Tag: Editorial

Life in Manipur ceased to be something to be exulted a long time ago. In its place we have today the protest culture. And hence there is never a week that passes without some form of a protest bandh or rally or strike. Again, except for our religious festivals, not many of the days we observe as holidays or else as simply a day to be remembered, are actually in the real sense of the words, celebrations. Most of these are observed in recollection of dark and tragic events. The state’s calendar year hence is dominated “dark days,” “gloomy days,” and “protest months”…. Then there are of course the predictable general strikes, as for instance on January 26 and August 15, apart from a horde of other absolutely impromptu strikes and bandhs, that are immediate responses to developments that are not upto the liking or taste of any given group big and small. While we do not deny that all these reflect the condition of Manipur today, it is also true that we have inherited an oppressive negativism in our attitude to life. The forward looking outlook that eggs individuals as well as entire people to ever increase their levels of achievement, have been eclipse. This, we have no doubt, is a recipe for ultimate social disaster. Unless we overcome it, doomsday cannot be far away.

It is true we are in bad times. Even if it is again true that all this is not of our own making, we must find ways to make progressive action and thought exist side by side of the protests and struggles. Otherwise, we cannot hope to open up our horizon to a brighter future. We are tempted to refer to the famous existentialist vision of life as a never ending struggle, as so aptly illustrated by the Sysiphus hyperbole, in which Sysiphus the figure from the Greek mythology is seen pushing a rock up a hillside in Hades as a punishment. If Sysiphus slackens the rock slips. If Sysiphus gives up, he   would be crushed. The only real option left before him is to keep pushing the rock up, even though he never knows where the summit is, and when he can ever find time to relax. The trouble with this kind of a vision of life is, it is suffocatingly intense. Although there is much truth in it, we still are inclined towards the romantic. Life is multifaceted and offers immense possibilities. The sense of urgency in the picture of Sysiphus struggling up the hillside allows no room for appreciating life’s myriad other offerings. And in the process our vision of life also gets narrower and narrower, until it is reduced to just the rock ahead…. and tragically nothing beyond.

We are today caught in the Sysiphus trap. Apart from what is immediately before us, we have no energy left for any kind of creative pursuits, or even to visualise alternative and more fruitful routes we can take to the future. Everything around us has become so drearily prosaic, and with such predictable narrative depths. This is reflected in our present day literature, poetry, song lyrics, shumang lilas, movies and even a greater part of our theatre. Protests and resistance, are all very well, but when they are carried out without offering a safe and productive outlet, can become so wasteful, destructive, and self consuming. By the awesome circumstance we are exposed to, our collective vision seems to have been dwarfed by our obsessive preoccupation with the present. We would not even call the situation explosive, for there is a picture of expansion and spread of energy in it, even if in a violent way. On the other hand, we would much rather prefer to describe the situation as implosive, where energy absorbs itself and everything collapse inwards and disappears into the depthless void of a black hole.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/08/inherited-negativism/

var addthis_product=’wpp-252′;var addthis_options=”Google+1″The protest over the bomb blast on August 1 is overwhelming and also cuts across communities and political parties, as it indeed should be….

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The protest over the bomb blast on August 1 is overwhelming and also cuts across communities and political parties, as it indeed should be. Apart from notes of condemnation sent to the media, there was also a bandh today. Although the latter protest was extreme and generally not desirable for reasons far too often and articulated by far too many, at least on the issue of such an atrocious crime, it was tolerable. The objective is first to register a radical public dissent and second to tell the government to not slacken its investigations into the crime. Four lives lost so violently and meaninglessly is nothing to trivialise. Sadly, although officially as well as to the media and thereby to a larger section of the newspaper reading public, four lives lost in a bomb blast has been reduced to a statistics, or an index to gauge the lethal power of the bomb and the scale of the devastation it caused, for the families which lost their loved ones so abruptly and violently, the sense and extent of the tragedy they are going through can only be imagined. Two minors were among those killed, and only parents with minor children will understand the excruciating pain this would be giving the families which suffered the losses. For them the tragedy would not have been any greater if a hundred died with their children. The grief over one loved one lost, for them would be equally immeasurable.

It is time to add some humanity to public assessment of crime and violence. A single undeserved death must be viewed with the gravity the event deserves. The desensitisation has been such that the government as well as the media wait for death figures of greater magnitudes before giving the event attention. The manner in which the extended violent conflict in the region has dehumanised everybody is unparalleled in the place’s history. It is not just about violence coming to be treated as routine and people getting casual about it, but it is more about the erosion of humanity in ordinary humans which is much more lamentable. People have become callous about deaths and injuries suffered by others, and therefore the element of empathy which is an invaluable quality in determining a civilised society is eroding away alarmingly in our society. We are here talking about ordinary citizens, including children, and not of soldiers and other combatants trained to kill and to be untouched by sights of dead people. The loss hence in these tragedies is not just physical and tangible, which appears in the media the next day and over which people cry foul or the government pays official compensation. There is a much more profound loss suffered – that of humanity of the ordinary. It goes without saying that our children who grow up in this environment would necessarily have very skewed morality and judgment of human predicament. This being the case, while even soldiers’ death should not be dismissed as nothing unnatural, civilian casualties must not be condoned at any cost, even if those fighting their wars try to explain it away as unavoidable collateral damage, or more grandiosely as the “sacrifice” every citizen owes to the so called people’s revolution, never considering the thought that the people for whom the war is supposedly being fought may already have become disillusioned by this war and do not want it anymore, especially in the brutalised avatar it is presenting itself as the present time.

It is also time for our forms of protests to be given an imaginative makeover too. So far, it has been about staging sit-in dharnas, street rallies or else calling bandhs and blockades. While these forms of showing resentment are extremely visible, the sheer repetition has resulted in an overall visual fatigue. As much as the routine deluge of news of violence and atrocities have desensitised the public’s mind, sights of women in formal ceremonial white, sitting in dramatised protest inside temporary roadside shades put up for the purpose are failing to have catch either eyeballs or popular imagination. The symbolism that reaches hearts has evaporated because of overuse, and nobody wants to see it on the front pages of their newspapers, although local papers still by habit and compulsions do it. What are also conspicuous by their absence in any of these protests are the enlightened sections of our society. The theatre doyens, sports achievers, intellectuals, media personalities and other well known and respected faces of the societies must now come out to give a face to public issues of importance. The concern raised after the most recent bomb blast at a crowded marketplace is certainly one of these.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/08/waning-humanity/

var addthis_product=’wpp-252′;var addthis_options=”Google+1″The blast yesterday at Sangakpham in Imphal at a crowded market which killed four, including two children, and injured seven, was dastardly…

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var addthis_product=’wpp-252′;var addthis_options=”Google+1″The blast yesterday at Sangakpham in Imphal at a crowded market which killed four, including two children, and injured seven, was dastardly…

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var addthis_product=’wpp-252′;var addthis_options=”Google+1″Twenty years after it began doing the buzz in the Northeast, theNortheast region is still waiting for the much touted Look EastPolicy, LEP,…

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var addthis_product=’wpp-252′;var addthis_options=”Google+1″Leader Writer : Leivon Jimmy: The Public Distribution System (PDS) as per the concept of the government of India was developed as a system…

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var addthis_product=’wpp-252′;var addthis_options=”Google+1″Leader Writer : Leivon Jimmy: The Public Distribution System (PDS) as per the concept of the government of India was developed as a system…

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var addthis_product=’wpp-252′;var addthis_options=”Google+1″Are peace talks in the northeast destined to remain a process until finally the process itself becomes the goal? This is a question which…

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The question of identity and ethnicity tends to seep into every discussion on practically any social issue in Manipur today. True enough, nobody can deny there is very much a crisis of identity in the state and this will be confronted every time somebody is asked what his understanding of the term Manipuri is. Does the term denote a culture, a domicile status, ethnicity or a language? On the last proposition, there ought not to be any dispute. The term does signify a language. But it is in any attempt to interpret it beyond the confines of the language it represents, that we begin skating on thin ice. The postmodernist approach to the problem of identity as elucidated by French Philosopher, Michel Foucault, as an IFP editorial briefly touched on sometime ago, should throw valuable light. Foucault, author of such classics as “The Birth of the Clinic” was basically reinterpreting the extremist feminist movement in Europe of his time and the Marxist class based social structuring. However, the logic he arrives at in his analysis of these issues should be quite comfortably applicable in the ethnic situation as well. Very briefly, Foucault diagnoses the problem of the traditional understanding of identity to be in its being necessarily linked to power. The assumption has always been that there will always be a binary opposition between the strong and weak with the strong grabbing all power, and this power equation would be linked up or else colour the identity issue. Hence there would be the male-female, proletariat-bourgeoisie, oppressor-oppressed dualities and within these broad categories there would also be a numerous and progressive sub-fragmentation of categories: hill-valley, tribal-non-tribal, Meitei-Mayang and so on, so that the identity question becomes an extension of these concentric circles of power struggles. In Foucault’s model, power politics and identity are de-linked. He even flags the idea that there is nothing intrinsic and permanent about identity and that it is a free floating, perpetual negotiation with the ever evolving social reality.

Let us try applying the postmodernist scale and indulge in a little deconstruction of some of the traditional understanding of identity in our situation. As for instance, if we de-link the term “Manipuri” from its traditional ethno-political connotations and then view it through the postmodernist prism, what would it mean? Would it still be ethnic specific? The same approach may be employed in trying to understand the term Indian, and indeed a lot many liberals have been doing just this. It is also true that there have been counter currents to such approaches to the issue. An analogy perhaps will place the proposition on firmer grounds. The contrast between the term “Manipuri” or “Indian” linked to all their traditional ethno-cultural-political connotations and the same terms as free floating processes of negotiations that Foucault calls identity, would be similar to the contrast between the concepts Hindutva and Hinduism or Zionism and Judaism. While Hinduism is open-ended and free-floating, Hindutva is not. The first is religion, the second is a politics of power at its core.  The same is the truth in the contrast between Judaism and Zionism. Hence, the term “Manipuri” in the traditional understanding is linked inextricably to its own politics of power, and the proposition that this editorial is putting up before all interested in a discourse on the issue is, we should introspect and see what it would be like if we genuinely tried to deconstruct our traditional understanding of the term and make it a free floating negotiation into which all of us clubbed into a common predicament by history and geography can find a respectable place. What we run into may in all likelihood be a new reality purged of many of our festering and endemic problems. The same experiment may conjure up a new visage of the Indian identity as well.

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The question of identity and ethnicity tends to seep into every discussion on practically any social issue in Manipur today. True enough, nobody can deny there is very much a crisis of identity in the state and this will be confronted every time somebody is asked what his understanding of the term Manipuri is. Does the term denote a culture, a domicile status, ethnicity or a language? On the last proposition, there ought not to be any dispute. The term does signify a language. But it is in any attempt to interpret it beyond the confines of the language it represents, that we begin skating on thin ice. The postmodernist approach to the problem of identity as elucidated by French Philosopher, Michel Foucault, as an IFP editorial briefly touched on sometime ago, should throw valuable light. Foucault, author of such classics as “The Birth of the Clinic” was basically reinterpreting the extremist feminist movement in Europe of his time and the Marxist class based social structuring. However, the logic he arrives at in his analysis of these issues should be quite comfortably applicable in the ethnic situation as well. Very briefly, Foucault diagnoses the problem of the traditional understanding of identity to be in its being necessarily linked to power. The assumption has always been that there will always be a binary opposition between the strong and weak with the strong grabbing all power, and this power equation would be linked up or else colour the identity issue. Hence there would be the male-female, proletariat-bourgeoisie, oppressor-oppressed dualities and within these broad categories there would also be a numerous and progressive sub-fragmentation of categories: hill-valley, tribal-non-tribal, Meitei-Mayang and so on, so that the identity question becomes an extension of these concentric circles of power struggles. In Foucault’s model, power politics and identity are de-linked. He even flags the idea that there is nothing intrinsic and permanent about identity and that it is a free floating, perpetual negotiation with the ever evolving social reality.

Let us try applying the postmodernist scale and indulge in a little deconstruction of some of the traditional understanding of identity in our situation. As for instance, if we de-link the term “Manipuri” from its traditional ethno-political connotations and then view it through the postmodernist prism, what would it mean? Would it still be ethnic specific? The same approach may be employed in trying to understand the term Indian, and indeed a lot many liberals have been doing just this. It is also true that there have been counter currents to such approaches to the issue. An analogy perhaps will place the proposition on firmer grounds. The contrast between the term “Manipuri” or “Indian” linked to all their traditional ethno-cultural-political connotations and the same terms as free floating processes of negotiations that Foucault calls identity, would be similar to the contrast between the concepts Hindutva and Hinduism or Zionism and Judaism. While Hinduism is open-ended and free-floating, Hindutva is not. The first is religion, the second is a politics of power at its core.  The same is the truth in the contrast between Judaism and Zionism. Hence, the term “Manipuri” in the traditional understanding is linked inextricably to its own politics of power, and the proposition that this editorial is putting up before all interested in a discourse on the issue is, we should introspect and see what it would be like if we genuinely tried to deconstruct our traditional understanding of the term and make it a free floating negotiation into which all of us clubbed into a common predicament by history and geography can find a respectable place. What we run into may in all likelihood be a new reality purged of many of our festering and endemic problems. The same experiment may conjure up a new visage of the Indian identity as well.

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/m6kJs1I1l4s/

History cannot be the sole issue, neither can any belief inbrotherhood past or present. The ultimate deciding factor in the present political face off between Naga integrationists and Manipur integrity defenders will have to be rooted in the current reality. It will be good if the two can exist side by side without the need for each to obliterate the other. As we have been consistently arguing in these columns, we see no reason why this cannot happen given the will, imagination and most importantly, accommodative spirit. Why must the boundaries of identity, both cultural and political, be rigid and absolutely non permeable. They can work in non-antagonistic concentric circles, whereby someone can be a Meitei, but also Manpuri, an Indian, an Asian etc, and ultimately a human being at the outermost circle. What then is the current reality? Two perspectives are obvious: One, the aspiration of the Nagas to come under one political roof and two, the survival question of Manipur, whereby its two geographical constituents, the valley and its surrounding hills cannot but remain together under a single administrative control.

In a reversal of the popular portrayal of the scenario, we would even say that the Manipur integrity issue is not about emotions at all at its core, although on the surface it does appear to be so. Quite to the contrary, it is about hard-nosed political geography of survival deep down. As we have argued so many times before, a valley and its surrounding hills must complement each other and form one composite living space. The valley, any valley for that matter, will never let go of the hills that surround it, for it is a matter of its survival. Asking Manipur to give up its hills, would be like asking Israel to give up the Golan Heights. They will never agree, for it would amount to asking them to disintegrate voluntarily. The rightness or the wrongness of their refusal becomes only a matter of perspective and subjective judgement. But if Israel’s right to exist, or Manipur’s right to exist, are to be acknowledged, their right of control over territories extremely vital to their survival cannot but also be acknowledged. To not acknowledge this would amount to war. Leave aside the Israel parallel, but must this right necessarily have to limit the aspiration for Naga integration. The challenge must be to work out a political dispensation where Manipur integrity and Naga integration can happen simultaneously without crossing each other’s core interests. The manner in which even independent nations are melting down borders to evolve into common regional entities, gives hope that this can work.

If the engine that drives the Manipur integrity campaign is emotional only superficially, we would also argue, without attributing any value judgment, that it is the Naga integration movement which is emotional. Disparate tribes, discovering a fraternal bondage in a generic name may be a transcendental journey as Prof. BK Roy Burman puts it, but still it is nevertheless an emotional thread that is the binding force ultimately. It must however be acknowledged that this emotion is a powerful reality that must be factored into any lasting solution to the problem that is unsettling the region. The other reality is that this is the age of partnerships. We do not refer to only the Naga integration-Manipur integrity equation, but also to their relation with India. It does not have to be a binary antagonism always. As in all partnerships, conditions that suit each partner can always be worked out so that relations are cemented in mutual benefits and hopes. If a pride in the self and an all round prosperity can be guaranteed through these partnerships, what else is there to fight for. The ability to come to terms with these realities will be the key to the return of peace and normalcy. It will also be the definition of the true calibre in our situation.

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“In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten, in the human kingdom, define or be defined” said wrote Thomas Szasz, capturing a concern of much of the hitherto inarticulate world of the modern times, in particular various native non-European and indigenous communities which have relatively recently come to belong to the modern literate world. The statement undoubtedly is profound. It says much of the notions and mechanisms of identity formation. We bring up this idea up in contemplating what postcolonial identity has been for various communities, in particular the indigenous world. It is not surprising that much of the identities we know of today were given and brought forth from within. Thanks to new energy given to scholarship in this direction, we are now cognisant of how much of the identities that have come to be internalised amongst not just outside observers who caused these identity formation but also communities given these identities, buttressing in the process, and contrary to what William Shakespeare implied in the famous statement in “Romeo and Juliet”, there is a lot in a name, for often it is the name which gives an identity. The Northeast was a nomenclature once defining a certain cartographical location on the Indian political and geographical map. Today it is an identity. The same can be said of the Arunachalis, Mizos, Nagas, Manipuris and Assamese, and as a matter of fact, Indian. Do these identities conform to ethnicity or do they signify domicile and citizenship status, are some of the problematic questions. Without going too deep into these queries, suffices it to say that once upon a time, people who today profess these identities, never knew of themselves by these identities. They were given these names by others to broadly define them, and today, many of those thus defined, would zealously defend these identities as their own intrinsic self understanding, even to violent extents.

That these understanding of identities have their liberal shares of inner tensions and hegemonies is also an undeniable fact today. Indeed, much of the conflict situations we witness in the region are a manifestation of these tensions within. Again, there is no gainsaying these understanding have a profound bearing on the way policies and programmes of the government are formulated and unfolded. This being the case, we are proposing a need to deconstruct these identities which although were given to the communities have crystallised solidly, and attempt a reconstruction in the manner that French philosopher, Jacques Derrida recommends. This is important, because the new identities thus constructed would be informed by inner needs and dynamics of the communities rather than imposed from outside alone. They would also have shed the redundant and at the same time incorporated answers to new challenges, which indeed different times always throw up. We can begin this process by asking some very basic questions like who is a Manipuri or Naga or Assamese etc. Honest and probing queries into these seemingly simple questions should bring in new and refreshing lights as to how many of the tensions within our societies can be resolved.

It goes without saying that this exercise must not mean the total rejection of what is already there. History can never be reversed and historical events cannot be erased. So if certain identities have evolved because of historical logic of a time, even if it meant identities forming out of nomenclatures assigned to peoples for the convenience of anthropological conveniences of outside researchers of the past, they have become engraved in indelible ink as historical experiences of the place, sparking off myriad chains of other historical events, which in their turns set off other chains of events and these too their own chains etc, in a never ending process. In other words, what has happened has happened and cannot be reversed. They have come to have strong historical roots of their own. But acknowledging the limitations of the circumstances they came into being and the consequences they have caused, should be the beginning of a new dawn of understanding of the way forward for our societies in resolving many of the issues of conflict embedded within. As for instance, new courses can be charted in which the old and the new understandings of identities can confluence and evolve more democratic and mutually acceptable ground for coexistence, and in time perhaps even evolving new identities which are inclusive of all stakeholders in an equitable way informed by the noble idea of justice for all.

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A lot many water bodies have died out from the Imphal Valley. In their footsteps may follow the rest of the remaining natural water bodies in the valley, including we dare say, the Loktak. Purely from common sense, the lifespan of a lake in a land-locked valley, with little or no drainage system to flush it in a continual process, cannot be that very long. For regardless of whether a river system drains water away from a valley, there will always be more rivers that drain into it bringing down tonnes of silt perennially from the surrounding mountain catchments areas. It can quite well be imagined why the battle to save fresh water lakes in small valleys have been almost always a losing battle. The best that have been done is to delay their deaths, but the cause for optimism is, advancements in science have come up with ever better techniques to increase the longevity of these lakes. Perhaps someday, it will become a reality when this delay of lake decay can be perpetual. But the fact remains that without this radical sort of intervention of science, valley lakes cannot live forever. This is what Manipur should be cautious about, and in fact be ready to face.

It needs no experts to tell us rivers can change their courses, and so when silt raises their bed high enough for the water to find another alternative path of least resistance, it will take the latter path. This phenomenon is not altogether unknown even in Manipur’s recorded history. In fact there have been records of artificial dredging of river beds through compulsory contributory labour under various kings, and even of artificial diversions of river courses. Considering the sizes of the rivers here, these projects could not really have been too awesome or daunting. All the same, although of a totally different dimension, the current talks of river linking etc, in the larger context of the vast Indian sub-continent are not any logic that escaped the notice of good administrators in the state’s history. Even now, in spite of what the critics of the river linking project say, we do feel it will be an experiment worth the while in Manipur. Just one case should suffice to illustrate. Diverting the Nambul River from the heart of Imphal city would do miles to the health of the river as well as in flood control within the Imphal municipal area. The water too may acquire more irrigational value in the process. The stretch of the river bed thus dried up can become part of the master plan of an Imphal city sewerage project, as and when such a project comes up.

Saving our lakes, most particularly the Loktak, will be a far more difficult proposition. But perhaps this will also have to be linked up with a river management project. Perhaps the solution is in devising a way to have our rivers safely deposit their alluvium loads they bring down from the hills in special reservoirs along their meandering courses before they empty into the Loktak. But it is not only silt or the fate of its lakes that the ecology of Imphal Valley is threatened by. The inescapable fact also is, whatever material is introduced into its soil will remain there forever precisely because there is very little draining out of the valley. Take for instance chemical pesticides or chemical fertilizers, or for that matter chemical effluents from factories in the future. Most of the residues from these are simply going to continue to accumulate in the soil. Who knows what effect such residues will have on the soil in a couple of hundred years. Just suppose it begins turning acidic or alkaline, or in the worst case scenario, poisonous. Considering pesticides are poisons, this is not altogether impossible. Again in the absence of a flushing mechanism, it will take eons before these soil conditions can be neutralized. This will indeed be a nightmarish scenario. Abolishing chemical pesticides or fertilizers can also mean present day disasters and it would indeed be stupid to recommend such a measure unthinkingly. What must however be done is to make sure that to the extent possible, only bio-degradable alternatives are used. Or even if there are no real substitutes to chemical agriculture boosters, their long term consequences must be closely monitored and regulated. While we all celebrate the fecundity of the alluvial soil of the valley and its salubrious climate, have the obvious fragility of the valley ecology ever been part of any serious reflection in official policy making or the general understanding of the issue? We are afraid to say there have been very little of it and this is most unfortunate.

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Mumbai: 21st July: BNHS is all set to launch the revised edition of “A Pictorial Guide to the Birds of the Indian Subcontinent” by Sálim Ali and S Dillon Ripley first published in 1983. The new book in a new attractive avatar is titled “Birds of the Indian Subcontinent – A Field Guide” co-authored by Ranjit Manakadan, J C Daniel and Nikhil Bhopale. Their insights span three generations of avian expertise at BNHS. The book offers a lot more information, illustrations and other features as compared to the earlier book, at an affordable price. The book will be launched on 30th July 2011.

Salient features of the new book
Contains 1251 species of birds from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives
Contains notes of over 100 other tentative bird species found in the subcontinent
Contains 112 plates of colour illustrations, along with 53 colour photos and informative text spread over 400 pages
Contains species descriptions such as the size, colour, plumage, beak and range to aid field identification since just pictorial representation is not enough in case of several bird species
Map of the Indian subcontinent
Priced at just Rs 550, which makes it affordable to a wide section of the society

Both old and new names
A very significant feature of the new book is that it includes both the old and new common names of birds, along with the scientific names. It has been observed that names of several bird species have been changed over time to aid better identification and classification. Since the new book contains both the old and new names, if will avoid any confusion in the minds of the bird watchers and readers.

New species / rediscovered species included
The book includes the illustration of one new species recorded by bird experts in the subcontinent, viz. Bugun Liocichla, which is found in the northeast region of India. It also includes the illustration of Serendib Scops Owl, which was rediscovered in Sri Lanka.

Utility of Field Guides
Correct identification is the basis of meaningful bird watching as well as scientific field research. A field observation is meaningful and educative only when the concerned species is correctly identified. Good illustrations, along with important information about the bird are fundamental.
— Atul Sathe, PRO, BNHS

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In the wake of the development in Darjeeling, where administration in the Gorkha Hill Council has been purportedly given more autonomy without severing the territory from West Bengal, Manipur and all the other states where demands for new administrative arrangements exists, ought to give new attention to the problem. The talks are, the demand for a Telengana state carved out of Andhra Pradesh is also headed for a similar settlement to that of the Gorkhas. A little caveat needs to be thrown in here. Manipur should also prepare for an overhaul of its own administration to accommodate the aspirations of the hill people, who incidentally, rightly or wrongly, suffer from an acute sense of deprivation. Developmental disparity there are between the hill and the valley, but here it must have to be added, as we had pointed out before in these columns, the disparity is not so much between the hill districts and the valley districts, but between Imphal and the rest. But this is understandable, for Imphal is the capital city. Still, despite this tendency amongst the hill community to accentuate their sense of alienation on account of this rather faulty and unfair comparison between their districts and Imphal, the grant of a greater degree of autonomy to the hills is the need of the hour. Self determination is not so much about material benefits but a state of mind in which those given autonomy are made to feel their own accountability in their failure or success.

There is however a unique problem Manipur would face. The centrifugal forces working to tear the state apart are multiple. Even as powerful Naga civil society organisations, headed by the United Naga Council, UNC, are campaigning for a “separate arrangement” in the administration of the “Naga areas” of the state, the Kukis too are now raising the pitch of a similar demand for the “Kuki areas”. It goes without saying that there would be more such demands should there be signs that these earlier demands are showing positive results. Again, it would do everybody good to be wary that “Naga areas” and “Kuki areas” overlap considerably in many regions, and indeed this lesson was learnt the hard way on many occasions in recent history, the most brutal of which was the bloody feud between Naga and Kuki villagers in the earlier part of the 1990s. Again, contrary to what is now being claimed, it is not the state government, or the people of the valley, which foiled earlier nearly successful move to introduce the 6th Schedule provisions in the hills. Instead it was a disagreement on the inclusion of Sadar Hills as the sixth Autonomous District Council under the schedule, by powerful Naga lobbies, again led by the UNC. This was so because Sadar Hills which is virtually a Kuki region was claimed to be Naga territory. This happened in the 1990s when a Naga, Rishang Keishing, was chief minister, and another Naga, Meijinlung Kamson was Union minister of state for internal affairs, and if the ground was clear of the controversy mentioned, it would have been smooth sailing, and the hills would have come under this autonomy arrangement long ago. But that promising move was still born. The point to be pondered on now is precisely whether the ground is clear for another attempt at introducing this autonomy model?

Without resorting to any blame game, let the present government give another attempt at federalising its administration by seeking to give more autonomy to the hills. Apart from a consideration of upgrading the current Autonomous District Council to those under the 6th Schedule, the government could for instance split up some of its key directorates, such as education and sports etc, into two so that there is one each for the hills and valley. There could for instance be an education directorate (hills) and education directorate (valley), both ultimately answerable to the Government of Manipur, and at some point having to sit for some common evaluation examinations so that the overall education system is to the extent possible, standardised. This autonomy move must also not be seen, or indeed amount to be, part of an appeasement policy. The rural valley districts are not much ahead of the hill districts, and in the deal there must be something to make the valley feel they too have benefited. For instance, the state reservation policy could be restructured. Since the hills administration would probably be largely reserved for tribals, in education as well as employment, the reservation for schedule tribes in the valley could be reduced to the national standard of 7 percent and not the 33 percent the state currently follows. Any new policy introduced must be seen as fair by all, only then can it usher in stable peace in this trouble torn state.

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It is surprising that many non government organisations, NGOs, many of which are in very vital fields of grassroots empowerment works, have to still depend on foreign funds to conduct their businesses. Once upon a time India did not have to money to spare for the voluntary sector working for social uplift, but  it does now, so what is keeping it from making funds available to this sector for their work more liberally. No government, except the most authoritarian ones, has denied the need for NGOs, and even the Manipur government at one point made it almost a fashion statement to chant loudly on practically every forum, the mantra of public-private partnership. This partnership does not only define conduct of commercial enterprises, but also filling governance deficits through NGOs. For indeed, among others NGOs, fill in blind spots and other micro governance gaps the government invariably leaves in pushing its broad visions. They also in the true sense of the words represent the proactive section of the civil society, capable of providing the foil to the government, and thus contribute invaluably to the dialectic of the governance process.

True this opposition to government policies can sometimes get hostile, but healthy criticism is what makes any enterprise introspect and grow healthily. However, even if the government thinks these hostile attacks can get counter-productive, the fact is the discretion to fund any NGO would remain with it exclusively. It could for instance draw up some broad but objective criteria for extending its funds to NGOs. Incidentally, all funding agencies, foreign and domestic, have their own conditions for extending their funds, and thus to a great extent, all NGOs are in some way or the other, directly or indirectly, in small or big ways, bound to what has come to be referred to as “donor’s agendas”. But in a free environment, just as the donors can look for NGOs that suit their needs and philosophies, the NGOs too can look for funds that do not impose an agenda on them that went against their own manifestos. Government funds for NGOs in this way would also develop its own dynamics of distribution. The important thing is, since this sector is important, the government must have a provision for funding them. If it is not willing to do this, it must stop complaining or be suspicious of every bit of foreign funds that comes to fuel the work of these NGOs. At the moment for instance, there are many sincere NGOs working in the area of conflict resolution and conflict transformation. Should not the government think this is an area of NGO activities it should promote?

We are not suggesting the government should make this sector its monopoly and thereby restrict or prohibit private and foreign funds available for NGO works. This would amount to killing the spirit and indeed the importance of the sector, for it is predictable how this important enterprise would become just another extension, or else a so called autonomous wing of the government monolith. They would in most likelihood also become outposts for disgruntled ruling MLAs who were unable to be accommodated in the council of ministers. Rather than create a monopoly, the government’s entry in this sector hence must be to break whatever monopoly tendencies already exist in rich donors pushing their visions in the sector. Therefore, if it wants a vibrant voluntary sector, the government must encourage as many different sources of legal and healthy funds available for NGOs. What we are suggesting is, it must also be a big player in this sector rather than be the only player or be a no player.

These are interesting times for India and many other former empires, and then former colonies of Western powers. The tables are turning in the global economic as well as power equations quite dramatically in recent times. India, China, Brazil and many others are bouncing back with metaphoric vengeance. China is the world’s second largest economy already having taken over Japan and fast catching up with the largest economy of the world, the USA. India too is speeding towards the top end and is already in the top ten biggest economies. This being the case, India cannot afford to abandon the voluntary sector to private and foreign funding agencies alone. It is already in it but its reach has been restricted to what are within the government straitjacketed definition of what constitutes “national interest”. This straitjacket must be loosened up and the definition of “national interest” freed from too much of the familiar bureaucratic baggage, which are either staid and unimaginative, or else paranoiac. Let the liberalised economy be also more liberalised in its outlook to governance. It will be for the ultimate good of the society and indeed the economy in the long run.

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In a recent study of peace possibilities in Manipur by a Switzerland based peace builder organisation, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, CHD, in collaboration with New Delhi based Delhi Policy Group, DPG, one unsaid observation became loud on the peace initiative, or the lack of it, of present government in the state. The organisation, which will shortly be publishing its study of the Manipur situation, along with similar studies of the Kashmir problem and the Maoists phenomenon sweeping the central plains of the country, also lists a number of initiatives already taken up by various governments in Imphal to resolve the raging insurrection in the state. Among them were the effort by the R.K. Jaichandra government to initiate a peace dialogue with PLA through some of its former leaders, the unilateral ceasefire declared by the short-lived Radhabinod Koijam government, the offer for peace dialogue by former Governor S.S. Siddhu during a Republic Day speech which was widely responded to, although not always on a positive note by various rebel groups. There were more such instances cited, as well as analysis of how most of them failed, suggesting implicitly remedial measures to future efforts at similar peace building.

What becomes a deafening silence in the face of such studies is the seeming indifference of the present government to the issue. It does not really matter if the effort fails, but there is a need to make the effort. History is never going to forgive leaders who do not at least make an initiative at getting a peace process started. This is an appeal to the government of the day to do more towards this end. It must continue to make peace efforts and not rest content resigning to fate and praying for the best to come about from heaven. Only continued effort can lift the chances of a breakthrough, maybe not immediate, but someday. The fact that there is unlikely to be immediate result should not deter effort as is the wont in politics.

The last speculation is important, though often overlooked. Democracy model followed in India being what it is, the mandate of an elected leadership is limited to a five year terms, and this makes lesser politicians lose interest in missions which does not promise results within their terms in power. This fact should make the limitations Manipur faces at this moment on the issue of an official, though not necessarily unnecessarily publicised, peace effort, much tighter. The term of the current government is due to expire by February next year, or just a little over half a year. Hence, if the current set of leadership is interested in results they can vaunt during election campaigns in the coming election, initiatives for long term peace in the state would normally fall out of its radar. If the government does fall to this myopic vision, it would be the most unfortunate thing. This is so because things at this moment seem to be shaping up to be very promising. The recent news of a unification pledge by a number of insurgent groups operating in the state is just one of these.

We hope this government sees beyond its narrow self interest and wakes up to seized the opportunity for peace opening up before the state. However, even if it decides to live up to expectation, it must approach the issue imaginatively. It must not undermine the experience of internationally reputed peace builders. It must not, as is the usual governmental practice, treat the matter as a bureaucratic responsibility alone, to be handled and steered by bureaucrats. It must seek the assistance of experienced and reputed people as well as institutions which have successfully brokered justice and peace in similar conflict situations elsewhere in the world. It could also for instance set up a committee to study peace models which have either worked or else are being experimented elsewhere, say in Ireland, Saami region, Basque country, Bolzano, ethnic situation in China’s Tibet and Yunnan etc, and learn the reasons for their successes and failures, and from the knowledge thus acquired, forge a model suited for the state’s own situation. We hope a successful model can be worked out, but even if this goal remains elusive, the important thing is not to give up trying to reach it. At this moment, the government seems the least interested in making such an effort. We hope this attitude would change. It must believe in striking while the iron is hot, as indeed the iron seems to be now.

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While the Manipur traffic police’s new drive to enforce parking norms in Imphal’s two busy commercial streets of Paona Bazar and Thangal Bazar is welcome, the brutal blitzkrieg yesterday in which the police literally swooped down and damaged vehicles parked in the Paona Bazar area was unfortunate. It was unfortunate for no other reason than that there was no warning issued to the vehicle owners that the parking norm introduced about two months ago was to be enforced without compromises from the date. The government had indeed prohibited parking on these streets and an alternate parking space was created along the western bank of the Naga River after evicting a vegetable vendors market there, causing much heartbreak to these hapless daily wage earners. But Imphal residents, including the sporting vendors, generally accepted the move in the belief that the pain was for a greater common good of Imphal city.

The new parking norm worked for some days before the authorities forgot it had introduced the norm, and consequently vehicle users too soon came to not give two hoots about the new norm. The vehicles were back on the busy streets, congested it as before. All this was happening right before the noses of traffic policemen, reinforcing the belief that the new norm was just another one of those laws of the Manipur government which had a value only on paper and not in practice. Soon enough the traffic chaos in the Bazar area was back to where it was. This newspaper had even commented that the government deserved to be taken to court by the vendors who were evicted to create the new parking space, for the purpose for creating it was being allowed to be defeated so casually and callously. All of a sudden the traffic authorities seem to have woken up from its slothful slumber and swoop down causing much distress to unsuspecting vehicle owners who had parked their vehicles on Paona Bazar having been led to believe the new parking norm was dead and gone already. Many of them ended up with damaged vehicles as well.

A stitch in time would have saved nine. Had the traffic authorities made an effort to ensure the public of its intent of enforcing the new norm beforehand, nobody, or at least not many would have been so blatant about jumping it. In this sense, the fault for the ugly incident yesterday was as much of the traffic authorities. The department should have shown some humility and courtesy by at least issuing a warning that vehicles would be confiscated and their owners penalised if they continued to park their vehicles in the prohibited areas. The objective should have been to enforce a law and not ensnare unsuspecting people into a trap and then punish them. That the latter has actually happened does betray an inborn attitude of the policing system in the state and indeed the entire country. The intent of policing in this case is not so much to ensure the law runs smooth to the benefit of everybody, but to demonstrate a sadistic pleasure in making everybody know the power over ordinary people that those in the commanders’ seats of the state wield. If humility is still considered relevant, the department at least should tender a public apology for what happened at Paona Bazar yesterday.

Other than the unnecessary hiccup caused by the brutish nature of the police action, there can be no argument about it that what is being done is an absolute necessity. In fact, this should be just the beginning. As vehicles continue to crowd Imphal city, city authorities must be prepared to even introduce no engine vehicle areas within the city. These areas could then be open only to pedestrians and cyclists. Apart from decongesting, the city would suddenly begin to acquire a manageable as well as a healthy clean look. Such an outcome would be priceless. There is another thing that traffic authorities must enforce. Public transport vehicles, such as shared auto-rickshaws and minibuses must be allowed to stop only at certain designated stops. At this moment, they stop wherever a putative passenger waves, regardless of where they are, sometimes almost causing accidents. Tough measure have to be taken to ensure the laws are respected, but let us once again reiterate the point that the authorities must change their attitude – let the motive be to make everybody respect the law for their own good, and not trap people just to punish them and get cheap thrills out of it.

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