us be rid of the economic blockades and most importantly, our own mental blockades.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/08/of-mental-blockades-and-economic-blockades/

Sharmila’s response to the invitation by Team Anna to join the hunger strike campaign to make the Union government introduce a legislation in Parliament to constitute a statutory people’s ombudsman aimed at curbing official corruption effectively, was measured and mature. The invitation was obviously an afterthought following many comparisons and questions raised in the media about the public clamour over the fast by Anna Hazare and the lack of it in the case of Sharmila who had been on a fast for a record 10 years and still counting. It is unlikely Team Anna did not know the facts of Sharmila’s status as a jail inmate and for this reason it was not totally up to her individual volition to participate in their protest strike in New Delhi. The invitation in this sense was, so to say, a token gesture, or the biblical fig leaf, to cover up what was increasingly becoming an uneasy embarrassment. It was interesting to note how a great section of the media in the Northeast rallied behind Sharmila in varying shades of outrage calling for parity of concern of the Indian public in the two cases. There was also a good section of the national media, lead from the front by Chennai headquartered The Hindu, constantly reminding the Indian public of the difference in their reception of the two cases. Most memorable of all was well known social activist, author of Booker Prize winning novel “God of Small Things” and acknowledged champion of the underdogs in the Indian state’s assimilative nationalising mission, Arundhati Roy, who lent her voice to highlight this discrepancy further. The main thrust of her hard hitting articles derided the public hysteria over the campaign against corruption as this looked only at official corruption and not that of the corporate world or for that matter the corporate media, the indication of which became quite stark after scandals like the infamous Radia tapes expose.

Sharmila was humble in her reply. She wholeheartedly expressed her solidarity with Anna Hazare’s campaign but expressed her inability to join him and his team because of her internship in a Manipur jail. She instead invited Team Anna to visit Manipur, which she described as the most corrupt of all Indian states. Her last jab should have had the sting intended. Manipur must rank as the state with one of the most corrupt official establishment. From the lowly fourth grade employees to the top bosses in the political leadership and bureaucracy, all have collectively and in a collaborative manner, ensured that corruption is entrenched not just into the system but in the psyche of the people. Even the most humble citizen today talks with a clear conscience of the need to pay bribes to get in a child or ward to a government job position as if this was the most natural and only way such things were to be done. Roads and other infrastructures constructed continually are so substandard that they cannot even withstand the onslaught of a single monsoon not because of paucity of funds but because funds were siphoned off into individual pockets. Of such works, there will be no proof needed, as they are plenty of extremely visible examples stark before everybody to see. Corruption in other states is about occasional explosive scandals that break out in high places. Corruption in Manipur, although relatively much less in magnitude, is much more in spread and extend. Indeed it has been made a part of everyday life, therefore endemic and perpetuated endlessly in an unnatural cycle. We hope, even if as just another token gesture, Team Hazare visits Sharmila after their high profile campaign is brought hopefully to a happy conclusion. That would be such a jolt to the corrupt system at in this state. We hope Team Hazare also lends its highly audible voice to Sharmila’s own campaign against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA. They are out there on a campaign to what they believe would ultimately save India but this too is equally about saving the spirit of India.

No argument about it, putting an end to corruption would be a big fillip in the public morale and the economy of the country, considering the estimate that close to 40 percent of the Indian economy is black. But as critics have pointed out sharply and sometimes disparagingly, we hope the campaign also ultimately brings in other forms of corruption other than just the official ones. Corruption happens everywhere including outside the official realms. It includes the ways of cheating small time traders and contactors as well as those who award and approve their cheating ways. The very fact that prices sky rockets every time there is a road blockade or landslide is itself an indication of the cheating ways of many. On all these occasions, essential commodities, in particular petrol and diesel, disappear from the petrol pumps, but nonetheless begin to appear for inflated prices in the black market. How could this happen other than through the vile contagion of corruption?

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/08/two-fasts-too-far-apart/

At many crucial and traumatic junctures of history, a very disturbing question always have thrown itself up and not very often was a satisfactory answer found to it. What is this entity called “civil society” on whose judgment many who claim to believe in democracy and democratic norms far too often rally behind, proclaiming they thus have the mandate to do what they do even if what they do is coercive in nature? Is it just a matter of popular will or must there be some qualification to this popular will? In situations of conflict this thought actually can get terrifying. Just suppose the majority voice begins to demand blood or else silently approves bloodletting and victimisation of other sections of the people, would that voice still be called the voice of the civil society. In many of the atrocities committed through history in every part of the world, the disturbing question has often been not just about where have the “civil society” disappeared during those cataclysmic events but of whether the so called “civil society” then was at all a “civil society”. The moot point is, must not the notion of civil society be predicated by certain conditions? If yes, what must these conditions be? This cloud over the concept of “civil society” became pronounced say in the case of Gujarat where chief minister Narendra Modi, the man demonised and reviled by liberals everywhere in India and elsewhere for supposedly masterminding the 2002 massacre of Muslims was returned back to power with a thumping majority by his electorate. Similar mandates was also given earlier to radical parties in Serbia which were acknowledged as responsible for working up ethnic hatred during the country’s orgy of ethnic cleansing wars. Could the public which did this be equated to “civil society”? Could the people of Germany which by their silence tacitly egged on the Holocaust be called “civil society”? Could the Americans of the 19th Century which similarly endorsed the systematic genocide of Native Americans be called “civil society”?

These are indeed disturbing questions, but nonetheless it is an interrogation which conscientious citizens anywhere in the world must subject themselves to periodically in the assessment of their planned interventions in social issues? Manipur needs to do this too and earnestly. In the most immediate issue of conflict of interests on the SADAR hills district creation, this question must be asked by all concerned? What exactly must be the nature of the consensus that must be arrived at which would settle the issue conclusively? Surely it cannot be about different “civil society” bodies, demarcated clearly on ethnic lines, standing on different sides of the conflict line and pushing their interests claiming only their respective views have the mandate of the people. The question would virtually be the same on practically every other issue in the state over which self-proclaimed “civil society” bodies take it upon themselves to champion. In the literal sense, what everybody end up witnessing are not “civil societies” but  “hysterical societies” spitting polemics laced liberally with fire and brimstone at each other.

We would contest that a real “civil society” would emerge only when those championing social movements are capable of making disinterested judgments on issues, informed by sound scientific logic and above all empathetic humanitarianism considerations before throwing their weights behind whatever the cause deemed as just. Women “civil society” for instance must be able to stand up for women cause regardless of which community they belong to. Likewise, human rights organisation must champion human rights and not human rights of particular communities only. The nomenclature “civil society” implies that the particular society must be civil first and foremost. True, “civil societies” are the vital buffers in the negotiation of interests when the individual is pitted against the might of the State. By this virtue “civil society” is an organic and natural outgrowth of any democratic polity. Only in authoritarian regimes where the emergence of civil society is suppressed would people know how awesome and indeed impossible it is to face the might of the State. Imagine how protesting against such acts as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA, would be if there had been no civil society buffer between the State and the individual and that the individual is left to fight the battle alone. This must be the helplessness of people in many of India’s neighbours. Imagine the dread of rubbing the State the wrong way individuals in a country like Myanmar must be living with. At least we are spared of this, but there is much more to be done yet. The most important of these is to first and foremost civilize our largely compulsively hysterical “civil societies” so that they rise above sectarian interests and cease to be extensions of ethnic wars and antagonisms.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/08/hysterical-societies/

It is frustrating to know this will be just another voice in the wilderness. The media is supposed to be the eye and ear of the society as well as those in power, unfortunately this is a truism which relates only to civilized societies. Manipur has long ceased to be this long ago. The days when unwritten codes of civilisation determined the ways of the society are today a very distant memory. The state and its people are indeed at a very precarious crossroads. They have given up the moorings provided by tradition but are still groping to find a footing in the modern. This twilight hour, there can be no argument, is dangerous for any given society and Manipur is in the thick of it currently. What are called for are also the vital beacons to be provided by leaders. Unfortunately, this latter breed, at least those formal leaders in the country’s adopted democratic model, are abjectly incapable of leading either from the front or by example. They have on the other hand, with little exception, surrendered their moral authority to lead by the very act of their institutionalising corruption in public life. It should be no consolation that Manipur is not an exception and that corruption in public life is an Indian malaise by and large. In any case, the other states are much more entrenched in the modern economy already which has resulted in the birth of many modern institutions capable of moderating quality of life, both material and spiritual.

It would certainly be difficult to decide where the clean up process should begin. The easiest thing to recommend at this juncture then is to begin from the beginning. Helpful in this regard would be to take the cue from the timeless understanding of physiognomy (or perhaps also psychology) that the face is the index of the mind. The simplest beginning is then to do a physical clean up of the tangible mess all around. As for instance, the authorities could decree for all the best heads in the government to come together and devise a way to dispose of the wastes of Imphal and other major habitation pockets of the state. In Imphal, they are littered everywhere. The sight is oppressive, the smell is sickening, thought of it is depressing… and yet, nobody in the government ever makes a serious enough move to resolve this matter. The ordinary men and women are expected to get used to these repulsive sights and smells and accept them as part of life. Quite alarmingly, such a desensitising process has been continually happening all around and indeed, the sight of garbage and filth is no longer a day spoiler as it used to be once. As for instance, amongst the Meiteis, the sight of faeces on the road as they embark on the day’s work was once thought to be a bad omen, and may even prompt the unfortunate soul to return home, wash, freshen up and re-emerge. Not any more – his inner world has been mediated successfully to accommodate what once would have been unthinkable. The loss of that sense of inner harmony is showing up everywhere and this microcosmic turmoil is reflected faithfully in the chaotic macrocosm Manipur is today known for.

There are many other simple matters where this beginning to a cleanup process can begin. The current monsoon has washed away many roads in the state, and even in the capital Imphal. If the face is the index of the mind, this face must be made to look good. Repair them at the soonest. Let it not be said anymore that these are hard times and everybody must learn to tolerate hardship. Such compromises are what have sold the state’s morale in all these years. Moreover, these are not unavoidable hardships,  all of them being by products of corruption in the system which our leaders have allowed to stay and relished enthusiastically. It must not be presumed anymore that the ordinary people are beyond understanding of this truth. They know, this is why they are angry, maybe not overtly, but this anger shows up in the manner in which they too have begun disregarding the law in every conceivable way they can think of. Why is it that there is so much power theft by consumers? Why do ordinary people default taxes for tap municipal water? Why is there so little respect for public property in our society today? The truth is, our leaders themselves have cut huge highways through the law to have their ways and under the circumstance why would not the ordinary citizenry also begin thinking of taking the easy route of using these same highways instead of navigating the barriers of the law?

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/08/microcosm-in-macrocosm/

Leader Writer: Hrishikesh Angom
The state government should take serious note of the present scenario in higher education sector of the state. The teachers and students of government colleges have been demanding for the upliftment of higher education in the state. The government college teachers under the aegis of Federation of College Teachers’ Associations in Manipur (FECTAM) and the students under the banner of Coordinating Committee of College students’ Unions have taken out different forms of agitations and submitted memoranda containing the charter of demands related to the improvement of higher education to the state government. College teachers are demanding for the implementation of 6th UGC pay scale along with enhancement of age of superannuation up to 65 years, while the students are raising their voices for the improvement of college infrastructures along with filling up of appropriate number of teaching and non-teaching staffs in the government colleges. There have been protest demonstrations urging the state government to fulfill their demands for the last many months. It is the high time for the state government to be responsive to the demands of both the teachers and students as the higher education has been in a deplorable condition for the past many years. The present situation in higher education sector of the state is very much evident from the fact that a large number of students after completing their higher secondary education in the state opt to study outside the state despite of huge financial implications it could leave on the state’s economy.

No doubt the state has got two popular central universities, namely Manipur University and Central Agricultural University where the education system is relatively good. However, the college education which is the backbone of every education system has been a neglected subject in the state thereby creating a large void in the whole education system of the state. The education system up to higher secondary level is somehow fair with a good number of well established government as well as private schools but higher education in the colleges is lacking the essence of education leading to the development of inferiority complex amongst the students of the state. The higher education of the state is again in a different scenario with only some government colleges and few aided colleges imparting education to a section of students who cannot afford education outside the state. The negligence of higher education is a great loss to the state as only those students who get to study outside the state cannot altogether contribute to human resource development of the poor state. It is through good education system that the state is going to reach new heights in development and the state government should chalk out measures to fill the void in the education system by addressing the problems of both the teachers and students of the government colleges. The demands of the teachers and students of the government colleges are rightful in the context of National Education Policy and the state government should take up the needful steps to soothe them at the earliest.

It is through college education that human resource of the state can be developed to a great extent. The colleges in the state have been defunct due to the ongoing cease-work strike of the teachers demanding concrete decisions from the state government on the implementation of revised 6th UGC pay scale. The impasse should be resolved at the earliest in the interest of the students who have been deprived of education on many such occasions in the past.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/08/higher-education-in-manipur/