Tag: Editorial

The Nepal earthquake is a reminder the Northeast must prepare too for the worst, though without giving up expecting the best. The region falls within the same Himalayan earthquake fault line as Nepal, and indeed, the tremor that devastated Nepal was felt strongly across the region too, not the least in Manipur. Thankfully though, in Manipur according to news reports, only one government school building and some other government structures, including at the RIMS and JNIMS, suffered minor damages. Quite miraculously, there were also no casualties reported. This does not however mean the place can be complacent. According to forecasts by scientists, the Nepal earthquake is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg, for the tectonic impact tension between the Indian and Asian tectonic plates has mounted up to a frightful level, and if released at once, can cause earthquakes in the excess of 9 on the Richter scale. The forecast is also that a series of less severe earthquakes can ease this tension, but it will take several earthquakes as the one Nepal just experienced to neutralise the entire currently mounting tension. If on the other hand, all of the tension is released at one go, the resultant earthquake can be as much as 32 times as strong as the recent tremor, and this would be disastrous for the entire Himalayan region, including the Northeast. The tension is destined to be released sometime, though in terms of geological time, it could be this century or the next, scientists say. In other words, it could happen anytime between now and the next two hundred years. We can only hope that mounting tectonic tension is released in several smaller, less devastating earthquakes, and not in any single or very few instances.

There is nothing much for anybody to do to prevent earthquakes from happening. They will ultimately happen in our region. What on the other hand can be done is to prepare for earthquake eventualities. We are not talking about the old drills the government once encouraged of keeping first aid boxes, ropes and torches ready in the house. These are necessary, but by no means primary. What is needed first and foremost is for the government to ensure construction qualities of its buildings. Manipur`™s legions of engineers must be set to work and shoulder the responsibility of evolving earthquake resistant construction engineering as well as construction materials. Equally important, the vigils on government contract works, from which result not fine public buildings, but expensive private cars and palatial private residencies, must be made uncompromisingly strict. The town planning agenda must also be reformed radically. There have been so many visiting writers who have referred to Imphal as a city of ugly buildings. This is bad enough, but we are not here talking about aesthetics, though important, and instead of safety. Imphal`™s maze of narrow lanes which can be jammed even by two vehicles passing each other must be widened mandatorily. In equal earnest, old dilapidated buildings in congested bazaars must not be left to stand, and new ones must be made to stick to strict safety standards. If these precautions are for townships in the plains, a set of suitable precautions must also be worked out for the hill towns. The soil in the state, and indeed the whole of Himalayan region is supposed to be comparatively young, therefore the topsoil is thick. This may be good support for vegetation, but not for heavy constructions, therefore the need for a set of precautions unique to the environment.

The government, and indeed the entire population, must begin acting responsibly immediately in these matters so that the state is not left with the prospect of bolting the stable after the horses have fled. It should be taken note that earthquakes in developed nations never result in as big as disasters as when they strike poorer, corruption ridden nations. No prizes for guessing that the difference is all about preparedness, and not selective viciousness of nature. Reports say of the many earthquake prone developing nations, Turkey which also has a history of devastating earthquakes, is the best prepared, and this because of the sustained discipline and rigour with which its government in recent times has been enforcing safety standards in public and private constructions, as well as city planning. It is curious how corruption and disaster are ultimately directly linked, and this being the case, corrupt Manipur must change its ways immediately for its own security.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/corruption-and-disaster/

The Nepal earthquake is a reminder the Northeast must prepare too for the worst, though without giving up expecting the best. The region falls within the same Himalayan earthquake fault line as Nepal, and indeed, the tremor that devastated Nepal was felt strongly across the region too, not the least in Manipur. Thankfully though, in Manipur according to news reports, only one government school building and some other government structures, including at the RIMS and JNIMS, suffered minor damages. Quite miraculously, there were also no casualties reported. This does not however mean the place can be complacent. According to forecasts by scientists, the Nepal earthquake is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg, for the tectonic impact tension between the Indian and Asian tectonic plates has mounted up to a frightful level, and if released at once, can cause earthquakes in the excess of 9 on the Richter scale. The forecast is also that a series of less severe earthquakes can ease this tension, but it will take several earthquakes as the one Nepal just experienced to neutralise the entire currently mounting tension. If on the other hand, all of the tension is released at one go, the resultant earthquake can be as much as 32 times as strong as the recent tremor, and this would be disastrous for the entire Himalayan region, including the Northeast. The tension is destined to be released sometime, though in terms of geological time, it could be this century or the next, scientists say. In other words, it could happen anytime between now and the next two hundred years. We can only hope that mounting tectonic tension is released in several smaller, less devastating earthquakes, and not in any single or very few instances.

There is nothing much for anybody to do to prevent earthquakes from happening. They will ultimately happen in our region. What on the other hand can be done is to prepare for earthquake eventualities. We are not talking about the old drills the government once encouraged of keeping first aid boxes, ropes and torches ready in the house. These are necessary, but by no means primary. What is needed first and foremost is for the government to ensure construction qualities of its buildings. Manipur`™s legions of engineers must be set to work and shoulder the responsibility of evolving earthquake resistant construction engineering as well as construction materials. Equally important, the vigils on government contract works, from which result not fine public buildings, but expensive private cars and palatial private residencies, must be made uncompromisingly strict. The town planning agenda must also be reformed radically. There have been so many visiting writers who have referred to Imphal as a city of ugly buildings. This is bad enough, but we are not here talking about aesthetics, though important, and instead of safety. Imphal`™s maze of narrow lanes which can be jammed even by two vehicles passing each other must be widened mandatorily. In equal earnest, old dilapidated buildings in congested bazaars must not be left to stand, and new ones must be made to stick to strict safety standards. If these precautions are for townships in the plains, a set of suitable precautions must also be worked out for the hill towns. The soil in the state, and indeed the whole of Himalayan region is supposed to be comparatively young, therefore the topsoil is thick. This may be good support for vegetation, but not for heavy constructions, therefore the need for a set of precautions unique to the environment.

The government, and indeed the entire population, must begin acting responsibly immediately in these matters so that the state is not left with the prospect of bolting the stable after the horses have fled. It should be taken note that earthquakes in developed nations never result in as big as disasters as when they strike poorer, corruption ridden nations. No prizes for guessing that the difference is all about preparedness, and not selective viciousness of nature. Reports say of the many earthquake prone developing nations, Turkey which also has a history of devastating earthquakes, is the best prepared, and this because of the sustained discipline and rigour with which its government in recent times has been enforcing safety standards in public and private constructions, as well as city planning. It is curious how corruption and disaster are ultimately directly linked, and this being the case, corrupt Manipur must change its ways immediately for its own security.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/corruption-and-disaster/

It is difficult to rationalise tragedy, but it must be said that the earthquake in Nepal measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale, does have plenty of lessons for everybody. While our hearts go out to the people of Nepal, and are overwhelmed with sorrow by the images of suffering and loss continually coming in, there is one thing positive only human tragedy of the magnitude can bring. Even if temporarily, Nepal`™s time of great sorrow has brought the world together. Nature`™s fury has no particular target, and can befall on anybody anywhere on the planet. At such times, the frailty and commonality of the human predicament becomes stark, making everybody, including the mightiest, meek and vulnerable. Against the magnitude of the cosmos, and its reserve of energy, humans are practically nothing. The inherent paradox of nature`™s destructive energy is precisely this, and in the word of Irish Poet, W.B. Yeats, it is a `terrible beauty`. The same can be said of tragedy itself. Terrifying as it may be, there is in a metaphysical way, a beauty in it too. It opens up a window for man to see and realise his limits and littleness. This is why, in literature, tragedy as a genre still stands tall. Indeed, the most memorable literary characters ever, are tragic ones `“ Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, Anna Karenina, Khamba and Thoibi etc. All religions also address this insignificance of man in the cosmos, teaching him therefore he can find permanence only in god. In the Gita, this is done most dramatically. When Arjuna refuses to fight, saying he would rather be a beggar or a hermit, Krishna shows him the frightening visage of himself as the churning universe, and that regardless of what he does, Arjuna cannot escape his insignificance, and that the only meaning he can give his own life is to know and do his duty. May the Nepal tragedy, which has already claimed 2,200 lives be this lesson in humility for the world. It is however doubtful if this moral unity of mankind will remain much longer than the memory of Nepal tragedy lasts, and until another nature`™s catastrophe visits, it will be back to square one of rat races, cutthroat competitions, treacheries and wars.

Scientists now explain to us that earthquakes are caused by landmasses in the earth`™s crust crashing into each other. The Indian landmass thus crashed into the Asian mass about 25 million years ago, and the impact is still continuing, so that the Indian landmass continues its northward shift at the rate of 1 to 1.5 inches a year. Sometimes the impact tension builds up for years, and then it is suddenly released so that the landmasses slip against each other, or over each other, by as much as 10 feet. In the case of the Indian plate (landmass) these big slips have been regularly occurring at an interval of about 70 years, which was how scientist had been expecting the latest Nepal earthquake for quite some time now. The Northeast fall within the same fault line as Nepal, this is all the more reason for people here to be also prepared. Sensible and scientific construction of homes and public buildings is the best way to do this.

Plates movements in the earth`™s crust is a reality, though it is hardly a phenomenon which can be demonstrated. The most ready common sense proof of this is the existence of mountains, as Bill Bryson points out in `A Short History of Nearly Everything`. Bryson is not any scientist of repute, but is a universally acknowledged excellent chronicler of the history of science. He said when the theory of the plates movements and crashes was first proposed, scientists were amazed they did not think of this much earlier, for it this was not so, and there were no internal pressures within the earth`™s crust that continually pushed mountains up, in the four billion or so years of the earth`™s existence, gravity and erosion would have ensured the earth`™s surface a smooth sphere. Bryson also humorously notes that scientist again gasped in disbelief that they did not think of the Big Bang Theory when Newton discovered gravity after an apple fell on his head. If everything attracted each other, the universe should have long ago converged and collapsed, unless there was a counterforce pulling everything away from each other. Edwin Hubble paved the way for the Big Bang Theory, when he observed in 1929 that all stars seemed to be travelling away from each other. Nature is mysterious and awesome indeed.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/awesome-nature/

Manipur`™s myriad problems do not certainly present a straightforward visage, layered as they are in a maze of hierarchical quagmire of problematic propositions, and each of the hierarchy again mired in their own strata of endless problems and sub-problems. A splintered students`™ movement with each splinter scrambling to hog limelight; a splintered militant underground movement with each splinter unable to develop a perspective from the same viewpoint; an established order that has allowed the vital agenda of governance slip out of its control; a government bankrupt of idea and funds beyond easy redemption`¦. These are all the ingredient of a failed state. It is no consolation that our neighbouring states are faring no better. It is also interesting to note that in the global context, the West is extremely cautious about failed states, as these can become dangerous spawning grounds for mutant thoughts and ideologies. It is in this context that many analysts view the West`™s extended honeymoon with Pakistan. It simply cannot afford to let Pakistan degenerate, for the danger this poses them are tremendous. Experience in Afghanistan and the Middle East have taught them this. Those of us in Manipur should not find it difficult to understand this logic. The overall picture of our own problems is awesome and thoughts of a comprehensive solution are extremely prone to despair. The answer is undoubtedly only in a leadership with dogged persistence, creative approaches, and a willingness to last out the severest of political and economic winters. Only such a willingness to withstand the test of fire can hope to deliver. The story of Poland, and the manner it got over its years of hardship and political tumult as the fall of the Iron Curtain was closing in, is inspiring in this regard. Remember Lech Walesa, the `Solidarity Movement` leader of the country in the 1970s and 80s. The Nobel Prize for Peace that he won in 1983, in retrospect, must have been one of the best deserved in the award`™s history. He got Poland out of a mess much worse than what we are in today.

A book about Poland of the 1970s, written during the peak of the `Solidarity Movement` called `Passion of Poland` by a journalist, Lawrence Weschler, a staff writer of the respected American magazine `New Yorker`, the magazine on which the now defunct `Illustrated Weekly of India` is supposed to have been modelled, is surprisingly being still reprinted and sold (check amazon.in). The graphic picture of Poland of the time, although much worse than what we are in today, is still strongly reminiscent of our own predicament. Incisive jokes heard in the streets of Warsaw during its years of turmoil, reproduced in the book, recreate the subtle nuances of inter community relationships. They also tell of how divisions and frictions between communities are accentuated by scarcity, the lesson being, plenitude can ease a lot of social problems. It was a time the government was totally bankrupt and even essential commodities began disappearing from the shops. Long queues would form outside ration outlets even at the hint of arrival of new stocks. In one of the jokes in the book, one such queue forms outside a ration centre even before the shop opened. After two hours of the queue, an official emerges and announces: `Jews step aside and go home, no bread for you today.` After another two hours the official reappears: `non-Communist go home, no bread for you today.` After yet another two hours the official emerges to announce: `Comrades go home no bread today.` One angry Communist in the queue remarks to another: `Why do Jews always get preferential treatment.` True enough, scarcity does make us lose perspective of our problems. In another joke in the book, a woman with a shopping bag walks up to a store and asks: `Any sausages.` The prompt answer was, `No.` Butter? No, Soap? No. Bread? No. Disappointed the woman walks away. Two grocers behind the counter look at each other in amazement. One grocer tells the other: `Whew, what a memory?`

In the decades of turmoil, hardship and uncertainty Manipur has been through, as in the picture portrayed of Poland of the 70s, few actually remembers what normality once was like. Manipur`™s current abnormalities and scarcities, its queues outside cooking gas distribution agencies every time arrival of new stock is announced; its even longer the queues outside petrol pumps even at the slightest hints of bandhs and blockades; its daily doses of bloodletting, are today its new normal.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/abnormal-as-normal/

The loss making Manipur State Road Transport Corporation, MSRTC, which was put to rest halt a two decades ago, after several decades of invaluable service, is unlikely to see another life in the near future. The demise was unfortunate, but it was made unavoidable by the sheer callousness with which the authorities handled the corporation. The public sector corporation was making huge losses not on account of just the subsidies burden every welfare government must bear in extending essential public services to its people, but because of pilferages, lack of motivation, and not the least over-employment, a phenomenon which has become the undoing of most other public sector undertakings, not just in Manipur but all over India. Making it worse is also the fact that a good section of the work force had been given employment not on merit, but as favours by politicians and bureaucrats. But having said this, the economy of the state being such, there is still the need for the government to be present in this most essential sector of public transport, fright as well as passengers. The government packing up lock, stock and barrel and leaving this service totally to the private operators is not just a question of admitting defeat but also shirking responsibility. Private operators, both by the compulsions of survival economics or else driven by the profit motive, will be always reluctant to ply the non-profitable routes, and in the process abandon many of the state`™s most backward and impoverished interior regions. In this age of a globalized world, and when the overriding concern in the state is one of integrity, physical as well emotional, the government cannot afford to have its remote districts and subdivisions, recede further in psychological distance from the state`™s core. Even otherwise, it is the bounden duty of the government, particularly one with a declared welfare objective, not to abandon its less privileged citizenry to hapless despair.

We see no reason why the MSRTC cannot be a profitable, or else be at least a self-sustaining undertaking. In the failure of the MSRTC, we also see the abject failure of the government as an enterprise itself. During its hey days, the MSRTC is said to have commanded a more than healthy fleet of over 200 passenger and freight vehicles. This is in direct contrast to private transport operators with just a handful of vehicles doing roaring business. The point is, with its resources, it could have run the profitable routes, offering its services at competitive market prices, and run the non-profitable routes at subsidized rates as part of fulfilling a governmental obligation. That is to say, the profit it makes from freight transportation of FCI and FCS goods as well as running passenger services to destinations such as Guwahati and Shillong, should be able to bear the cost of subsidized passenger services to townships and villages such as Tamei, Tousem, Henglep, Kamjong etc.. If the MSRTC was doing this, nobody would have asked for its shutdown even if the corporation were to incur some losses, for then the losses, if at all, would have been considered as a worthwhile price paid for a social cause.

Our opinion is, the government must not abandon the MSRTC altogether, at least not the passenger sector. It must restructure the organization and its management radically to make it leaner and fitter. First of these reforms must involve `right-sizing` its work force. The corporation must have only as much staff as it needs and no more, and it must also have only the most competent on its payroll. Perhaps it will do well to introduce a professional private management, on reasonable but strict terms of hire and fire contract, based on performance and meeting targets. In the not so distant future, there is also going to be two functional international highways passing through Manipur opening up previously unknown routes and markets to the state. It is time the government started thinking long terms, over and above the need to meet its many emergent situations.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/public-transport-woes/

The letter by well known senior broadcast journalist, Bano Haralu, a resident of Dimapur, to the chief secretary of Nagaland, complaining of unwarranted harassment of her brother by the 29 Assam Rifles, is unbecoming to say the least. According to the letter, her brother`™s house in the neighbourhood of her parental home she shares with her mother, was raided by a detachment of the Assam Rifles in the unearthly hour of 3am on April 16. Ostensibly the security men were looking for weapons which they believed were hidden in the house. Their brazen raid yielded nothing incriminating but the raiders went ahead to confiscate a licensed .22 rifles, on the plea the license had expired. They also took custody of her brother and drove him away in their vehicle. Later of course, upon the intervention of Bano, who alerted higher authorities of the Assam Rifles, her brother was released without any charges slapped on him, as if this was a favour done to the complainant considering her status in the society. Since the ceasefire with the NSCN(IM) still holds, it is only to be presumed that the security men were looking to flush out remnants of the SS Khaplang led NSCN(K) which has less than a month ago ended its truce with the Government of India.

We take up this issue here though it happened in Dimapur for it brings up certain larger questions pertaining to the application of the provisions of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA. There is no doubt about it that it is expected of the security forces to be on the hunt for insurgents not on truce with the government. Since this is empowered by the controversial AFSPA, though we do have reservation about the AFSPA, we will not fault the security men for doing what they are mandated by this draconian law. But the serious question that arises is that the security men jumped even the briefs of the AFSPA therefore were in effect breaking the law. As it turned out, the only thing they presumed was incriminating was the .22 calibre rifle with an expired license. This is an offence no doubt, but a different kind of offence, certainly not the kind that can remotely be associated with waging war against the nation. This is a routine kind of offence which the district magistrate`™s office is supposed to handle and the penalty for it is at the most a nominal fine. As it, the weapon in question is a .22 rifle, and not in the prohibited bore category for which special licenses are mandatory, therefore very much within the right of any civilian who can afford the cost, to own. The AFSPA does not anywhere in its clauses say the security forces are empowered by it to assume the responsibility of a gun licensing authority, nor are they given the charge to haul up people for such minor and routine infringements of law that result most probably out of oversights.

The problem here therefore is not so much the text of the AFSPA or its draconian nature, but of the climate of impunity the Act intoxicates security personnel operating under it. They presume they are free to assume any governance responsibility they wish. If it is screening gun license expiry in Dimapur, it is customs screening and duty levying of tradable goods on the Moreh-Imphal road. Next, who knows the security men might begin to unilaterally decide they can haul up and fine tax overdue vehicles on the roads, penalise electricity bill default cases, tax or fine gambling dens, raid illegal bars and brothels. Raids such as the one in Dimapur actually reinforce the popular belief that under the AFSPA anything the security personnel do can pass off as legitimate. The AFSPA has no place in a democracy, but even its prolonged promulgation can be excused by the often cited logic of meeting an extraordinary circumstance by extraordinary measures, it is still not in any way a blank cheque given to the security establishment. Draconian and anachronistic as it may be, it is still a law with definitely specified parameters, crossing with amounts to infringement of the law. If the Dimapur raid was a genuine case of mistaken intelligence, the least the raiders could have done is to offer an apology, instead of trying to justify the mistake by making an issue of what is a little more than a toy gun.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/crossing-afspas-boundaries/

This is not meant as a pun. This is not about territorial ambitions either. Nor is it a hint or wish for the arrival of a cultural expansionist agenda. On the other hand, this is just a loud thinking on what it is that would make a greater Manipur than what it is today `“ greater in the sense of quality, not quantity. Post-colonial Manipur is in its mid 60s and as a full-fledged state of India, only a few years younger. Although their numbers naturally would be on the decline as the years pass by, there are still many who saw what it was like before this period and therefore able to make a comparison between then and now, and we wish they would do this from the heart and make it known, so as to provide more accurate reference points in any assessment of the present. In the absence of these, perspectives are prone to become distorted, especially in times of jingoistic nationalism. A recollection of some of the well known human development indexes would be valuable. As for instance, what were the conditions of the roads, health facilities, public services, infant mortality, maternity health, basic education etc? What was the nature of the economy and therefore the living conditions of the people in the hills and the valley? What was the level of security the average individual enjoyed? The last question is interesting, and if Steven Pinker`™s contention in `Better Angels of Our Nature` is to be believed, the modern times are the safest for the individual, for he or she is three to four times less likely to die at the hands of another human now than in days of yore. Pinker`™s theory has been contested by many well known critics, saying while this may be true of the West, it is not so for those places the West wages war on. All the same, generally, there is much truth in what Pinker contends. Even a few decades ago, many localities even within Imphal were not safe for strangers. Today, this proposition sounds absurd. It is then time, not just for the older generation, but the current one too, to sit down and look back as well as ahead, weigh its past with its present and consider realistically what it wants the future to be, or more pertinently, what it wants the future to be for their children and grandchildren.

It is with these thoughts that we ruminated on what might constitute a `Greater Manipur` and we are convinced this has to begin first and foremost with a journey to the past, and confront the reality of the time. It is amazing that such journeys have been made in Manipur`™s world of art. The most memorable is the metaphoric and almost Freudian journey Ratan Thiyam makes his characters take in his acclaimed lyrical allegory, `Nine Hills One Valley`. In this play, the director awakens the seven Maichou, the writers of the Puya of yore, and make them assess the present world. History must not be allowed to become a selfie of the nationalists, although this is a predominant trend. It would be worth recalling how in neighbouring Nagaland, former chief minister, S.C. Jamir`™s attempt three decades ago to look beyond a selfie history of the Nagas, in a booklet called `Bedrock of Naga Society` was violently attacked by nationalists in the state. Manipur will be no better, as the extreme revivalist movements in the present days will bear testimony. There would have been many great things in the place`™s past, but to believe everything about the past was glory, and that salvation lies in a return to this `glorious`™ past, would be pushing the contours of this selfie towards the grotesque.

We must admit we did have the slogan of `Greater Nagaland` in mind in coming up with this thought, but definitely not as an adversarial foil. In fact, on this question we do feel, the two entities must soften towards each other, and in the process discover commonalities and the needs for, or the inevitability of, peaceful coexistence under whatever the political circumstance history lands the two, and others in the region, in. However, given the nature of the tides of the time, we do honestly believe there are certain, definite, predetermined lines beyond which no political dialogue by the two, individually or collectively, can yield meaningful goals. The question of sovereignty for instance, as the prolonged Naga peace dialogue is proving to be. The intriguing question is also, what exactly should constitute sovereignty in the present context? If freedom is desirable, what is it that we want to be free of or from? Oppressive politics, corruption, poverty`¦?

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/history-as-selfie/

What goes around comes around. This must be the received wisdom of practically every society, for the saying is prevalent with some variations in practically all of them. In Hinduism and Buddhism, and indeed most other eastern religions, this is a most pronounced belief. Everybody`™s life is a consequence of his deeds of the past, or Karma as this cause and effect phenomenon of life is described in one word in these two religions. Karma ensures nobody escapes the consequences of his deeds, good or bad. The same belief is there in other belief systems too, even the most agnostic. Therefore, there is an undeclared faith everywhere that `as you sow, so shall you reap`™. Come to think of it, this is not just about religion or any faith in a divine order. The entire edifice on which scientific enquiry rests is built around this axiom. Newton`™s third law of inertia says very much the same thing: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. If this law was not true, Robert H. Goddard`™s theory of rocket propulsion would have been redundant, as American newspapers mockingly reported his achievement in 1926. No space travel would have been possible, and that would have been boring. Imagine no `Star Wars`™ or `Star Trek`™. But on the other hand, there would also have been no ballistic missiles or indeed the explosive energy that drives bullets either. This would have been an interesting situation, for then even the dreaded Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA, would have been toothless, and equally, the chattering classes who bare their fangs and let out terrifying roars every time the word AFSPA is mentioned, would have left with only mews and purrs.
In politics too this principle is proving equally applicable, as the state BJP president, Thounaojam Chaoba Singh is finding out the hard way. From all indications, his past is now catching up with him. The news report of a press conference by ex-minister and Communist Party of India MLA, Ningthoujam Mangi, which appeared in many newspapers yesterday, ostensibly timed to coincide with the arrival of the BJP national president Amit Shah in the state, demonstrated this. The report said the High Court of Manipur has on the previous day disapproved the bid to transfer land to a bogus housing society Kombirei Housing Co-operative Society Limited in 1996, when Chaoba was the revenue minister. The report said Mangi himself had at the time taken the lead role in opposing the land transfer move, and that he discovered most of the beneficiaries of the land transfer were close relatives of Chaoba. While Chaoba was in power, nobody could do much, but two decades later, the issue has returned to haunt the man and his ambition. It remains to be seen what Chaoba does to defend and save himself from a fall from grace, or more pertinently, what the BJP central leadership does on the matter, for a lot of the stake of the BJP in the state will now depends on the nature of these actions. The question is, would Chaoba be purged or else would he be allowed to continue to lead the BJP`™s battle in the upcoming ADC election and the Assembly election in 2017?

While it is entirely up to the BJP to decide on what course of action it takes on the matter, what comes across as amazing is the brazen manner in which Chaoba was hurling corruption charges on his opponents, in this case, the leaders of the ruling Congress. Didn`™t he believe in the wisdom that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones, for one return stone can shatter his own house too? The charges he has been making all the while were probably all true for it is almost a thumb rule today in Manipur that all those who have had a taste of power have invariably been made corrupt. Politics and corruption have today become almost synonymous. As somebody who has been on the other side of the power divide, would it not have been prudent for him to have been a little more restrained in his allegations? But this is a free country and everybody is free to make his own decisions. We as laymen however can only await justice, karmic or legal or electoral. Yes, we also eagerly await the day politics in the land is dissociated from corruption, and instead comes to be identified with statesmanship.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/karmic-justice/

The balance between modern and tradition is extremely tricky and problematic as is demonstrated at practically every issue that confronts the state, and indeed the Northeast. This is to a great extent because, in our opinion, the place is only recently out of the `pre-modern` era, or euphemistically referred to as the traditional, and consequently its experience of the `modern` is relatively nascent. Adding to the problem is also the fact that the rules of the game of `modernity` was fashioned much before the societies, such as in the Northeast, decided to either by fate or faith, join the league. That is to say, none of our societies were part of the social processes that forged the terms, conditions and understandings of `modernity`. But the question remains, should we welcome the modernity with all its bells and whistles, or should we stubbornly stick to the `traditional` ways. Or is there also a midway house?

The urgency of the question is exposed yet again, and in a rather bizarre way in the newspaper reports today of a married woman who disappeared mysteriously four years ago, suddenly resurfacing in a remote village, married to another man. There is nothing to be surprised or shocked about the fickleness of cupid`™s spell, as indeed Shakespeare imagined in `A Midsummer Night`™s Dream`, but the trouble here is not so much about the cupid`™s inconsistency and unfaithfulness, but the breach of law this caused. At the time of the disappearance of the woman, the needle of suspicion of the neighbourhood and relatives of the woman was on her husband, and a case led to the man and his father being jailed for six months. Now that it is known they had been wrongly punished, the irreversible injustice done is obvious. In this particular case, the saving grace is, at least some semblance of the modern jurisprudence was invoked. There have however been so many other cases, when this was not done at all, and instant and brutal mob justice was resorted to. In recent times, nothing has been a more stark evidence of this than the much publicised Dimapur lynching of an alleged rapist. No dispute about it that rapists deserve the most severe penalties, but the nagging suspicion always left behind, as indeed in the Dimapur case also did is, what if the penalised man was innocent. The virtue of modern procedural law, though long and winding, then becomes apparent.

The issue is confronted on other fronts too. Take the instance of the notion of homeland. Some of the most gruesome bloodlettings, as well as the most vexing conflict situations have resulted out of these. Given a rigid adherence to these notions, there is little other way than to continue confronting these frictions `“ between varying understandings and claims of homelands by different traditional communities, as well as between these traditional notions and the modern land tenure-ship mechanisms. The case of the Manipur Land Revenue & and Land Reforms Act, MLR&LR Act, and its limited applicability because of the resistance to it from many traditionalist quarters, exemplifies this dilemma quite unambiguously. In Manipur the problem is further compounded because the degree of acceptance of this `modernity` starkly contrasts between its two distinct regions `“ the hills and the valley, the former showing much more reluctance to step out into the `modern`. As to which attitude proves to be more advantageous in the universal struggle for survival, we are not the ones to judge, although we do definitely have an opinion on this. Only time, we suppose will tell which way the future is inclined, whether it belongs to the traditionalists or those who embrace the modern. Our opinion, (not a judgement) is, it is the modern which will hold and hence the sooner we come to terms with it, the better it will be. In literature, acclaimed African writer, the late Chinua Achebe has dealt with the subject so convincingly and passionately in Things Fall Apart. Arguably, few or no literary works thus far has pitted the nostalgia for the traditional and the inevitability of the modern as poignantly. That Achebe too, though painfully, acknowledges the modern as the brave new world, is yet another confirmation that readiness to change is the key to the future.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/things-fall-apart/

Tragedy struck at the 1st Manipur Rifles ground yesterday. An elderly woman Irengbam Purnamishi Devi, 75, of Khagempalli Pankha collapsed and died at the government facility where a number of elderly pensioners were herded in and made to wait for the entire day for paltry sums of a few thousand rupees accumulated over a couple of years as Old Age Pension at the rate of Rs. 200 a month. No insult can be less forgivable than this. The social welfare minister, AK Mirabai must take full moral responsibility for the death and also the humiliation she heaped on the all elders and resign immediately, if she has any shame. In legal terms, we wonder if the criminal neglect and insensitivity involved in the incident would not amount to culpable homicide though not amounting to murder. The public must demand an apology not just from the minister, but from the Chief Minister Okram Ibobi himself. He too must accept responsibility for this outrage of modesty of the entire society, overturning the place`™s the sense of propriety and civilised tradition of respecting elders. Once upon a time, our children were taught parents and elders were the embodiment of divinity. Yesterday, the Government just herded and abused them like cattle.

The trouble is, it was not public welfare the Government, and in particular the Social Welfare minister was aiming at. It was instead greed for political spectacle which was on display. The Rs. 4000 or so which was doled out as the accumulated entitlements for two years to these elderly persons were not what was important. It was also not the gratitude of the obviously impoverished elders which the Government was craving for either. Instead, what was important to it was the announcement of the supposed kindness before the larger public. It is unimaginable what despicable and empty theatrics our brand of politicians can resort to just for a cheap kick for their small egos. Where exactly was the need to parade the elders as was done yesterday as if in circus? The technical issue of ascertaining whether the pensioners were still living could have been done more discreetly and without causing the immense physical inconvenience they were subject to. The concerned department could have sent out officials to survey and confirm this status and then quietly transferred the dues either online, if the elders had a bank account, or else sent the money to their addresses through couriers or by the good old postal money order. None of these modes of payment however is likely to have generated the spectacle the government hoped for, therefore it must have been considered essential to parade the elders, after all, the unholy creed of politics in the land is not extending acts of kindness anymore, but to be seen publicly as having extended these acts of kindness. What a shame!

The death of Irengbam Purnamashi is unlikely to result in any heads rolling as the words shame and remorse no longer exist in Manipur`™s political lexicon. It is unfortunate that today people think of politicians not in terms of statesmanship, leadership or administrative skills. Plato`™s philosopher-soldier is certainly not even remotely in mind in referring to them. The more familiar pictures evoked in any contemplation of politics in the state are of government contractors who have bought themselves into the corridors of power to do bigger contracts and wallow in more unaccountable wealth. Charting out a blueprint for the collective prosperity of the entire society is no longer a concern, or the prospect of the society going to ruins a worry. Can the predicament of the society be more dismal than what is unfolding before all of us right before our very eyes? Late though it may be, there is time yet. Let the government own up responsibility and award penalties to all those responsible for causing the tragedy just witnessed.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/insulted-and-injured/

It is said only about three percent of the state`™s work force are in the private sector. This is indicative of a very deep malaise. The all India average is far above Manipur`™s but at 21 percent it is not too good either. Obviously, despite all the disinvestment and the bold thrust of the Indian economy towards the Capitalist road, a greater majority of the country`™s job seekers still shun the private sector, and prefer to work under the security cover of the state`™s mantle. Indeed, in states like Manipur, till only a few years ago, somebody does not have a government job is considered unemployed and would command very little attention in the marriage market. The person himself would also most likely consider himself thus, and register at the employment exchange of the government, thereby projecting a somewhat deceptive picture of unemployment status in the state periodically published by the employment exchange. While those who do not have a government job long for one, the irony is those ensconced deep within the government cocoon, routinely swear by the ideology of free enterprise. In the ultimate analysis then, the free enterprise doctrine remains a prescription for the neighbour`™s children. As for one`™s own, there can be no alternative to government jobs, so one would beg, borrow or steal to bribe and win them these secure stations in life. Can societal ambition be more narrowly circumspect than this ever?

One other thing is clear. The advertised shine and confidence of the Indian private sector it seems is localized to basically the metropolises. The cliched divide between India and Bharat has still not been bridged convincingly, leaving the new bevy of sleek, expensive motor vehicles and the primitive bullock carts together to paradoxically constitute the Indian reality. We can vouch little or none of India`™s supposed new shine have not reached the Northeast, definitely not Manipur. Here we are still reeling under power shortage, pot-holed highways, drinking water paucity, piling garbage bins, unsalvageable governmental fiscal crunch, unmanaged or unmanageable law and order situation, paralysing and widespread insecurity etc. At least in the case of Manipur, we can again vouch it`™s train is hopelessly derailed at the moment and it is going to need nothing less than a superhuman effort to lift it back on track. The question we have to ask ourselves is, who but the people of Manipur would ultimately care or commit to put in this effort? And if this readiness does not come about, what else can be said then that we are condemned to an extended future of uncertainty and ignominy.

As so very often happens, a great piece of thought is remembered, but not the mind that first thought the thought. Here is one we definitely feel would provide a clue as to where we can begin the effort to steer our society back into course: `there is no greater fear than the fear of fear itself.` We interpret this to mean that if we stop fearing fear, there will be little left to fear. This also would have to be the perfect recipe for courage and calibre, qualities which are increasingly on the wane in our society. The spirit of taking life as an adventure, so much the feature of the most successful societies and civilisations in the history of mankind, has today become virtually nonexistent in our society, although it must be said, the private sector is showing some signs of stirring in certain fields, but continues to be overshadowed by those which have remained stunted because of lack of tertiary sector support. In the meaningless hunt for educational degrees without bothering to first honesty acquiring the knowledge and skills the degrees certify, this same moral vacuum is stark. In the willingness of the people to bribe to secure undeserved government jobs, we again see this same weakness. In the inability of our intellectuals to honestly speak out their minds on vital matters of life in the state, we see this same malaise. Insecurity has indeed become a millstone hanging around our necks. We have to begin standing up to say that we can cut and shed this dead weight. We must begin debating honestly the issues of our lives without fear. For all we know, we may happily discover, there was nothing to fear after all and that by thus deciding to assert ourselves, we had nothing to more to lose than our incapacitating fears and insecurities. For the sake of our future generations, let us do just this. Urgently!

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/shedding-insecurity/

That relations between the All Manipur Working Journalists Union, AMWJU, and the relatively recent Editors`™ Guild Manipur, EGM, were not exactly cordial was known all along, but nobody would have expected things to come a collision course. In a sentence, the EGM tried to forestall the AMWJU elections, and the AMWJU responded by severing all links with the EGM. In an official press release yesterday, the AMWJU said its emergent general body meeting decided to drop all members of the EGM from AMWJU membership, and if any one of the editors individually wants to be member of the AMWJU, he or she can reapply for fresh membership. No breakup could have been more definitive than summarised in the short press statement. The EGM is yet to say anything on the matter.
While the development is extremely unfortunate, nobody who is aware of the politics within the journalist fraternity in Manipur would be surprised at what happened. The rifts between different hierarchies of journalists were growing, and inevitably so as the profession grew in sophistication. There have also been an increasing number of journalist categories. As for instance, today you have correspondents of national newspapers, print journalists working in morning dailies, others in afternoon tabloids, more in weeklies and still others in the relatively smaller news organisations in the districts, especially the hill districts. Then there is the new tribe of Cable TV journalists. All of them have different work pressures to handle, different duty hours, different sources to tap, different salary packages, different bosses to answer to etc. And this is not unique to Manipur. In Delhi for instance, there is the Foreign Correspondents`™ Club of South Asia at a posh residential locality at Mathura Road, and the Press Club of India, Delhi, at the institutional Raisina Road area, where journalists working for Indian media establishments seek membership. The two have very little to share and there is an undercurrent of mutual contempt too. Both also have the resources to have different clubs to fraternise separately.

Thirty years ago in Manipur, these categories would not have been there, and if they were, they would have been very nebulous. As is the pattern throughout India and the rest of the developing world, in their early days, newspapers were owned by their editors, indicating their activist, rather than commercial beginnings. When Tilak, Gandhi, Irabot started their newspapers, they surely had a mission in mind rather than commerce. The legacy lives on in places like Manipur, but this tradition is beginning to die out, and as is usual during such times of transition, the old culture gets rejected but the new is not totally embraced, leaving rooms for conflicting claims and interests. The current tension within the state`™s journalist fraternity is in many ways a reflection, and physical manifestation, of this tension within.

As the name implies, AMWJU is a union of working journalists, obviously with the aim of promoting and defending the interests of working journalists. A working journalist is defined as a professional who makes a living by full time career engagement in journalism. Editors are journalists too and indeed in the past, though many editors were also proprietors of their newspapers, were members of the AMWJU. About a decade ago, AMWJU sensibly debarred editors with proprietorial interests in newspapers from being its members, after all, the interests of proprietors and their employees will seldom be the same, especially in a commercial organisation. But newspapers today have several editors and not all of them have proprietorial interests and are therefore eligible to be AMWJU members. Still the division within persisted and the EGM came to be a separate organisation. Unfortunately it chose not to work on a different plane than the one on which AMWJU functioned, and therefore began to resemble a parallel body. The clash therefore was already foretold even at very inception of the EGM. Moreover, although editors these days do not necessarily have proprietorial interests, some unfortunately have their proprietors`™ interests in order that their own interests are served. The clash within the state`™s journalist fraternity therefore was predetermined by the changing paradigms of journalism in recent times.

Reconciliation is the best way out. Let the AMWJU be the front of Manipur journalism, therefore have the powers accorded to the status. Within the AMWJU, the EGM can be an autonomous advisory body of senior journalists.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/amwju-throws-a-gauntlet/

The retort of a Myanmar journalist Nay Htun Naing in a reply to a reply by U Myint, the economic advisor to the President of Myanmar, Thein Sein, should make sensitive administrator and educationist in Manipur uneasy as well. The 29 year old journalist had made a criticism of the country`™s economic policy, and the economic advisor had rubbished the criticism saying the journalist was not educated enough and what he said was not intelligible because of poor articulation in English. He further dismissed the journalist saying there was no way they could communicate, for they were on very different wavelengths as they were classes apart. In a reply to this reply, Naing wrote back saying that it was Myint`™s generation who spoilt the future of his generation by destroying the education system in the country. Naing`™s bad English writing skills and poor education hence becomes a report card for Myint`™s generation and other power brokers of the erstwhile military junta, who gave themselves the best of liberal Western education once available in the country, and after the military coup in the 1962 destroyed the education system at home but sent their children to foreign universities, using their positions of power. So interesting was the story that the IFP reproduced an account of it in yesterday in its Sunday edition.

Altogether under different circumstances, Manipur too is face with a similar situation. As in Myanmar which was under a corrupt and self-centred military administration for 60 years, the education system in Manipur too is in virtual ruins because of the selfishness of the past few generations of politicians and administrators. The indicator for this is the continuing flight of students, especially for college and university education, outside the state. Under normal circumstances, only students whose parents are in all India transferable services, therefore never rooted at one place during service years, should have preferred to send away their wards to colleges away from home. One, it means a lot of extra expenditure and second, the home environment has things which no boarding facilities can offer. School and college years are also the only time parents and children truly spend quality time together. After this, there are only separations of varying degrees, forced by the demands of modern living, waiting. For a long time, many parents in Manipur were also desperately pulling whatever resources within their command to send their children off to schools outside the state. Today, this is an option, but not an absolutely necessary one. In the last one or two decades, there has been an immense, indeed heroic revival of school education quality. A lot of thanks for this must go to the Catholic mission schools. It was they who laid the seeds for a revolution in school education system in the state. Taking the cue from them, today there are a slew of very good and very competitive private schools everywhere, churning out students able to face national and state competitions with little or no disadvantage. The results of the entrance examinations to the most sought after professional courses each year, such as medicine and engineering, are ample evidence of this. The state of government schools however remains pathetic by and large, except for a few model schools where the government is concentrating extra effort to improve. We await the day when all government schools are lifted out of the pit they are in because of corruption of the power elite which sold jobs as in open auctions for generations.

In higher education, there is little to be said still. No students whose parents can afford the cost want to do their college in Manipur. If allegations by college teacher are anything to go by, appointments are still made arbitrarily. One of the demands of the striking college teachers who stopped work recently was for the government to undo certain allegedly undeserving appointments of principals. They pointed out many issues, including one where fake Ph.Ds from a fake university in Shillong was used to score Academic Performance Index, API, points. The case of this fake university was widely publicised in the country and in the state. It is believed many college teachers in the state, and not just the one appointed as principal, had used fake Ph.Ds from this university for career advancement. How can anybody or any professional community who swear by quality education remain silent on this? Why are the government and the multiplying number of students vigilante bodies mute on this? Let it be known, though on paper Manipur`™s literacy rate is high, most of these literates hold degrees or skills with little worth in the real competitive job market. At best, they can join the corrupt culture of paying bribes to get government jobs.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/past-sin-present-misery/

Just a month ago, Manipur was immersed in a controversy over the life attempt on the editor of a local vernacular daily by unknown men. Whatever the background of that frightful threat has not been made public. Coinciding with this incident, another underground organization had issued threats to the media over the non publication of a press statement, prompting the government to provide security cover to prominent editors of the state, at their homes as well as offices. Thankfully both issues have been settled, and life is back to normal. It is also quite a coincidence that this incident came not so long after the worldwide outrage over the murderous attack at the office of Charlie Hebdo a French satirical weekly, by two Muslim extremists killing 12 staff of the journal, including its editor. There is unlikely to be anybody who did not condemn the Charlie Hebdo attack, although this does not necessarily mean everybody who condemned the attack agreed with the manner in which the weekly was pursuing its so called satires. Indeed, many of the cartoons were in extremely bad taste, at least this was how they appeared to us in the IFP as individual critics.

That an overwhelming number of these lampooning were directed at the Muslim community and Prophet Mohammed was incidental for it could also have been any other community and religion. However, whichever community or religion it was which came under attack of this weekly, the nature of their satire still would have remained distasteful. There was for instance, absolutely no need to portray religious figures naked and as sex crazy homosexuals in the act of copulation. In the secular world, there is nothing as blasphemy, but in its place there are laws against slander. Obviously and expectedly, the outrage of the killings overshadowed these issues of legal limits, but we wonder why the French law enforcers never made the weekly know its limits earlier, for their slanderous cartooning tradition was known for a long time. Years earlier, another issue of the nature dominated international headlines. A Danish newspapers published a series of cartoons about Mohammed. Though not as repulsive as the Charlie Hebdo version, some of these too lampooned the Prophet as a terrorist. The issue was met with a muted response from the Muslim world until French journals and weeklies decided to reprint them in the name of freedom of the press, despite efforts by their government to stop them. The explosions of sentiments ever since in the Muslim world are now well known. This was somewhat ironic, for in much of Europe, denying the Holocaust, in which an estimated six millions European Jews were exterminated by Hitler in his infamous `Final Solution` campaign, is a legal offence.

Indeed, freedom of the press is not such an easy thing to describe. The difficulty is to do with the very concept of freedom itself. Can freedom be defined in absolute terms? Can anybody be free to hurt or kill another? Like so many propositions of modern life, freedom must also have to be about negotiation for a compromise where one comes to term with a consensual sense of freedom enjoyed within a definite space, or better still, many individuals and communities finding a way to share the same space without trampling on each other`™s feet. The closest anybody has got to absolute freedom ironically was in literature. Daniel Defoe`™s Robinson Crusoe in this sense has become an immortal example that has thrown invaluable lights on so many different fields of study into human society including economics, psychology, political science, to name just a few. In this story, absolute freedom becomes a trap from which Crusoe desperately tried to escape. Freedom, depending on how it is defined, can actually be frightening. As indeed, amidst all the violence and bloodshed Manipur is witness to in the name of freedom, those who keep their ears close enough to the ground would have heard the same fear whispered by many ordinary men and women. Beyond all the passionate rhetoric, the moot question is, what indeed would be, or should be, the true essence of freedom in the Manipur context? The important clue to this question perhaps lies in a set of two alternatives before all. Should we be looking to the past to conjure up an image of this freedom, or should we be looking to the future for it?

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/elusive-freedom/

The brutal assault on a ZUF cadre at Noney some days ago by troops of the Assam Rifles posted there has once again brought to the fore the uneasy excuse of the State of the inevitability of resorting to extraordinary means to meet extraordinary circumstances. It has also once again exposed the dilemma of ordinary men and women in conflict situation who face affronts on their sense of liberty and dignity from either side of the conflict. On the one hand there are all the bans and intimidations faced by them from an ever multiplying number of non-State players in this increasingly absurd conflict theatre. Those on the ground, exposed to the dangers that either side can wreak not just on others, but on their own personal welfare too, know it for certain there are so many who swear silently between their teeth at these intimidations, and some even wishing in their desperation for these extraordinary measures of the State, in the hope they would bring back a semblance of order to end the indignity of their daily living, forced to cower before everybody. Their desperation have even led them to appeal not just to the State, which unfortunately has abdicated all its responsibilities of protecting its citizens, engrossed as its authorities are in Mammon worship, and thereby also surrendered all the faith its citizens should normally repose in it, but often to those they once believed were the alternate governments. But even these `alternate` governments seem out of resource to control the proliferation of `laws` under their very noses, and hence today, in the true description of a lawless land, the `law` has come to be in any hand that holds a gun. In this complex maze of conflict scenario, it is not just the State which is losing its legitimacy but also the known challengers of the State which are no longer able to fill the vacuum of governance legitimacy left void by the non-performing State. The general feeling is, nobody is in control anymore.

But amidst this confusing state of affairs, when people have begun to feel that some law, even if draconian, may be better than no law, cowboy troopers walk in and turn the table yet again. This is exactly what the AR troopers did at Noney. According to reports, the ZUF captive was stripped and paraded in public, where he was tortured inhumanly. The commander of the rampaging soldiers apparently even threw a challenge to the womenfolk to come forward and rescue their captive saying there are 2000 soldiers behind him. Official reports said the ZUF man was involved in two ambushes, one on the troops of the Gurkhas, and another on the Noney AR unit. Indications therefore are, the soldiers were out seeking revenge, and they were encouraged to do this by their commander. The fact often not taken cognizance of is, for disciplined professional soldiers, this is against the law, even by the standards of the draconian AFSPA. The AFSPA is draconian as it gives too much unaccountable power to the Army in dealing with civil unrests, but even it specifies that it is not within the power to the soldiers to establish guilt of captives much less award penalties. They are supposed to hand over their captives to the police at the shortest time possible so that the law can take its due course. We do hope these law breakers get to be penalised under the relevant sections of the law.
The madness of this conflict can be better understood by a look at a more distant conflict theatre, Iraq and Syria where the ISIS has been on a savage rampage, instilling terror and dread in the hearts of ordinary men and women of the land. The West saw for some time Iran backed Shiite militias which emerged to counter ISIS was the salvation, but these militias too are now indulging in ISIS style brutality on the population bases of the ISIS, evoking equally revulsion of what is left of the sane world. Back in Manipur, in these uncertain and brutalised times, we can only hope a comprehensive resolution to the conflict situation, acceptable to all in a spirit of give and take, comes to be soon in place so that dignity is restored to ordinary lives once again.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/laws-and-outlaws/

The past few weeks should come across as disturbing for anybody who has been watching Manipur affairs closely. While the government claims the return of normalcy to public life, and the chattering classes of all hues and interests continue to posture on issues like right to education, racism, gender equality and indeed AFSPA, schools are being banned or cautioned, intimidated and bullied, pardoned and let off, at will by various organizations, some unlawful but often also perfectly legitimate students bodies. Surprisingly, or should we say not surprisingly, nobody is there to take on the issue, apparently not even the government. There has not been a single official or unofficial word of condemnation. What is exactly the message the government wishes to send out to the people? It may not have said anything, but the silence already has spoken loud and clear. It is a government that has forgotten that ensuring a sense of security to the public is one of its most fundamental responsibilities. But it is not just the government which has lost its sensibilities to even the most sinister violations of peace. The civil society too by and large seems to have become numb to these, perhaps because of overexposure to them. Even in the face of the most macabre events unfolding, they failed time and again to be provoked into any sort of pro-active initiative to intervene and prevent the worst from happening. Instead, one gets the feeling that there is almost a voyeuristic expectation from them to read or hear of more news of tragedy so that they can then sing the moralistic tunes and dirges. Nobody seems to give it a thought, or stop to be concerned by the fact that the sense of terror the common man live in, are not tragedies on stage where even the most devastating violence, in the end serves only to provide the audience the catharsis they bought a ticket for. These are not another Shakespearean Hamlet. These are not even bad dreams that get over once the dreamer wakes up, but real life crises which only a consensual verdict that they are wrong and must be fought against, can purge the society of.

The tragedy hence, in all these cases, is not so much of individuals on whom the misfortunes of terror visit for no fault of theirs. Instead it is as much of our society which has lost the capacity to be pro-active. We have all become passive receivers of fortunes, good or bad, almost to the fatalistic extent. Few still seem to think fortunes can be made or unmade, given the will. At best we have become reactive, bolting the door after the burglars have fled with the loot. The present situation is a prime example. Here are these schools, many of them boasting of sterling performances, and therefore contributing to the project of bringing quality education to the state, facing myriad threats and intimidations, and yet everybody is doing little more than scramble to get a ringside view of the action. Can anything be more depressing or discouraging? Why aren`™t the eminent members of the civil society exercising their independent judgment to decide for themselves the just and unjust in the case and lend their voices to what they think is the just? What happened to all the respectable senior citizens, vocal students, intellectuals, women`™s organisations? Are they out there at all? Don`™t they see in this problem a reflection of what has become everybody`™s problem? Why have none of them joined in the campaign to begin the reversal process of a corrosion that has eaten into the system? In these times of chaos and lawlessness, it would be in the interest of the people and the state to hear all the intellectuals who are quick to offer armchair oppositions to draconian measures of the state, to also offer realistic solutions. At such moments, Manipur`™s spiritual landscape does seem barren and devastated, inhabited only by hollow men that the American poet T.S. Eliot talked of.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/devastated-landscape/

In 2010, India`™s constitutional reservation policy was scheduled to end. But it was always anybody`™s guess even before the date that this would not happen, and as at the end of every decade since the constitution came into force making India a republic, the policy was extended again by an amendment of the constitution. This will probably continue at least till the foreseeable future, and in fact, there are now more communities demanding to be put within the reservation category, as we all know. When the constitution was first enacted, the policy was meant to last only 10 years, and it is significant that one of the founding fathers of the constitution was BR Ambedkar, who himself belonged a major community for which the reservation policy was thought necessary to offset the imbalances in capabilities to take advantage of the new republic`™s offerings and opportunities. But anticipations of all these leaders and constitutional scholars proved far too optimistic. Hence, after 10 years of independence, India found itself unable to do away with its policy of positive discrimination. After 20 years the same, so also 30 years and so on, and now as the nation approaches its 70th year of independence, it will not need any soothsayer to predict that the policy is not about to come to an end. In fact, the tendency has been for the number falling within the reserved category to rise, so much so that the Supreme Court took the initiative to put a ceiling of 50 on the permissible limit of reservation. It also advised, and not directed, for reservation only in entry into government jobs, and not in promotions after entry. The advice of course remains to this day only an advice.

First it was just the SC and ST, but now more and more are discovering themselves to be underprivileged, and not falsely too. There are only two implications to be drawn from the phenomenon. One, there is something seriously wrong with the country`™s social engineering projects. Two, and more probable, there is something seriously wrong with the nature of the reservation policy, even if the policy per se is still warranted by the ground reality. On this subsidiary issue of whether the reservation policy is still necessary, the answer will still have to be in the affirmative. It must however be said that things are improving a lot, especially in Northeastern states, including Manipur. Even in Manipur for instance, consider for instance the results of some of the competitive entrance examinations. More and more from the reserved categories are making it into the general category marks. Especially after the introduction of Other Backward Classes, OBC, this has become a rule. This is natural too. Students taught and tutored in the same schools and colleges, will ultimately come to be of the same standard of competitiveness. To think otherwise would be to walk into the controversial territories inherent racial differences theories. We do not. We believe in the primacy of nurture over nature at least in matters of intelligence quotients.

The continuance of the reservation policy has a more pertinent question. Why has such a generous policy not had the result envisaged, at least in other parts of the country? Outside of the Northeast, it does seem apparent that the reservation policy has not been able to end the reality of social and economic imbalances. This is also partly because within the underprivileged categories, the policy fosters another set of privileged and underprivileged, so that while the former within this subset monopolizes the fruits of the policy by and large, the latter continues to be marginalised. Almost 70 years later, the fortune of this doubly marginalised section has been perpetuated, so that removing the reservation policy still remains unrealistic. In decades ahead then, our recommendation would not be for the removal of the reservation policy altogether, but to reform it so that it becomes calibrated. At the individual level, it must be made a one time opportunity, so that a family whose bread earner (or earners) has availed the advantage to rise to a respectable social and income status must be declassified from the underprivileged category so that those genuinely disadvantaged within the same category can have their turn to uplift themselves and declassify from the category too. In short, a `creamy layer` principle, as in OBC, should be introduced to all reservation norms. If such a continual process of declassification were to be made a reality, at some point in the future, the reservation policy would become redundant on its own. But the biggest trouble would be, selective advantages once given away, always create vested interests, and any suggestion of reformation of the current status quo would also be opposed by such vested interests, often extremely politicized ones.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/perpetuating-deprivation/

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

The rule of law is another story, but the immediate challenge is about creating jobs and since the capacity of the government to employ has a definite ceiling, it will have to look at the private sector. For this sector is multidimensional with practically the sky as the ceiling. It can in fact accommodate all, provided the atmosphere is right. An article some years ago, in a popular American weekly, comparing the resurgence power of Vietnam and Iraq, is interesting. And this article comes to mind in the immediate wake of world recalling the war with the 40th anniversary of its conclusion on April 30, 1975 approaching. The author of the article, Michael Hasting, who was also assigned the Iraq beat later, visited Saigon (now known as Ho Chi Minh City) for the story. Forty years after the war, Vietnam is bouncing back. Its economy is buoyant, everybody is raring to go and win his share from it, and in the process contribute his share too. Forty years later, he is not hopeful Iraq can emulate the same feat. Individual entrepreneurship was always very strong in Vietnam, unlike Iraq which was for too long hooked to easy petrodollars. Vietnam`™s economy was built around the enterprising spirit of its people, as well as the skill and discipline of its labour force. By contrast, Iraqis in general have come to be addicted to subsidies, so that in times of crises, such as wars and their aftermaths, while Iraq had nowhere else to look for resurgence, Vietnam could draw strength from within and pick itself up much sooner. Moreover, unlike Iraq which is dominated by a revenge culture, Vietnam was much more practical and outward looking. Even in the midst of the bitter war against America, it was never bitter toward Americans, so much so that Ho Chi Minh was supposed to have written a letter during the war to the then American President, Lyndon Johnson, that Americans would be welcomed back as friends after the war. And Americans are now indeed rushing back to Vietnam, not to make war but as tourists and businessmen.

The uneasy thought is, Manipur seems to be much closer to Iraq than Vietnam at this moment. It is possessed by a culture of revenge and bitterness. It is also almost completely dependent on government subsidies. Private entrepreneurship has been dwarfed, and at best it is about dishonest government contract work or else has not risen above retail trade, which promise money perhaps, but no creative contribution to the economy. There are of course now some individual brilliance beginning becoming visible, but it is still far from a widespread phenomenon. Its education system is in the pit, incapable of producing quality skills or knowledge. Parents who can afford the cost look away from the state increasingly for their children`™s education. These children may not feel inclined to return when they come of age, and they are not at all to blame. Shouldn`™t a rethinking process begin? Shouldn`™t the government be thinking of evolving policies to nurture back to health the general entrepreneurial spirit, instead of allowing its vision to be caught and limited to the percentage cuts culture of the place`™s infamous contractor-bureaucrat-politician nexus?

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/vietnam-lesson/

People who visit Manipur for the first time or after a long gap, have often remarked that their impression of the state is that it was strikingly similar to Cuba not for anything else than the atmosphere of a prolonged siege. Very much like the cities in Cuba, reeling under a extended, crippling economic embargo imposed on it at the behest of the United States, Imphal struck them as possessing the dusty, never renovated look, paints peeling off, broken unrepaired roads, unswept city centre etc, and generally a look of stagnation all around. The public buildings, the bridges, roads, except for a very few, all seem so listless and devoid of any conscious architectural quest for beauty and harmony. In these structures, there is absolutely no evidence of the artistic heritage which the place is richly endowed with. What exactly is wrong? Cuba`™s siege mentality is a consequence of externally imposed political conditions, but it would be interesting for an insider to ask what exactly it is that is giving neutral observers the impression Manipur`™s cities and towns are like Cuba`™s? Is there really anything that has frozen the outlook of the place as a whole, making it unable to see or think outside the narrow confines of the immediate? The place`™s concerns, its public debates, its public issues and in fact its horizon seem so limited that the abiding and widely held ambition today seems limited to merely a steady job that guarantees a livelihood. The atmosphere is dreary and even oppressive.

One of probably many reasons for this seems to be that the place`™s power centre seems to have passed away from the hands of the government and has come to rest with practically anybody who cares to contest for it. From the proliferating number of militant groups, or the matching numbers of students`™ organizations that spring up periodically, to the explosion of JACs or Joint Action Committees, in recent times, all have learnt, in the absence of any sense of governance, that they too can grab their share of State power and be direct influences on government policies. A social Pavlovian conditioning has resulted leading these organizations to resort to disruptive activities like bandhs, blockades and public curfews, crippling life and bringing our already bad economy to grinding halts all too often. Momentums of daily economic activities thus broken take a long time to come back on rail and pick up pace, but here, they seldom get the opportunity to do this, as another bandh or blockade would be upon them before they even get their breath back from the last one. Adding to this chaos outside is the lethargy within government offices. Late arrivals and early departures from office by lower rung bureaucracy, long tea breaks any time of the day, unannounced absence, can frustrate anybody who seeks passage of government files.

This sense of siege is a nuisance that has grown out of proportion, but there is yet another which is, in our opinion, more dangerous. This one has grown out of an ever depleting self esteem, making the society excessively defensive `“ making the individual shift blames for all his faults to others as a kind of ego defence at his abject inability to handle the consequences of these shortcomings. An inferiority complex, as we all know is often guised as a superiority complex, and any psychologist will tell us that the two are the two sides of the same coin. The `I`™m okay you are not okay`™ attitude is at face value an expression of superiority complex, but at its soul, it represents an attitudinal problem that betrays extremely low self esteem. The correct balance, as Thomas A Harris tells us, is of an attitude of `I`™m okay, you`™re okay`. It exudes a calm confidence, a drive to succeed, as well as the grace to acknowledge weaknesses and faults `“ a courage to pick oneself up everytime one falls and walk again. Our society has lost the ability to analyze its own weaknesses and shortcomings. That is why we are in the midst of a mindless culture of protest at each and everything, even the most trivial and inconsequential. We must free ourselves from this mindset and strive to begin thinking outside the box that we have chosen to confine ourselves in. This is the only way we can rescue ourselves from our problems.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/the-siege-within/

So many people, particularly journalists who come to Manipur return with the impression that it is a failed state. Most of these assumptions are however made on their first encounters with the manner the government tackles the law and order situation in the state. There are many parallel governments running parallel administrations, and the government which should have been the sole authority on these matters, is unable to anything about it. For long, the liberal talk on evolving a solution to the problem of insurgency has been for the establishment to absorb or else co-opt the rebel cause, just as protest cultures against the establishment as those of the hippie movement of the 1960s and 1970s were effectively absorbed and moderated within the larger American culture, ultimately transforming it into yet another voice in the democratic debate. This argument seems to be turned on its head in Manipur today. Rather than the establishment absorbing the revolution and its cause after due moderation to broaden and enliven its own democratic governance mechanism, the anti-establishment movements are beginning to morph the government and its machineries into doing their biddings. The Babupara incident some years ago in which 12 militants were rounded up from the living quarters of ruling party legislators in this exclusive and high security ministerial colony, is just one of the most outrageous testimony
There are more to Manipur`™s cup of woe which only those who live here and not occasional visitors will get to know. The sense of insecurity prevailing is all pervading. First, this uncertainty is on account of a perpetual feeling of threat to life and limbs, most immediately by the spree of bomb blasts at crowded market places. Anybody can become victim so senselessly. Then there are the diktats and decrees, not necessarily from underground organizations, but from perfectly lecal civil bodies and students organizations. Sometimes these threats get very personal as so many people who happened to rub any of these groups the wrong way, wittingly or unwittingly, know. But even when there are no cognizable threat perceptions, the worry is of waning prospects for the younger generations to get good education or respectable living in their later life. Education is in a dismal state, government jobs are scarce and command astronomical prices in the corruption bazaar, and there are no private sector enterprises that can guarantee service conditions anywhere close to government jobs. Quality of life is on a continuous downslide too. Even in the capital Imphal, clouds of dust cover many of its major roads when it is dry and muddy potholes cover them when it is wet. Garbage dumps with flies swarming around them litter the roadsides, the traffic is not only getting congested but on an incremental basis, unruly, making it dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists`¦ and the list can run on. The only real governmental interventions that the state occasionally gets to see come by way of inane appeals by leaders for the people to shun the path of violence or sermons on democratic values. When will these interventions ever go even a little beyond appeals, is anybody`™s guess?

However, despite all the misery, despite all the maddening anxieties, purely from the grit that only direct stakeholders in the future of the place can have, we still would like to, and do still believe, all is not lost. The ember of creativity is still not totally extinguished. Self-esteem and pride, not necessarily egoistic always, still run deep in the veins and arteries of the place. So while the leadership, political and intellectual, have time and again failed the people, certain inherent characters continue to instill the confidence that given the right environment, the place can rise from the rubbles soon enough. As somebody so rightly pointed out, the place is good in sports, demonstrating a rare combine of aggression and discipline. Its culture, theatre, cinema and other performing arts are rich, exhibiting an inherent creativity. It cuisines are varied, and sometimes extremely nuanced, drawing out the mixed and fine flavours of bitter-sweet, sweet-sour, pungent-soothing etc, characterising an inner sense of balance. Therefore, beneath all the darkness, deep down, the core potential, although battered, remains alive. Bertolt Brecht`™s answer to the question whether there will be songs in dark times is, yes, there will be songs, of dark times. In many ways, the Manipur case is a demonstration of this.

Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/songs-of-dark-times/