Tag: Editorial

One of the most enduring quips, some say first made by maverick American businessman of the 1970s and 1980s, Lee Iacocca, ex-president of the country`™s third largest automobile company Chrysler, and one of the most rabid critics of Japanese business and its best known doyen then, the founder of Sony Corporation, Akio Morita, goes something like: `If you pay your workers peanuts, you will be left with monkeys working for you.` It may not be Iacocca who actually first said this, but that does not really matter. The truth in these words, however comically delivered, would still slap those in the fledgling private sector in Manipur hard on the face. For owners of these enterprises, the scripts may be different, but for a vast majority of those employed in this sector, it is a thankless struggle, with the road ahead still very uncertain. Compared to the job benefits and salaries their counterparts in the government sector are guaranteed, theirs is still literally just enough to buy peanuts. But the irony is, what they get, is actually the market value of labour at current price, unlike in the government sector, where it is artificially inflated, rendering any notion of material worth of labour, skill or leadership, ridiculous. The example of education is closest to mind. Private schools have left government schools far behind in performance, yet private school teachers still continue to earn `peanuts` as compared to government school teachers. And the former earn `peanuts` because the revenue returns of their institutions, in most cases, are not big enough for all to be comfortable together. If the government salaries were also to be decided on the basis of the revenue their services are able to garner at market value, in all probability government employees would be earning much less than those in the private sector.

This imbalance is not a healthy sign and the Manipur government needs to be wary and do something. For a long time, the Union government (just as another emerging economic giant, China), was doing it. Before the advent of a liberalised economy and the lifting of many protective curtains, these countries took careful efforts to keep the private and public sector at a par, even at the cost of keeping government salaries low. They also shielded their industries from unequal competitions from more advanced economies, at least till such a time as their own industries were mature enough to join the competition as equals. In the long run, as we are witnessing now, these policies paid off. Now it is time to see the same logics work in the internal situation. In such a vast country as India, it would be ridiculous to adopt a one-size-fit-all policy outlook. Indian economy overall may be growing fast, but states like Manipur are still stuck with the infamous `Hindu rate of growth` that Western economists once with condescension described the Indian economy`™s snail pace of less than 3 percent growth. Most immediately, after the recommendations of the 6th Pay Commission for Central employees came to be in force, and state government salaries too were lifted to somewhat not be too far behind, it was again another blow for the fledgling private enterprises here. Since the health of the private sector is unlikely to have improved reciprocally, salaries of employees in these sectors still would not be enough to buy peanuts. As it is, the most talented by and large already go for government jobs and see private jobs as hardly any alternative.

The government must urgently evolve a strategy to reverse the trend. The structure of the Indian federation being such, it will be next to impossible to roll back or obstruct the trends set by the Union, but within its limits, the government must exercise imagination to ensure that private entrepreneurship is not throttled totally. It could for instance reform its industrial credit mechanism. Let it remain competitive, but ease it up wherever essential so that the private sector can continue to grow. This may sound like a vested interest coming from an organisation in the private sector, but let the government think bigger and see the larger picture. At this moment, the only real avenue for it to create jobs for all is by nudging growth in the private sector. Moreover, as Vietnamese economy`™s resilience and the lack of by of economies such as those of Iraq and other middle east countries, as well as Central Asia which were formerly part of the USSR, have proven before all, economies which depended solely on the government to remain afloat are the easiest to collapse, and economies which are as varied, widespread and depended on the natural ingenuity of its people, are the ones which can bounce back even from the brink.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/06/nurture-entrepreneurship/

It is a welcome development that dead bodies, especially horribly defaced victims of violence, have slowly but surely begun disappearing from the front pages of local dailies. Once upon a time, it was almost the thumb rule for the media here to grade news worth of pictures by the gore and violence demonstrated. Crime reporting then was almost literally the lay reporter`™s own post mortem analysis of dead bodies, giving graphic details of how bullets hit the left chin to exitted at the base of the right ear etc. As if this is not enough, pictures of the victim would be printed alongside showing how accurate the descriptions were. Perhaps it is a question of the `shock and awe` value of these pictures depleting because of over use. Why would not it be too, daily carnage having become the state`™s staple? Once upon a time, somebody getting killed even by falling off the balcony or meeting with a scooter accident was shocking news for then unnatural deaths were rare. But today, it is difficult to keep the number of people killed for a week. Violent deaths have ceased to be tragedies that they are. Instead they have relegated to the status of just another routine fact of life.

But on a more optimistic side, it could also very well be a matter of a conscious re-sensitisation process happening in the media and the larger public as such. The latter, if it is true, is important, for this would then be the beginning of, or at least another important contribution to the campaign to de-legitimise violence. Violence in many ways is a state of mind. Even the ordinary and the least violent, are voyeuristically attracted to violence and violent deaths. Notice the number people who would rush to the spot where a suicide hanging has taken place. Crowds at such sites would almost invariably include children, housewives, elders etc. They would then talk about how horrifying the sight was, deriving perverse pleasure out of it even if it is accompanied by a shiver running down their spine. It is this same basic impulse in everybody that shapes the kind of journalism that relishes blood and gore on the front page. Fighting violence at its very basic, in this sense has to begin with an acknowledgement of the necessity to control this impulse. Denunciation of violence has to begin from the individuals and in private homes.

There is yet another danger in the representation of violence in art and literature.
While actual experience of violence is fearsome and traumatic, in art and literature, especially in insensitive hands, it can become static, communicating static emotions and not the actual sensations and the traumas that accompany them so that representation of violence often acquires a peculiar and perverse aesthetics of its own. This perhaps explains why violence on screen is so addictive and has such a large audience. Even cartoon movies and computer games these days contain so much violence, so much so that it is doubtful if today`™s children are able to get the real import of violence and its implications. Parents of school children will know better, but it would not be unreasonable to suspect children today see violence just as they are represented on screen and consider them as just another thrilling activity like hotly contested sporting activities. There is something very wrong in all this and the fight against violence must also include putting violence and its representation in art and literature in the perspective it is meant to be. To put it another way, it cannot be a comfortable experience for anybody to witness an injection performed. When the doctor pierces the patient`™s skin with the needle of the syringe, it would make any normal person cringe. Likewise, to watch somebody biting his or her nail and tear away flesh and skin, as is the repulsive habit of so many, is very discomforting. If he were to take out a razor and begin slashing his own wrist, it would make so many scream with horror even though the injury caused is not to the witness. But this sense of discomfort at witnessing a violent act is often not there in art or media representation of blood and gore. This is why we are encouraged by the waning space for blood and gore on the front pages of our media.

Leader Writer : Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/06/media-and-violence/

Who ultimately pays for all the court cases the government gets to fight perennially, round the year every year. No prizes for guessing it is the tax payers. It is true courts are the civilized forums on which modern disputes are settled, but when there are too many disputes any single institution or individual gets into, it is an indicator something simply is not right somewhere. And when many of the numerous cases that we get to see the government fight are actually untenable and indefensible, legally or morally even to the lay eyes, the problem is all the more acute. The pattern is familiar and it is always a story of how the government tries to sideline or else skirt around the opinion of the judiciary. A typical case history would something like: Government pushes the case of favoured employees in promotion; those at the receiving end file court case challenging the decision; court favours litigants; government resorts to delaying tactics by appealing to higher courts even reaching the Supreme Court in some cases; along the hierarchy the judiciary too vacillates in its opinion, sometimes favouring one and sometimes the other; government finally loses the case, but then the case has lost its relevance as the issue it was being fought have faded into insignificance. Justice delayed become justice denied. To cut the story short, it is atrocious to see this fund scarce state waste so much of its resources on totally avoidable cases. Without going into specifics, suffices it to say that most of the cases, if not all, are service related `“ of promotions denied, of jumping recruitment rules, of nepotism in service advancements, of salary anomalies, of back-dated appointments etc.

The fact also is, the government far too frequently for comfort, faces the inevitable and humiliating fate of fighting cases with no merit or are outright dishonest ones, and loses after years of expensive court-hopping. A Supreme Court ruling against the government in a medical students reservation issue about a decade ago which came about only after four years of losing legal battles in subordinate appellate courts is just one example. There are plenty more. What is extremely frustrating is, no amount of public reproach seems capable of introducing even a little remorse, and the government continues unrelenting with its game. In spite of the funds knowingly flushed down the drain on unnecessary and unsuccessful litigations, there has never been any official stock taking. No appointing authorities of what in effect were governmental decisions declared as illegal by courts, have ever had to face the music. No attorney general, no law minister, no law secretary, no department heads, ever ended up penalized for un-meritorious cases that received hammerings in the courtrooms. It is as if wasting public money is a legitimate part of governance and what is not illegitimate on the other hand is to ask for accountability on these affairs.

But there is another missing accountability that is seldom taken cognizance of `“ this one for the lowering of the esteem of the law in the eyes of the public as a consequence of it being consistently used to defend unjust and corrupt decisions of the government. As mentioned, inordinate delays in justice delivered which almost invariably result in any court entangle, give more cause for this public disenchantment. The question now is, why must this be allowed to continue? Why cannot the government ever think of making an enquiry into this side of its legal management and determine what is wasteful and what necessary? Consequently, what cannot it also evolve some guidelines for determining an accountability scale on this score so that department heads will be a little more wary about entering into, or else inviting unnecessary litigations. Those who willfully and through their unscrupulous decisions invite these cases, and cause wastage of public money, must be made to feel guilty and pay for their action befittingly. As of now, the officialdom walk with the air that they are the untouchables of even the law, privileged to waste public money as and how they so will.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/06/wasteful-litigations/

Signs are, the days of the media as the tough and uncompromising interrogators of established authorities are gone. At least this is what was demonstrated in the sorry aftermath of the June 4 ambush at a spot in Chandel district on a convoy of the 6-Dogra Regiment by militants belonging to three rebel groups operating in the Northeast. The 17 deaths in the ambush was tragic, and there cannot have been anybody whose heart did not bleed at seeing pictures of the families of these soldiers in Himachal Pradesh, devastated and broken. In Manipur, there would not have been many who did not curse the attackers, except for the incorrigibly bitter who probably have had personal misfortunes at the hands of the security forces, a prospect not so uncommon or unimaginable in a land torn by conflict and subjected to oppressive laws. Expectedly, combing operations and manhunts for the militants began almost immediately thereafter, and people waited in bated breaths praying no collateral damages result, as evidenced by the numerous appeals from civil bodies in Chandel through the press. Fortunately, nothing of this sort has happened to the extent known so far, and praise be for this to the Army for keeping the promise the GOC 57 Mountain Division made at the very start of the operations that this would be a people friendly operation.

On June 9, there suddenly was a newsbreak emanating from New Delhi that the Army in special commando operations done in consultations with the Myanmar government gave hot chases to militants, penetrating into Myanmar territory to neutralise (the sanitised term for `kill`™) `a significant number of militants`. So far so good; this is war and in a war, it is natural for combatants to fall. But from here on, the media in New Delhi, in particular the TV channels took over. The `significant number` began having definite two digit figures. Some even began claiming three digit figures quoting unnamed authoritative sources. Talking heads were rushed to studios and the mood everywhere was one of celebration. The blood thirst in the key words in the running headlines would have also made anybody shudder: `revenge`™, `retribution`™, `hit us we hit back harder`™. Many of these words were the adjectives for Manipur and Nagaland, making residents of these states uneasy, embarrassed and on second thought, furious. In the evening of the same newsbreak day, when newspapers in Manipur also sat down to take stock of things, they had with them just two press releases from the PIB Defence Wing and the state police to depend on. Neither had anything that signified hot pursuit into Myanmar territory, so local papers wrote their stories accordingly, though the bolder amongst them used the stories from the websites of these TV Channels to make their stories juicier.

In all the TV shows, there was not a single voice that exercised or recommended healthy doubt which all students of journalism were trained to make it their nature. Nobody questioned these sources, and instead simply joined the celebration. Moreover, what was being celebrated was death `“ several of them at that `“ and this thought itself was gory, even if those killed were enemies. Gone was also the notion that insurgency is a tragic internal war, therefore in the words of Sanjib Baruah, India fighting itself. If American journalists were accused of being embedded with their military in their invasion of Iraq in 2003, who can now say Indian journalists, in particular the frenetic TV channels are not guilty of the same objectionable practice. And now, rather than clinching evidences of the hot pursuit, there are reports of denial this ever happened from the Myanmar government. The embarrassment this would bring the country`™s leadership is sad. But it is also good that it will deflate at least some of the hot airs the media has been bloated with.

However, we would be guilty of not living by the canons of the journalistic profession if we too jump to the conclusion that Myanmar`™s alleged denial has disproven everything that the Indian media sailed on for the past few days. Let us then take this too with a pinch of salt, until facts on the ground establish beyond reasonable doubt the actual truth. In the meantime, perhaps the Union Government should institute an inquiry as to how a supposedly special and secret mission came to be so loudly public within hours. If discretion had been practices, the government would have been saved embarrassment if the mission did not succeed, and if successful, it would have had more chances of continuing with it.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/06/when-media-stops-doubting/

After the devastation of the June 4 insurgent ambush on a 6-Dogra convoy which left 18 soldiers dead, news emanating from press conferences in New Delhi today say the Indian Army has struck back killing an unspecified number of insurgent fighters in the Indo-Myanmar border area along Manipur and Nagaland. It is not certain if the troops entered Myanmar in these operations. We do hope there has been no collateral damage caused. Even if there were none, and all killed were combatants, and even if these combatants were Myanmar domiciles, we would still be sad. Just as we cannot rejoice when Army soldiers are killed, we cannot do so when insurgent combatants are the casualties too. We have no doubt that all wars are evil, and the sooner they come to an end the better. But the sad thing is, this is unlikely to happen so soon, precisely because there are still too many war mongers left in the civil society all around. Leave aside the perpetually screaming talking heads on the TV channels, for they do no analysis except raise the decibel of public hysteria. A more meaningful way to assess this postulate is to do a scan of the opinion pages of sober mainstream newspapers. Such an exercise too would testify the existence of these war mongers.

Perhaps the term war monger is a little too blunt, for the approaches of these analysts are a lot more nuanced. They are war mongers all right, but their war mongering is disguised in intellectual sophistry. Those who have been closely following analyses on the June 4 bloody ambush and its aftermath will have noticed two broad and differing ways of looking at the carnage. One group looks at where the government policies have failed, both in the immediate as well as the longer terms in dealing with this conflict theatre. As for instance, they see with a sense of foreboding that the sudden shift in the insurgency undercurrents was triggered by the government allowing, or encouraging the conclusion of the 14 year old ceasefire it held with the Khaplang faction of the NSCN. True the government may not have done this out of any cynical intent, but so as to facilitate its peace negotiations with the other faction of the NSCN, which because their bases are chiefly on the Indian side of the border, is more important for India. Without pointing any accusative finger at the government of sinister game plans, these analysts do point out the obvious failure of judgment on the part of the government, and their alibi is the current escalation of violence and tension in this conflict theatre.

The other camp sees things quite differently. They see the solution in elimination of all resistance through military means. They coldly analyse ebbs and flows of insurgent morale by doing body counts of soldiers killed every year. They want to see a Bhutan type joint operation to exterminate the militants, both Khaplang`™s own fighters as well as the other NE militants he is giving shelter on his soil. There are however two oversights in this approach. One, in the case of the Bhutan operation against Indian militants, Bhutan`™s only stake was it also wanted to free its territory of what are India`™s war against itself, to use a phrase from Sanjib Baruah`™s book `India Against Itself`. Obviously, this camp does not see this as an `India Against Itself` situation. Unlike in Bhutan, Myanmar has been fighting its own wars against itself on many fronts, and it must be having its own strategies to resolve its problems. Indeed, the country is on ceasefire agreements with almost all its own ethnic insurgencies, although its truce with the powerful Kachins has been barely holding with violent confrontations breaking out every now and then. In any case, experience of the past half a century is proof enough that this extermination approach only complicates the problems.

Meanwhile, our prayers go out to the villagers of the affected areas of Chandel and beyond. We wish them safety. We understand how they would have been helpless even if insurgent fighters came and sought shelter in their villages, as much as they would now be helpless when Army trooper barge into their homes in their search operations. There is nothing to rejoice in this war, as so many war mongers seem to be doing. There is on the other hand, only sorrow at every single news of children, wherever they are, losing their fathers, wives their husbands, mothers their sons, sisters their brothers, in this mindless conflict.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/06/wars-and-war-mongers/

The allegation in the Asian Age daily today that the current unsettled situation in the peace initiative in the Northeast is a handiwork of certain officials in the Ministry of Home Affairs, MHA, is by all standards, grave. If true, it can only be described as cynical and scary. We will have to wait to find out if the government will institute an enquiry and get to the bottom of the charge. In all likelihood, this will be a false hope, but on the other hand, if this was a conspiracy of only a few officials, as the report seems to suggest, and not one which had the support or confidence of the government of the day, things can take a dramatic turn.

The allegation is, the MHA engineered a split in the NSCN-K and patronised the faction opposed to Khaplang to ensure that the latter leaves the peace process with the Government of India. The question is why would anybody want this? The answer, if one considers it from the vantage of realpolitik may not have had any dishonourable intent, though, as it is proving now, short-sighted and therefore doomed to fail. There are two prime reasons for suspecting this. First, Khaplang being a Myanmar domicile, it would have been out of the question for the Government of India to think of reaching any final political agreement with him. Second is the fact that the NSCN has two bitterly opposed factions, one led by Isak and Muivah and the other by Khaplang. The former is the one the Government of India is holding peace talks with and is interested in coming to a settlement, and this faction, it is anybody`™s guess would have wanted the rival Khaplang faction, which too was on ceasefire but still not holding peace talks with the government, out of the way conclusively. The MHA officials may indeed have been working towards this end in the hope that a permanent settlement can be reached with the Isak-Muivah faction, by washing its hands off with the Khaplang faction, leaving it to settle its scores with the Myanmar government.

Things, it is proving now, were never so straight forward. As Rajeev Bhattarcharyya, the Assamese journalist who along with a colleague trekked to Khaplang`™s camp, surmised in a book on his adventure titled `Rendezvous with Rebels` released earlier this year, Khaplang who is referred reverentially as Baba, is a very respected leader in his home grounds in the upper Sagaing Division of Myanmar, and his territory is today virtually a liberated zone where only the writs of his `rebel government` command respect. He is now giving sanctuary to virtually all rebel groups of the Northeast, particularly those of Assam and Manipur. In an interview by Bhattarcharyya, Khaplang also revealed as a matter-of-factly that the presence of many rebel soldiers of different communities of the Northeast, also gives him security, for the size of fraternal troops on his land is a deterrent for the Myanmar Army to think of intruding. In other words, he also has his own interest in giving sanctuary to the NE militants, apart from the idea of promoting a common liberation struggle for which purpose the rebels under his sanctuary have formed a federal rebel alliance called the United Liberation Front of Western South East Asia. The MHA and the Indian intelligence should have picked up this hint long ago, if not from anywhere else, then at least from the Bhattarcharyya`™s firsthand account of the situation in Khaplang`™s camp. Had they done so, they probably would not have gone so wrong in assessing the threat potential of Khaplang and writing him off so casually.

What must the government do now is the question which must be racking the brains of many in the MHA today after the devastating June 4 ambush in Manipur claiming the lives of 18 soldiers of the 6-Dogra and injuring many more. Currently the Army is on an all out manhunt for the attackers at the ambush site, but in all likelihood the rebels would have slipped away into Myanmar territory and safety already. Although the Army top brass have announced the operations will be people friendly, it is unlikely the villagers in the area would not be terrified. There is no transparency at all too for neither the media nor the local police are allowed to enter the area of operation now, therefore all the uncertainty. This is despite the fact that counterinsurgency operations are to be conducted under a unified command of civil police and military, at the top of which is the chief minister, Okram Ibobi. Is it because the military do not trust the local police? Even if the local police were to be kept out of the actual operations, the presence of some local uniformed personnel who speak the local language will mean a lot of difference in instilling confidence and comfort amongst the ordinary innocent villagers in the area.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/06/mha-pushed-into-corner/

A conclave for promotion and bringing media focus on the Northeast, an initiative of Rotary International District 3240 and hosted by Rotary Club of Gauhati West under the theme `Light up the North East` which concluded yesterday at the city`™s brand new 5-star Radison Blu Hotel, threw up some valuable insights into the way the media functions, and also on certain insecurities the Northeast suffers from. The discussions were generally on the way the national media portrays the Northeast and little about the state of the media within the Northeast, in particular the working conditions of local journalists by and large. Though this is unfortunate, it is understandable, for a single day workshop on such a large issue could not have touched on every aspect of the media in the Northeast.

What was however interesting was, there seemed to be an immense concern of what was unanimously seen as a grossly inadequate and lopsided coverage of the Northeast and its issues in what are called the national media. The discussions were expectedly flooded with the dreary old arguments of the national media, interested as they are only in catching eyeballs, normally go for the sensational and exotic thereby always managing to give a skewed picture of the Northeast. But if attentive listeners were able not to fall asleep through the routine chants of these homilies, there were new insights to be had too, including from these homilies. Why are important issues of the Northeast not newsworthy enough to the rest of the country? Or to put it another way, why are important issues of the Northeast deemed not important for the rest of the country? It would be wrong to blame the national media alone for this either, for the media, as everywhere else caters to popular demands. Any student of journalism would know how this relationship between media and audience is determined by the thumb rule of the `five Ws and one H` (the `Ws` and `H` standing for `who, when, what, where, why and how). In other words, the Northeast does not evoke public interest so much for the media to take interest in it. Many remedial measures came up, some again repetition of old homilies and others very sound and refreshing. The best of these, in our opinion was not to wait and plead for the national media`™s attention, but to strengthen the media in the Northeast, both in terms of steeling the local media, as well as Northeast journalists penetrating the national media at the decision making and agenda setting levels. This however can only be achieved through elaborate and long term strategies. It would be good if the media leadership in Manipur too take note of this and begin to think of ways to facilitate such an outcome.

Meanwhile, to go back to the question of the lack of the national public interest, therefore also national media interest in the Northeast, perhaps it would be helpful to refer back to Benedict Anderson`™s 1982 classic `Imagined Communities`, where he argues the nation is an imagined community. An individual can at the best have 100 to 200 actual friends he can remember and also desires to be in touch with. Anderson`™s book of course was written before facebook and other digital social networking sites where an individual can have many more `friends` than he personally knows. But even the largest social networking community would be dwarfed in comparison to a national community. As for instance, in India, a nation of over 1.2 billion people, every citizen is supposed to be bound by the imagined community of being Indian and have concerns about each other. One of the binding threads of such an imagined community, Anderson notes, is the national media. When the national community and the national media have little or no interest in any region, it implies that the region in question has fallen off the psychological map of concern of the nation. This should explain why the national community and national media become concerned of the Northeast only when insurgency violence hits out at the Indian State and its institutions. In other words, the responsibility for bridging this psychological disconnect between what is mainstream India and the Northeast, is heavier on the mainstream than the Northeast. Therefore, the emphasis of nation building endeavours cannot justifiably be carried out solely under the tired and charmless slogan calling for the Northeast to join the mainstream. It should instead be for the mainstream to join the Northeast.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/06/media-and-mainstream/

A basic difference between the West and the East in attitude towards ideal citizenship is rather pronounced and fits into a familiar stereotype. Once again, it is about a rather closed-ended, but definitely tangible materialistic outlook towards the ways of the society, pitted against another that leans towards a more abstract and by that virtue, intangible and extended notions of society and social structures. Hence, in the Western context one often gets to hear individuals talk of model citizenship as constituting of paying ones taxes honestly, respecting rule of law etc. Interestingly, the list of virtues includes one other quality, namely that of donating to charity. Philanthropy is structured into the Western society and many explain this not just a matter of large-heartedness or selflessness, but more a question of what many refer to as enlightened self-interest. The benefits of the money an individual gives to charity will on the one hand directly benefit the needy, but in an indirect and roundabout way, they would come to the donor as well, not just in a metaphysical way, but also very much materialistically. Plenty of examples for this, but first a little more elaboration on the structure of this philanthropy. In Italy`™s income tax law for instance has a clause whereby a tax payer can give 0.8 percent of his income tax due to any of a list of government recognized religious charitable organisations. If the individual does not wish to do so, he or she will have to in any case pay the amount to the government. Many actually pay the 0.8 to religious charitable organisations (as IFP found out during a trip some years ago) and the country being 95 percent Catholic, a majority of this public charity go to Catholic organisations, Charitas being just one of the most prominent, and a name familiar to many developing countries. Now to say that 0.8 percent of the income tax base of a developed nation is respectable is an understatement and this is the kind of money available with this non government sector to do charitable work, including setting up schools and hospitals for the weaker sections, and not the least to spread the religion. The general attitude of suspicion often associated with the funds of Catholic missionaries have should be allayed somewhat by this knowledge that much of it come from voluntary donations. For the West, donating to charity is an intuitive individual strategy for achieving social harmony.

This enlightened self-interest is seen in other Western countries too. The USA for instance must rank top in terms of the number of extremely rich trusts and foundations, funding charitable projects, not just within the country but internationally. It is also true that a good many the top bureaucrats in New Delhi have children studying in the US on some fellowship provided by these American trusts. Understandably, if one`™s son or daughter is studying in America on American scholarship, or is working there after the programme, one would most likely have at least something nice to say about America. The implication is, this charity has a bearing on international diplomacy and politics too. The enlightened self-interest here is obvious. Former chairman of Chrysler Lee Iacocca in his irreverent and crass criticism of Henry Ford-II his former boss and later sworn enemy, (in his autobiography:`Lee Iacocca`) puts this in a crass and distasteful way when he claimed that Ford was interested in uplifting the working class and creating a middle class so that they would have the money to buy his cars. Iacocca`™s statement may have been a result of personal spite, all the same he outlined a deep and basic psychology behind Western philanthropy `“ you get as much as you give.

Contrast this with the Eastern notion of a model citizen. The mantra all of us have heard and internalized from early childhood, is that good citizenship basically constitutes of respecting one`™s parents, elders, teachers, etc. A good man here donates (makes sacrifices) to temples in the hope of divine rewards, but forgets about making a contribution to charity from which orphans and destitute can benefit. The civic nature of citizenship is treated as secondary, and one which would follow as a corollary of the first set of values. Citizenship is no longer something the structure of the state can help mould, but a spiritual, a non-materialistic goal. Public charity plays little part in this scheme of things too. Hence, while India has many super rich citizens, charitable trusts rich enough to fund social projects in a big way still remains negligible.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/06/absent-civic-citizenship/

In a devastating ambush this morning on a five-vehicle convoy of the 6-Dogra Regiment in the Moltuk area of Chandel district of Manipur, 110 km from Tengnoupal Police Station, close to the Indo-Myanmar border, at least 17 soldiers were reported killed and 16 others injured. The soldiers who had completed their posting at the remote Moltuk village were leaving with their bags and baggage, and probably with home in mind rather than a gunfight, putting themselves off guard and therefore made extremely vulnerable. The attackers probably also had intelligence of this vulnerable moment and timed the ambush accordingly. Claims are now beginning to come to newspaper offices, and so far they confirm suspicions that this could have been the handiwork of the newly formed, United Liberation Front of Western South East Asia, ULFWSEA, constituting of a number of insurgent groups from the Northeast, under the leadership of SS Khaplang, the chief of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, NSCN, faction with which the Government of India had only recently called off its ceasefire. Khaplang on the other hand still holds a ceasefire with the Myanmar government. Nearly all of the insurgent groups from not just Manipur but also the entire Northeast, now have their bases in Myanmar enjoying the safe sanctuary provided by Khaplang. The Government of India ended its truce with Khaplang faction of the NSCN thinking it to have been reduced to a spent force in India, and to pursue peace with the stronger rival NSCN faction led by Isak Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah with which it has been holding peace talks since 1997. Today`™s ambush could be Khaplang`™s message that he can still hit back within Indian territory in many different ways, apart from dramatically announcing the arrival of ULFSEA.

Today`™s deadly ambush changed the complexion of a public outrage building up over the killing of a woman, M Ruisoting Aimol, a 56 year old social activist belonging to a small tribe Aimol in the Chandel district, by troops of the 20 Assam Rifles posted at Bonyang village. According to the villagers, the soldiers, accompanied by an officer, came to the village in a white Maruti Gypsy with some masked men at 9.45pm on May 31 and searched out the woman. They then planted some incriminating items at her place before shooting and injuring her. Villagers thereafter brought her to a hospital in Imphal where she succumbed to her injury on June 2. The villagers further allege that the soldiers had also earlier come to the village at 11.35pm on June 27 and harassed the villagers. The news of this atrocity remained lost in the din of the hotly contested Autonomous District Council elections in the hill districts, polling for which was held on June 1. However after the dust of the electioneering settled, public attention shifted back to the case of the murdered woman. The Aimol tribe called a general strike, and several civil society bodies all over the state responded to the call. However, no sooner did the strike begin, it was called off following a truce brokered by the Manipur government between the aggrieved Aimol tribe and the Assam Rifles. In Manipur`™s absurd theatre today, even grief and mourning are open to bargain and negotiation. This is understandable, considering the climate of official impunity introduced by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Victims virtually have no guarantee at all that perpetrators will be punished, so rather than lose everything, the intuition now is to bargain for some material compensation at least. In most cases the price demanded is a government job or cash.

Today`™s devastating ambush and the atrocious killing of the Aimol woman a few days earlier, illustrate the tragedy of a violent civil strife and the dilemma before the liberal State to come up with a liberal answer; a failure of the moral imagination. Often, in the AFSPA debate so sensitive in the Northeast region, the two kinds of violence are so falsely aligned on the `us versus them` binary, making them either the justification or else a case for condemning draconian measures of the State. The AFSPA debate thus gets reduced to the instrumental `you hit me first` rhetoric, or that of extraordinary situations deserving extraordinary measures. Lost in the process is the ethical question of whether the end always justifies the means. Placing the two kinds of violence on opposite poles is also false for one more thing. The objection to the AFSPA is not so much to the military meeting a military challenge to the State. It is more about making the atrocities committed under the AFSPA accountable to democratic law. This is what the Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee`™s recommendation on the AFSPA said in 2005; this is also what the Veerappa Moily Administrative Reform Committee 2005 recommended; this is what Santosh Hegde Commission on encounter deaths in Manipur 2013 also said. Let the AFSPA debate then not be swayed by the immediate and instead be thrashed out on the moral plane.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/06/false-binary-of-violence/

Who says human nature has changed with the lapse of eras. If the developments around the South China Sea are any indication, nothing seems to have changed from the way humans behaved in the prehistoric times. Recall the ceremony of horse sacrifice in the Vedic Ages, of which those of us familiar with the two Hindu epics of Mahabharata and Ramayana would have some idea of. There is much more to this ritual of Ashvamedha Yajna, even pertaining to a primitive fertility ritual, but for the purpose of illustrating the postulate we are making here, another part of this same ritual is all that is necessary. In this Yajna, a white stallion is released by a king who wishes to demonstrate the extent of his influence and territory, and allowed to roam free for months. Stopping the horse even when it enters the territories of other rulers would be treated as a challenge to the king and any person or persons who have dared do this would have to deal with the king. Recall the story of how Rama fought and was defeated by his exiled twin sons, Luva and Kusha when the king`™s sacred stallion was stopped by the two boys. In like manner in the Mahabharata too, Arjuna`™s son Babruvahana, born of Chittrangada, one of Arjuna`™s many wives spread over the sub-continent, stopped his father`™s Yajna horse and ultimately killed his father in battle without knowing who he was. As to what became of these stories or what saved the situations are another matter.

What is noteworthy here is the drama unfolding in the South China Sea is very similar in theme and content to these ancient accounts of contests of power. The US has been using the seas and air in this region unchallenged, even though these are in the backyards of many sovereign nations. Then one fine day, its ships and planes sailing and flying over these seas are challenged by an emerging superpower `“ China. The last words have not been said yet, but the tension is currently palpable. China, in a recent White Paper of its military policy, clearly stated its intent of not restricting its power hold to just land, which was historically the focus of its Imperial outlook, and to instead go ahead and spread its influence far into the blue waters. It has accordingly begun claiming islands far into the South China Sea as its own, although many of them are in the vicinity of other smaller nations, escalating tension in the region. International headlines initially were dominated by its standoff with Japan on the ownership of the uninhabited Senkaku/Daiyu islet. And now the headlines have shifted to it is dredging and filling of the Spratly group of partially submerged reefs and islets about 950 km off its shores, to ostensibly build an airstrip over them. This has not only been met with resistance and apprehension by other smaller South East Asian nations such as Philippines and Vietnam, but also put China on a confrontational path with the USA which has used these waters and airspace as if they were its own all along though thousands of miles away from its own mainland. Many even predict open war over the issue, and at best a new Cold War. But in the inscrutable world of international diplomacy, what ultimately becomes of this faceoff still remains to be seen.

There are of course many implications of what is developing in the South China Sea, consequent upon the rise of China as a new superpower to break the sway of the US in a world which has since the fall of the USSR become mono-polar. It has serious implications for India too, calling for a need for it to readjust its political alignments. Indeed, it does seem China`™s dramatic rise in the past three or four decades is already beginning to shake up the world order in a big way. The Ashwameda Yajna vessels and planes of the US, and for that matter all else who have been using these waters and air spaces, are now being challenged by China. The question is what next. What is also of interest is our initial postulate. Humans have been territorial always, and perhaps it is another basic instinct. The horse sacrifice rituals of ancient times, and the contest for power these rituals signified, are still being played out today rather dramatically, and we must add, dangerously.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/06/great-gig-in-the-seas/

First, we are happy that the queries we placed on the manner three Trinamool MLAs were disqualified by the Manipur Speaker, Th. Lokeshwar Singh, although three constitutes more than one third of the party`™s total of seven MLAs in the Assembly, has been answered, thanks to a healthy discussion thread in a social network site, which prompted us to scan the internet for more information on the matter. Paragraph 3 of the 10th Schedule`™s original 1985 text, which said any group of MLAs of a legislature party can split their party without attracting disqualification under the 10th Schedule if they form one third of the total strength of their original legislature party, had been omitted in 2004, following the 91st Amendment of the Constitution the previous year. As it stands today, a legislature party can only merge with another party and will attract no penalty under the 10th Schedule if two thirds of its MLAs decide to do so together. However, if some MLAs from the original legislature party decide to go against this decision of a majority of the party`™s MLAs to split party, they too will not be penalised for defying the whip of the majority, and can continue to be members of their original legislature party. For the good or the bad, this is the law as it stands today, that is, until it becomes necessary for the Parliament to amend it to give it another shape. Under the circumstance, there can be no longer any dispute about the disqualification of the three Trinamool MLAs for splitting the party. On the related question raised in many quarters about the merger of five legislators of the MSCP to the Congress earlier, the 10th Schedule is no barrier as it allows merger, provided those opting to merge form two thirds of the legislature party they are abandoning. Since all five MLAs of the MSCP made the decision on the merger unanimously, the issue was effectively sealed there and then, and they were not acting against the law.

It is another matter that many people were repulsed by the habitual acts of disloyalty of these MLAs. Though good laws must be as close as possible to the intuitive and universal sense of rectitude, this is not always possible. Procedural law, which is what modern law is about, therefore cannot always guarantee a sense of natural justice, but it goes without saying it must strive to. As for instance, once upon a time slavery was not illegal, though few or nobody would have ever doubted it was morally wrong even then. Today it is unquestionably illegal, under national and international laws. To take a more glaring and immediate example, one which those in the Northeast will have no trouble understanding, there is the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. From the moral and philosophical standpoint, there will be few who endorse this draconian law. Yet, it is the law, though on an incremental basis, it is distancing itself from any sense of rectitude, in the Northeast, in the rest of the country, and the world. It survives as a statute not because of its moral rightness, but because it addresses a paranoiac sense of insecurity of the Indian State. We do hope someday this gulf between legality and rectitude will be bridged, and a law that addresses what are legitimate insecurities of the State as well as takes care of the problems on the ground replaces it. Until such a time the, liberal thinkers who believe in the virtues of democracy will have to hang their heads in shame, for the continuance of the AFSPA is a dark reminder to all of the failure of the liberal imagination. This is not to suggest the Northeast has ceased to be in a disturbed condition. Many parts of it still are far from normal, but it is for the liberal State to come up with what has been referred to as the moral imagination to tackle the issue, other than by the use of dark and sinister laws.

Leader Writer: pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/06/between-law-and-rectitude/

The second election to the Autonomous District Councils, ADCs, in the hill districts, after their revival five years ago following a long hibernation, were held today. Fortunately, despite apprehensions, the polling concluded well by and large though marred at some places by sporadic violence. Surprisingly and encouragingly, the elections were marked by active participation of the electorate both during the campaign period as well as polling. It is a surprise, because going by the sceptics, these councils are damp squibs and at best placebos for ADCs under the 6th Schedule. It is at the same time encouraging because the enthusiasm shows that positive grassroots politics is alive and kicking in the hill districts. Maybe these ADCs do not have the degree of autonomy of the 6th Schedule ADCs, but their power structure is very close to those guaranteed by the Panchayati Raj which has been adopted in much of the rest of the country, and in the valley districts of Manipur as well. Understandably it has its strengths and its pitfalls. Very broadly, while the 6th Schedule ADCs have a measure of financial autonomy, the ADCs in Manipur are like implementing partners of developmental works of the state government, and certain departments have to have their programmes executed through these grassroots institutions. There have been plenty of hiccups in this relationship, but much of these also have had to do with local politics. One of these is, Panchayat and ADC leaders who work at the grassroots and are in constant touch with the people, at another level become threats to the positions of local MLAs, for the former can, and have more often than not aspired to the higher political platform of the State Legislative Assembly.

But leave the debate on the structures of these grassroots bodies for the time being, and instead go to the more immediate concerns expressed from different quarters over the manner the just concluded ADC elections were conducted. As expected, one of these relates to the paranoia that these elections too is likely to be hijacked by the campaign to have the state dismembered, in particular by those pushing for an alternative administrative arrangement pending a larger resolution of the Naga political movement for which leaders of the NSCN(IM) have been holding talks with the Government of India for the last 17 years and more. Obviously this interpretation is influenced by the attempts of the Nagaland People`™s Front, NPF, to make inroads into Manipur politics, both at the Assembly level as well as the grassroots, and the vociferous statements, often provocative, by their supporters in the state. Quite by coincidence, there is also the sensitive issue of the Dzuko Valley ownership which has come to the fore recently in the wake of alleged encroachment into this beautiful valley from the Nagaland side, although the valley belongs to both Manipur and Nagaland in parts, and traditionally to the Mao and Southern Angami communities. This issue too has added to the current milieu.

None of these issues are unimportant. Manipur must tackle them all, but to club them as part of a larger campaign to dismember Manipur would amount to mistaking the wood for the forest. Though important, and though they related to land in their own ways, all of them are not the same, therefore cannot be to anybody`™s benefit, seen as parts of any single grand design. The Dzuko Valley issue for instance has nothing to do with the Greater Nagaland issue. As we have written before, the valley is best left alone for all nature lovers to admire, and for the local communities of Mao and Southern Angami to benefit from this universal admiration. Nagaland and Manipur government should put their heads together to have the valley declared as a UNESCO world heritage site instead. On the NPF entry into the ADC elections, what changes can this bring about? There are NFP legislators in the Manipur Assembly, what difference that has made to the Greater Nagaland campaign? Nothing, except some silly debating brownie points with which supporters of the campaign think they can convince everyone that there is widespread disenchantment of these areas with the Manipur administration. Let it however be known, the people who are to be convinced of such a swing of emotion are not passive listeners ready to swallow anything they are fed with. They know how and why things happen to great extents. The moment this is realised, even the stalemate over the Naga peace talks should begin showing results.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/06/deconstructing-a-paranoia/

The disqualification of three MLAs of the All India Trinamool Congress by the Manipur Legislative Assembly Speaker Th. Lokeshwar Singh, is being understandably protested by supporters of these MLAs, but leaving aside their disappointment at their leaders being so unceremoniously deposed, there are certain legal doubts which have not been explained adequately by the 31-page ruling of the Speaker. The first of these has to do with the very basic condition set by the 10th Schedule, popularly known as the Anti-Defection Law, that elected MLAs (or MPs) of a political party cannot cross the floor of the Assembly (or Parliament) without attracting penal action under this law unless the defecting group constitutes one third of the total strength of the party in the Assembly (or Parliament) as the case may be. In our case, this will be the 10th Manipur Legislative Assembly. The fact is the Trinamool Congress returned seven MLAs in the last Assembly election. The fact is also four MLAs wanted to break away from the party, claiming they had formed another party. The obvious conclusion is, four is way above one third of seven, therefore their wanting to leave their original party should not have attracted review under the 10th Schedule at all. Moreover, one of the four rebels had expired in the meanwhile, leaving the Trinamool with only six MLAs in total, and the rebels with three.

Let us do some interesting permutations. One third of seven is approximately two point three. Since we cannot have a fraction of an MLA, the (.3) would have to be converted to a whole number. By the basic thumb rule of mathematics, in such a situation, (.5) is taken as the median. Therefore 2.3 MLAs would have been treated as two MLAs. There was some ambiguity here, however, after the demise of one MLA, and the total number of Trinamool MLAs was reduced to six. One third of six MLAs thus becomes a round figure of two, so there should have been no uncertainty anymore. In either scenarios, three (or four) MLAs leaving a legislature party of six (or seven), should have been seen as commanding the requisite number not to attract the 10th Schedule. If each disqualification case was treated as separate cases, having different merits to be adjudicated, then perhaps there would have been no escape from penalties under the 10th Schedule, but the judgment on all the three was by a single order. Moreover, there was only one petitioner against all of the dissident MLAs, and his case was fought by his two advocate team. Similarly, all the dissidents had only one advocate fighting for them. The Speaker`™s order itself mentions in para 2 that `these cases were taken up together, with the consent of the parties, for the hearing and disposal by a common order.` Further on in the same para the ruling again says `all the pending Disqualification Cases filed by the petitioners, involved identical facts and similar issues`. In para 49, the Speaker`™s ruling again says that the dissidents confirmed by `their acts/actions and admissions` that they were forming a new political party thereby substantiating `the contentions of the petitioners`.

In other words, the three MLAs were disqualified because they wanted to leave their original party and form a new party. The point is, this cannot be a justification for disqualifying the MLAs for the 10th Schedule does not put a blanket ban on MLAs switching loyalties, either by defecting or by voting against the party whip in any contest of strength in the Assembly. It only puts a tough restriction that they have to first muster the strength of one third of their original legislature party to split without attracting penalty. If it was a blanket ban on dissenting voices, it would have been by democracy`™s own definition, tyranny. Those who remember the debates on the 10th Schedule at the time it was being introduced in 1985 will be in no doubt that this danger was acknowledged by all at the time. If the Parliament and Assemblies acquire meaning because of the dialectics between the voices of the Treasury benches and the dissenting voices of the Opposition benches, the same principle of respecting dissenting voices must be allowed within the different legislature parties too, but as it was realised, with some structural barriers so inner party dissidence cannot be engineered easily from outside. Under the circumstance, should the Speaker not be asked to explain how four (or three) MLAs wanting to leave a legislature party of seven (or six) can attract the provision of the 10th Schedule? Clearly, in this case, the dissenters formed the majority voice within the legislature party, and their majority opinion was being snuffed out. Is this not anti-democratic, other than being in clear contravention of the terms set by the 10th Schedule?

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/05/speakers-strange-verdict/

By Pradip Phanjoubam

(This article was first published in Siddharth Varadarajan and Sidharth Bhatia`™s new project which is already creating ripples in the media as well as academic circles in the country. This is the second article the writer has written on the McMahon Line for this web journal. Unlike the first, which was published by The Wire on May 20, 2015, and crossed the 1000 `shares`™ mark on the popular social network facebook in two days, and still remains as one of the most read article, as assessed each day by the website, this one published on May 26, 2015 was amongst the top stories of the website for just two days and has been shared only 89 times on facebook, which is large but hardly can be termed viral.
In this article, the writer argues that India`™s boundary problem with China in the Eastern sector over the McMahon Line may not originally be so much about territory from the vantage of China, and more about a historical baggage that the McMahon Line carries as a product of the controversial Simla Conference of 1913-1914. For China, ratifying the McMahon Line would have amounted to recognizing the treaty making power of Tibet therefore endorsing Tibet`™s claim of sovereignty from China. This article is also a response to the statement of National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval, when he in his Rustamji memorial lecture in New Delhi a week ago made the interesting remark that China recognizes the McMahon Line in the Myanmar sector but not in the Indian sector in an accusative tone implying China was partial in a sinister way. The article argues this does not necessarily have to have been the case.)

Without actually meaning to, the National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval, could have stumbled upon an important key to the vexed boundary issue between India and China. In his recent Rustamji memorial lecture in New Delhi, Doval had alluded that China acknowledges the McMahon Line in the Myanmar sector but not in the Indian sector. China has since responded to Doval`™s statement with the old posture that it considers the McMahon Line illegal.

It is true that part of the McMahon Line extends into Myanmar, and this is understandable for when the line was drawn, Myanmar (then Burma) was still clubbed with India since its annexation by the British in 1885. By the Government of India Act 1935, grounds were laid for putting Burma under a separate administration and the actual bifurcation happened in 1937. In fact, as Parshottam Mehra notes, one of the reasons why Olaf Caroe was in a hurry to publish the McMahon Line in the Aitchison`™s Treaties, which he ultimately did in 1938 under controversial circumstances, is this imminent separation.

China settled its outstanding boundary issues with Burma in 1960, and in the Burmese sector of the McMahon Line, in physical terms the settlement is virtually an adoption of the same alignment, with some minor gives and takes. Burma ended up returning 132 sq miles of territory to China and China 85 sq miles to Burma. However the important point is, the boundary agreed upon is not the McMahon Line anymore but a new line ratified by `The Burma-China Boundary Treaty of October 1, 1960`.

There is nothing trivial about this. From China`™s point of view, removing the historical baggage which comes with the McMahon Line may be what is more important than some territory lost or gained in accepting the line. From its vantage, an international acknowledgment of its sovereignty over Tibet would not be negotiable but a boundary realignment proposal should be open to parleys. Tibet therefore would not have treaty concluding powers, and the McMahon Line was the result of a negotiation between the Tibetan and British plenipotentiaries in the Simla Conference 1913-14, without the Chinese plenipotentiary taken into confidence, for reasons already discussed in an earlier article.

This has had an important precedent in the triangular relationship between British India, China and Tibet. In 1904, Lord Curzon, suspicious of the proximity of the 13th Dalai Lama with Russia under the influence of a Siberian monk of the Buriat community settled in Lhasa, Agvan Dorjiev, invaded Tibet. Curzon`™s suspicion may have had a basis, as Charles Bell notes, for the Dalai Lama, wary of the British, refused all communications from Curzon and even returned a letter from the latter unopened. On the other hand, in 1901, the Dalai Lama sent Dorjiyev as his envoy to the Russian Tsar and Dorjiev returned with gifts from the Tsar, including some Russian firearms.

The officer who led the 1904 invasion, Col. Francis Younghusband, forced a treaty on Tibet. If Curzon was allowed to have his way and this treaty remained as it was, in all likelihood, Tibet could have ended up close to what Sikkim was. But this was not to be, and the treaty was ultimately undone step by step, both at the behest of London and China, for different reasons.

Quite ironically, although the Tibetans were the ones who ended up massacred by Col. Younghusband and his soldiers, and the Lhasa Convention was a grossly unequally treaty forced on them, it was still a treaty which could have been a valuable alibi for Tibet`™s claim to sovereignty. This treaty was concluded between the Tibetans and the British, though the Dalai Lama was not a signatory as he had fled to Mongolia to avoid capture by the invaders. But significantly, China was not a party. As one of his predecessors Lord Dufferin had towards the end of the 19th Century concluded, Curzon too was of the opinion that China`™s control over Tibet then was a fiction, and decided to deal with the Tibetans on Tibetan affairs directly.

The victimised Tibetans understandably would have been blinded by outrage to appreciate the longer term implications of this treaty, but these implications were not lost on the Chinese. The latter immediately activated its diplomatic channels to initiate talks in Calcutta to work to undo this treaty. When it became evident the treaty would not be abrogated, the Chinese first tried to prevail upon the British that the treaty should be made legitimate only after another treaty with the Chinese ratified it. When Curzon was still in charge this did not work and the Calcutta talks was abandoned. Fortunately for the Chinese, Curzon`™s term as Viceroy ended in 1905. In London too, the conservative Arthur Balfour government made an exit the same year to give way to the liberal Henry Campbell-Bannerman government, further removing China`™s hurdles. The failed Calcutta talks was revived in Peking in 1906 and the Peking Convention adopted the Lhasa agreements with modifications. Also noteworthy was that though the agenda of the Peking Convention was Tibet, no Tibetan representative was part of the negotiations.

China was even ready to pay substantial costs to bring the matter to such a conclusion. One of the main articles of the 10-article Lhasa Convention was that Tibet was to pay war reparation of Rs. 75 lakhs to the British in an annual instalment of Rs. 1 lakh. Until this was paid in full, Chumbi Valley adjacent to Sikkim and Bhutan, was to be in British custody. The Tibetans were unlikely to be able to pay this so in effect it had meant a permanent British presence in Tibet. Lord Ampthill as officiating Viceroy while Curzon was on leave, voluntarily had this amount reduced to Rs. 25 lakhs in 1904 itself. The Chinese offered to pay this, and also to have the British agree that the payment be made in just three instalments. Chumbi Valley thus returned to Tibet in three years.

Maybe China was and still is looking for a settlement of the McMahon Line issue with India along this line. In October 1960, immediately after resolving its boundary issues with Burma, including the Burmese portion of the McMahon Line, Chou En Lai and his team flew down to New Delhi but the mood in India was different. The Aksai Chin highway had only been recently built and the Khampa uprising in Tibet had been suppressed brutally, prompting the 14th Dalai Lama to flee and take refuge in India in 1959. Nehru was besieged by the right wing in Parliament, including by those within his own party, and by the media that he was betraying Tibet and letting down India. After talks failed in New Delhi, Chou En Lai flew to Kathmandu where too, as in Burma, they settled their boundary issues, including dividing Mt. Everest by the watershed principle.

It will be a tough moral decision for India. Disowning the Simla Agreement would be a blow to the Tibetan cause, but having another boundary treaty supersede the Simla Agreement without substantially changing the McMahon Line alignment may prove to be a major step toward a resolution of India`™s border issues with China.

(The writer is editor the Imphal Free Press, Imphal. His book, written as fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, on the geopolitics that shaped the physical map as well as psychology of the Indian Northeast is due to be published later this year.)

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/05/for-china-removing-the-historical-baggage-of-mcmahon-may-be-more-important-than-the-line-itself/

The helplessness was not just palpable, but infectious as well. Yesterday, the chief minister, Okram Ibobi, speaking at the district level Congress workers`™ conference in connection with the celebration for the 125th birth anniversary of Dr BR Ambedkar at the public ground near Aimol Tampak, Pallel again tried to reassure the audience that things will not change for the worse even though the Centre, as per the outlook of the new BJP government, has ended the special category status enjoyed by Northeastern states. According to him, the Centre cannot stop the fund flow to Manipur. We however fail to see his logic. Essentially the government exchequer is filled by tax money. As per the federal dispensation of India, certain taxes go to the Central kitty directly and certain others to the states. There is a formula by which these tax revenues are pooled in and then redistributed amongst the states and the Union governments. Generally, this is to ensure some degree of parity between the different states, and states which have big tax bases do not end up keeping all and states with small tax bases are not left with inadequate funds. States in the Northeast would by and large fall in the latter category of states with little or no tax bases of their own, therefore so far given special category status so that they get more than their entitled shares by the general redistribution formula.
It is difficult to imagine where the chief minister will bring in the money which used to come to the state as grants, after the grants have been stopped. Will he be thinking in terms of reforming the tax structure in the state too, including bargaining with the Centre for a greater share of the Central taxes raised from the state? Will he be thinking of living within means, therefore sizing down salaries, or else lobby with the Centre to allow levying taxes on Central government institutions and jobs in the state? All these options at this moment seem at best fantasies? A sudden shift in the tax regime can cause huge social turmoil, and it also cannot go outside the permissible parameters set by the Union tax schemes either. For too long these states have been taking the matter too easy, and living as if the special category status is a given condition which would not change ever.

In all likelihood, the new policy does not mean there will be a depletion of the volume of expenditure on the former special category states. It probably means many developmental and governance programmes so far in the hands of the state governments, will now be taken over by the Central government. Thus, there will be a sizing down of funds passed on to these state governments, but the spread of the fields of expenditure these governments traditionally were given the responsibility of will be reduced, so that the smaller funds in their hands now can still keep them going. As it is, in the past few decades a great number of developmental schemes in the states have already come to be in the hands of the Centre, and now in all likelihood more will be taken over by the Centre. In all these years, both in the corridors of power as well as in the intelligentsia, there have been so much talk of funds pumped into the Northeast turning black and being siphoned off into individual pockets of the local power elites. Maybe this new outlook is influenced by this long cultured and widespread perception, false or otherwise.

If this guess is true, whatever the justification, it would be pathetic to see these state governments reduced to mere caricatures, left to take care of nothing more than disbursement of government employees`™ salaries. Let the local BJP not be happy about this either. If the structure of the tax redistribution is changed in the manner, they too would be in the same soup if they do ever come to power. In fact, public resentment may well turn against them for it is their government at the Centre which will be putting these state governments in this humiliating situation. In the meanwhile, whether the Centre relents and allows the special category status of these states to continue or not, these states and their people must learn the lesson and prepare to earn their own money, and also to live within their means. Official corruption must end too. Let them realise, even if does not end today, the special category status cannot be forever. Some day or the other, other states will protest their taxes are subsidising none earning states.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/05/no-more-special/

The Tripura government has withdrawn the controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA, from the state. The state chief minister, Manik Sarkar announced this yesterday, citing a wane in the insurgency situation in the state. He also said the Left front government in his state had also earlier tried to repeal the AFSPA but did not get the consent of the Centre. This time obviously the Centre has given this consent. This development contrasts with the recent imposition of AFSPA in Arunachal Pradesh, a state which has no serious history of insurgency so far. These are interesting turns of events indeed.

One thing is certain from the Tripura chief minister`™s statement. It is a myth that the states can on its own decide whether it needs AFSPA or not, for it is entirely up to the states to declare themselves as disturbed area under the Disturbed Area Act, DAA. While it is true AFSPA can only be imposed in places where DAA has been declared, what is not written but also true is, it is the Centre which through unseen pressures dictates whether a state should declare itself disturbed. This should have been obvious all along, but the myth has been allowed to persist. When the Jeevan Reddy Commission, recommended AFSPA`™s replacement with a civil act, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, modified and upgraded to make military operation under it possible, it was only the Centre which stood in the way of adopting this recommendation. It is also known that within the Central government it was the military lobby which ensured the recommendation was shelved. This came straight from the horse`™s mouth. The former home minister, P Chidambaram minced no words in revealing this publicly several times.

When the AFSPA is seen as only a manifestation of the will of the Central government and not that of the states, its meaning should become clearer. Since law and order is a state subject, the implication is, AFSPA is meant to tackle is not merely an internal law and order situation. Insurgency in the Northeast and Kashmir, the only two regions where the AFSPA is applicable, is seen as a form of military aggression and challenge to the Indian State. This may actually be the case, but it needs to be admitted if indeed the Centre sees the situation as such. From a purely human rights perspective, such a situation will have other protections for non-combatants especially, but for the combatants as well, for then, international humanitarian laws defined by the Geneva Conventions and The Hague Laws etc, will become applicable. India`™s dilemma is understandable. It does not want to call this a war situation for obvious reasons, but it does not think it is a mere law and order situation either. The failure of liberal imagination in such a situation is in evolving an appropriate response to this grey zone of a violent crisis.

Although developments in the US where police brutality and partiality are already an appalling alarm bell, the answer will have to be in strengthening the civil police to handle such situation. The police can be even more brutal than the Army, but the difference is, they will come under civil law and the ordinary citizens will not feel totally disempowered in tackling them. This being the case, policemen will not be given to the same degree of impunity and arrogance that security forces operating under the AFSPA are prone to. Policemen can and do end up committing accesses, but the ordinary citizens on the streets can also get back at them for these accesses legitimately through the courts or else through democratic pressures on the legislators elected by their votes. In the BT Road daylight killing for instance, the civil population was outraged but not left powerless to seek justice. That justice was delayed or ultimately not delivered adequately is a failure of execution and not intent of the system. The Army can be and should be there as back up fire power if and when the need arises, just as it is there to help when natural calamities strike. The argument that the Army cannot function without the AFSPA is spurious. Laws are made by the Parliament, and in a system where the Parliament is supreme, the Army should have no other option than to abide by the laws the Parliament makes. The Jeevan Reddy Commission`™s recommendation was precisely about making the Army operate, but also accountable to civil(ised) modern law where civil welfare is paramount, and not one that should belong to the savage days of colonialism. The Indian Army is a great organisation, but the AFSPA is giving it and the entire country a bad name.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/05/afspa-in-news/

Perfect social and economic equality is a myth, which is perhaps why a perfect Communist state too has always been a dream too far. It is not uncommon for this dream to turn into a nightmare too. Nobody has done a better parody of such dream chasers than George Orwell, first in `Animal Farm` and hen in another novel `1984 – A Novel`. The latter was first published in 1949 and is more of a prophecy of what things would be like in 1984 if the illusory chase persists. With the advantage of hindsight, we do know nothing of the nature of what Orwell imagined happened in the year 1984 or even later. But we do know that in the closing decade of the last century, the obituary for all totalitarian rules was already written. Difference between peoples is a destiny of nature and there is nothing much anybody can do about this. All things are by this virtue, different despite very many similarities. Even children of the same parents have as many differences as there are similarities. Inclinations, temperaments, intelligence quotients, skills etc, have seldom been identical, not even in mono-zygotic twins (identical twins). All the better too, for variety is what ensures life is never a drag. In any case, to force everybody to a pre-defined level in the name of equality can hardly be called promoting freedom.

Celebrating variety and differences does not however also mean we must celebrate inequality. On the other hand, this is only a reiteration of a much stated wisdom that the quest for an egalitarian society must be set on a different foundation. The basic principle must be to make opportunities equal, and from then on let it be every individual`™s lookout. No we are not at all talking about existing or planned positive discrimination policy measures. Let that be a matter of another debate. We are here talking about a more fundamental issue of ensuring equal opportunities precisely by ensuring basic quality education. Unfortunately, this is one area which the government has been neglecting for far too long, and in the process creating a condition in which availability of opportunities has been incrementally made unequal. In fact, thanks to this criminal neglect, the ladder to the top echelon of the social hierarchy may have already become totally unavailable to a larger section of the society`™s future generations. In this increasingly competitive world, which student from a poor family who has had no option but to study in a government primary school can hope to bag a seat in the courses for the top professions such as medicine and engineering etc. Given the quality of education in government schools where a majority are bound by the economic conditions to study, can opportunities be said to be equal even if by a legal definition it may be so and there are no legal obstacles against any class of students from taking part in the competition.

In this regard, the new and imaginative initiative of the government to revive government schools is laudable. Other than this, by and large those who have held the rein of power in the state have remained unconcerned. They have allowed the school system here to rot though they would have their own children educated away from the state, and be amongst the elite few to book a place in the society`™s top strata. Year after year, government schools have shown dismal results in the public examinations, and this year too it was hardly different. For far too long, recruitment of teachers have been through D.O. letters and recommendations, rather than merit. Teachers`™ transfers and postings too have been by the same route. Bad performances by schools have gone un-penalised just as outstanding performances have seen no rewards. Schools without students as well as schools without teachers have been allowed to remain outside the government scanner. This condition of anarchy, it seems is the government`™s idea of freedom.

The question is, can a minority group who has had all the best benefits the system can provide, ever find peace in the same space they will have to share with a majority who had been excluded from the system altogether because of dereliction of duty and responsibility by those in power. Inequalities that result because of natural differences and abilities will seldom be resented, but inequality because of deprived opportunities is what comes with explosive potentials. Manipur is currently witness to this phenomenon. We do hope there is a change of outlook soon.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/05/bane-of-inequality/

The prevailing chaos in Manipur today, especially ahead of elections, would make anybody rethink the notion of individual liberty upon which the very concept of democracy is based. Democracy`™s ultimate sovereign must remain the individual voter, and the aggregate of the will of the individuals in a given society is what is sought to be determined in any democratic election. So when this freedom is put under shackles, as is overtly happening ahead of the current rounds of ADC elections, democracy can have little meaning. Furthermore, what has also become urgently essential is to take a relook at the notion of the `State` and its relation to individual freedom. This would also imply a re-examination of the very understanding of `freedom`. Is it a standalone value, or must be come predicated to the `State`. In this connection, an episode from the 1970s Hollywood classic, `The Ten Commandments`, rescreened periodically on 24-hour movie TV channels such as the HBO is interesting. After his encounter God manifested as the `Burning Bush`, on Mt Sinai, Moses (Charlton Heston) returns with the inscribed `Ten Commandments` stone tablets to his people, recently freed from slavery under the Pharaoh of Egypt, and finds them revelling, idol worshiping and indulging in other gross hedonistic pursuits. When Moses tells them of the `Ten Commandments`, there were near riots. One among the crowd shouts back at him objecting to the new edicts of the Ten Commandments: `We want freedom`. Moses`™ answer to the man is remarkable: `There can be no freedom without the law` he shouts back.

This single sentence could arguably be the most profound defence, validation and vindication of the `State`. Without the `State` institution, and the `order` that its `laws` establish, all notions of individual liberty and rights would predictably acquire a different meaning, if not cease to have meaning altogether. So in the event of the authority of the `State` withering away, the result is not freedom as many presume, but lawlessness and anarchy. Those of us in Manipur probably would not find this difficult to understand. We live in a condition in which the State has withdrawn its legitimate authority, and everybody virtually has become the law. This is an argument for the `State` in these times of anarchy when so many are given to talking of the `State` as something dispensable. Clearly, we cannot allow it to wither away just as yet, if at all. The `State` and its instruments are still vital, although with good moderations. For the `State` and its instruments can get overbearingly authoritarian, as any unchecked power can, and hence one of the chief functions of the democratic polity is to check this tendency of a centralized power structure from becoming corrupt and authoritarian. This is done by making the authority of the `State` subject to periodic renewal of the mandate of democracy`™s ultimate sovereigns `“ the individual voters. Many of our ongoing debates on issues that impact our lives, including that of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA, must be places in this discursive space, so as not to lose perspective.

This renewal process of `State` authority is what is coming under attack yet again on the eve of the elections to the Autonomous District Council, barely a week from today. The freedom with which the voters are expected to exercise their franchise is being violently strangulated by those who scheme to usurp `State` authority. And the tragedy is the `State` and its instruments do not seem to be showing up in all the ways it is expected to, apart from a show of arms it will put up on the day of polling. For between the polling day and the campaign process, a lot that is far from desirable has happened, including, to say the least, intimidation of candidates and their supporters by various vested interests. It is with dismay we note the `State` in Manipur is withering away, not in the Marxist sense where its authority is ultimately and totally transferred to the people (dictatorship of the proletariat) but in the sense of a collapse of its moral hold over the people. And behold we are witnessing the anarchy that only such moral collapses of the State can bring.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/05/law-and-disorder/

There is an interesting story of how legacies that bureaucracies leave behind often live on forever. Quite obviously, immortality can be a boon as well as a curse in practically every situation, not the least government policies. This is all the more reason for every generation of a bureaucracy to be at least wary of the consequences of their actions. By bureaucracy we do not of course mean only that part of a democratic government constituting of civil servants, providing the backbone of any government, but the entire government structure, the legislative, judiciary and executive combined. The story, we refer to is about how even the fashioning of NASA`™s most advanced rocket propelled spacecrafts contain in them the DNA of imperial Rome of 2000 years ago. Just to briefly recap the story, it is basically an explanation of how the railway track in the United States of America came to be exactly of 4 feet, 8.5 inches in width. The figure is odd and the natural question is, how could anybody have thought of this strange width and not anything else, especially when there is no scientific reason why the two parallel steel rail lines had to be exactly 4 feet 8.5 inches apart?

The answer is that this is because the British railways used the same width, and the US railway was built by British expatriates. This probably is the answer in the case of the Indian railways`™ broad gauge lines too, as it was also built by the British while India was still Britain`™s colony. But why would the British use this same strange measurement it may be asked. The answer is the British railway is a successor of the trams which ran on similarly spread tracks. But why would these tram line be spaced thus? Because they were built by the people who built wagons for transport vehicles that plied England`™s old trunk roads which had that spacing. Why so? Because the old trunk roads were furrowed at that spacing and any attempt to build wagons with wheels differently spaced than the rut on the roads, would run the risk of breaking prematurely. What made the ruts on these roads so precisely spaced thus? Because these roads were built by imperial Rome to move their legions, and the ruts on the road were originally made by the wheels of Roman chariots which were spaced similarly. Why were the Roman chariot wheels spaced in the manner? Because they used two horses to pull these chariots, and the wheels were spaced to accommodate the hinds of two horses. The story goes on to say that even the rocket design of the NASA has this ancient Rome signature, as they had to be transported by trains which ran on tracks of this width. Hence, a technology borne out of the need of the time of imperial Rome 2000 years ago, continues to have influences on modern infrastructure, and indeed minds.

The lesson is, precedents set by any government have the nasty habit of living on, sometimes ad nauseam. A closer examination of many of Manipur`™s problems would bear the same hallmark. Take the case of the part-time lecturers`™ issue. They were employed on part time contract and their services should have ended without much ado when their employment contract expired. But for reasons not explained, though it is anybody`™s guess, many were regularized arbitrarily by a particular government. Now, since a precedent has been set, all other contract employees, not just part time lecturers, have come to believe, and with a degree of legitimacy given by default of the government`™s own acts, that it is their right to be absorbed as regular employees unconditionally regardless of what their original letters of employment said. In other cases, department heads and ministerial authorities have been known to deliberately bend recruitment rules not for any credible reasons, but to accommodate relatives and cronies. Layers after layers of these willful suspensions of rules have today come to virtually nullify all norms. Seemingly, even the courts are in a bind as to how this labyrinth of bad precedents set by governments, and also by bad rulings of the past of the same judiciary they belong to, through the decades can be negotiated. For indeed the practice of law itself, to a great extent, is about charting out the way ahead on the guidelines provided by official precedents. The challenge as one sees it is in two parts. The first of these is to undo the stranglehold bad precedents have had on policy making. Let those who enter by the back door exit by the same door. The second is to usher in a new dawn of good precedents which can be genuine torch bearers for future policy making.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/05/how-legacies-live-on/

In a speech by Mark Twain on September 23, 1900, opposing a move in certain quarters of the American government to close down some public schools which the government thought were getting too expensive to maintain, is fascinating for both its passion as well as sound rationale. `Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It`s like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won`t fatten the dog. Twain made the message clear. Whatever fund the government stood to gain by shutting down these schools, would in the long run not result in any saving, for they would have ended up spent in dealing with other adverse social side effects of precisely the closure of these schools. This is a worthwhile lesson for those who handle education policies in Manipur. For education, apart from the well known role of imparting skills and knowledge to the younger generation is also equally about social engineering. Hence, public money well spent on bettering the education agenda is never a waste, and that any obstacle put up before quality education, would amount to a deep stab wound inflicted to the social mechanism, the scars for which will not be easy to remove for generations.

In Manipur, the situation is a little different from the picture Mark Twain sketched. A number of government schools have been wound up here too, but not because the government wants to save money. These schools on the other hand have become defunct on account of decades of dereliction of duty by staff, and criminal official corruption at the time of staff recruitments. The outcomes however are similar to what Mark Twain feared. The death of government schools in Manipur it can safely be presumed, would have contributed liberally to the social turmoil the state is witness to today. In this light, the new initiative the present government is taking to rejuvenate government schools, is not just laudable but also must be considered a very important mission. We wish it all success, not the government`™s sake alone, but our own as well. There are sterling private schools doing yeoman`™s work in uplifting the quality of school education in the state, but not everybody can afford them as they run on the money they earn, and have to put a cost on their services. Government schools, which are run on public tax money, therefore available free to the public, are therefore vital the important social project of building an egalitarian society. We also wish the government can think of similar initiatives in the college sector which too is in a very advanced state of decay.

It is of course another matter as to what quality education should be. Should it be skill oriented, or should be about imparting a liberal understanding of life and the world in general? Should education produce technocrats or philosophers? Must appreciation of art, music, nature etc be a necessary part of a wholesome education? Even as these issues of quality are coming to occupy centre stage elsewhere, it is a tragedy that Manipur still has to be grappling with problems such as teachers`™ absenteeism. Hence in Manipur, the definition of quality education will have to be confined to basic issues like streamlining the administration of government schools and colleges, rationalizing the transfer policy of teachers, handling the pressures to absorb part-time lecturers without screening, resolving the issue of college teachers with fake Ph.Ds etc. Only when these problems have been settled, can the state begin thinking of keeping pace with the more nuanced debates on what constitutes quality education.

But if we must begin all over from the beginning, the sooner this is done, the better it will be. Since the foundation on which the edifice of quality education can stand on is virtually absent, it must have to be built now, or else the present generation will have to live with the terrible guilt of having condemned our society to another `hundred years of solitude`. There can be no single factor to any social issue. Nothing about life is in black and white. But while the basics are being rebuilt, let us also not lose sight of the belief that every school revitalized, every college propped up back on its own leg, would deplete the ranks of mayhem makers on our streets who have made life in the state descend progressively into misery year after year?

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/05/education-as-elixir/