By Amar Yumnam
Two very recent news items in local dailies have been of utmost interest and of extreme significance in relation to the nature and quality of governance here in the land of Manipur. The first news item relates to the non-release of the current month`™s quota of rice from the central pool of the country. This action was consequent upon the failure of some States, Manipur included of course, to meaningfully (read sincerely) report the list of beneficiaries of the rice distributed through the Public Distribution Systems in place in each State. The second news item relates to what the head of the people of Manipur had spoken for enhancing the funding for development of the North Eastern Region.
The interesting part is that almost all the dailies of Manipur carried these news within a week`™s time without ever relating the two. This speaks volumes of the quality and orientation of the dailies of Manipur in so far as their role as the Fourth Estate to inform, educate and enhance the quality of the people to frame opinions and take decisions. Almost all the papers reported both the news as stand-alone important. This is as if the dailies of Manipur are just one-day affairs and hardly engaged with the sustained issues of the land and the people of Manipur.
Now leave the character of the dailies aside. Let us confine ourselves to what the head of the people of Manipur had emphatically spoken at the Delhi meeting relating to the North Eastern Council. He had courageously spoken of the imperative to enhance the quantum of funding for development of the north-eastern region. So far so good. In the past few years, we have not seen reports of such emphatic statement in such meetings by him. If we go by the various reports in the dailies of Manipur during the last few years, we do not remember any instance when he spoke like this. He definitely had greater aura during the earlier regime of UPA to get what he wanted done, but now he does not command any kind of that aura as evidenced by the cancellation of rice quota from the Central pool. It is exactly at this moment that he is boldly asking for higher funding.
Here it may be of interest to note that under the new regime in the Centre, the various suspicions on the States as expressed by both Nehru and Ambedkar in the Constituent Assembly meetings are being negated by going for enhanced reliance on the States to deliver and emphasizing cooperative federalism. Well, to reiterate what is coming out in the open now, it was the patriarch of the party in government to which the present head of the people of Manipur belongs that put intelligence agencies monitoring the relatives of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and their correspondence; it puts all of us in shame and makes all the Congressmen incredulous characters.
Coming back to what the Chief Minister of Manipur had asked for higher funding for development of the region, many more questions arise. The foremost question is: higher funding for what? During the more than one decade in which he has been at the helm of affairs, we need to ask as to what has been the philosophy and objective of his government.
During the last decade, he had all the capability, given his command over the comity of UPA at the national level, to evolve a new direction to the development trajectory of Manipur. But nothing of that has come out. First, Manipur today needs an atmosphere for a generalized trust among the people across ethnic groups. But instead what we see today is deepening of inter-ethnic fractionalization. Second, what Manipur needs is not the multiplication of wealth of a few but a kind of scenario where all have the chance to grow in small bits.
Manipur has been characterized by the absence of non-emergence of new opportunities for livelihood and employment. In such circumstances, the only reliable source of livelihood happens to be the government sector. But any attempt at accessing the government sector can be successful only through one medium. Before the attempt at the success for entry into the government sector, there has to be a massive transfer of wealth from the intended candidate`™s family to the powers that be. In other words, if anybody wishes to escape from the lower strata of society to the higher strata, there has to be a prior transfer of wealth in favour of the higher strata. Now this game of transfer of wealth is one where the better-off in the society can indulge in more successfully and without feeling any pain. This implies that the government sector has been monopolised by the better offs in society `“ either through wealth or power `“ and any new member from the worse off in the society would get submerged in the whirlpool of indebtedness for long.
It is this kind of government which is asking for higher funding.
Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/need-for-higher-funding-agreed-but-what-for/