Manipur News

The ritual goes on. Irom Sharmila was produced before the court once again today. The outcome was a foregone conclusion and will remain so till at least the foreseeable future. She will have to remain in jail till such a time as she breaks her indefinite hunger strike demanding the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA, totally from the state. Since the latter consequence is hardly likely to happen in the immediate future, it is even more unlikely this hard-willed lady would break her fast, even if she is aware, and she probably is, that her fast will not be able to make the government change its mind on the matter. And so this tragic human drama must continue as it has been. If the court for some technical or other reason grants her bail, she would be rearrested on a new charge. This has been carrying on for the past nearly 11 years now and nobody is under any illusion anymore a court victory can settle Sharmila’s case. In any case, since she is not willing to give up her indefinite fast, if set free, she would die of starvation, and if that happens, the case would get even more complicated. The state’s response of keeping her in custody and forcibly feeding her through the nose therefore is not unreasonable. For the other option would virtually amount to culpable murder through wilfully inappropriate action.

The only way to save Sharmila then is to have the AFSPA repealed. We see all the reasons forwarded in defence of the AFSPA that the army can operate on civil duty only under the act’s present shape, rather convoluted. This is a clever subterfuge. The law is manmade and it can be reshaped as well. What can happen, and in fact what many demanded should be, and indeed what the Justice Jeevan Reddy commission which probed the relevance of the act recommended was in effect for a reshaping of the clauses of the act. The provision to bring in the army to assist civil administration cannot be done away, after all, the last defence to any serious challenge to the Nation State is its military, and the insurrections witnessed in the Northeast region, including importantly in Manipur, are indeed challenges to the Indian State. However, if the army needs an act to be able to take up civil duty, there is nothing which says it cannot be accountable to the country’s legal system. The AFSPA says precisely this. First are its draconian features which include the power to even kill on suspicion. But even more dangerous is the guarantee of impunity which makes army offenders where the AFSPA has been promulgated not directly accountable to the civil court of law. Why must this clause remain? Remove this clause, and the AFSPA would lose its terrifying visage and consequently a lot less draconian. If the government makes this gesture, it would be a reasonable concession with which to persuade Sharmila to end her fast, thus saving her. It would also be a victory for her without making the Indian State a loser. The army can still swing into action when called for but within reasonable, democratic and civilised restraints.

Just a year ago, the establishment thought allowing foreigners into Manipur and some of its neighbouring states, was not advisable, on the presumption that this would adversely influence the mindset of the people here. The government for whatever the reason decided one fine morning that this regulation could be lifted on an experimental basis. A year down the line, other than an end to haranguing the foreign visitors, nothing that the government initially feared has come true. Lifting of similar restrictions in Kashmir years ago also had effects that were directly the opposite of what the government feared or pretended to fear would happen. It is time now for the government to yet again invoke the inspirational voice within itself, or what Barak Obama described as the “spark of divinity” in formulating policies, to resolve the issue. Let it again go ahead and extend another unilateral show of trust to the people of the Northeast and reframe the AFSPA. Let the provision to bring in the army to assist the civil administration when the latter requests for such an intervention remain, but let it act within the reasonable restraints provided by the constitutional law of the country. It is true the police can be, and has been, known to be high-handed too, however, because they are accountable to the law, the sense of the general public that they have nothing to defend themselves from undeserved victimisation is much less. Such inquiries as the one instituted into the BT Road killing and the manner the law was demonstrated to be domineering above all else, including the police, putting the police in the dock for the alleged crime they committed, itself was a good enough message. The army operating under the AFSPA is made to be seen as above this, and this is unhealthy.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/08/save-sharmila/

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

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

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

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

The thaw of the deadlock over the proposed upgrade of the SADAR Hills subdivision of Senapati district into a full-fledged district at this moment seems unlikely with those demanding it as well as those opposing it remaining stubbornly fixed in their respective confrontational stances. While the difference is understandable though not desirable, probably under normal circumstance everybody would have given the two parties all the time and space they need to settle their differences. However, what is also a fact is that the circumstance is far from normal, for either of the two parties has imposed a blockade of the state’s lifelines as a way of announcing the seriousness of their intents. So, even as this standoff is happening, essential commodities in the state are not only sky rocketing but beginning to disappear from the markets. Quite predictably, if this continues for much longer, this state which has just recovered from another prolonged blockade just last year may lose its sanity, and in the worst case scenario, even street rioting may be the result. The government therefore cannot afford to treat the matter lightly or without a sense of urgency.

It does however seem the government is inclined to consider creating the SADAR Hills district, and so also some others. The chief minister, Okram Ibobi, has announced on the floor of the Assembly that a committee headed by the chief secretary D.S. Poonia has been set up to study possible demarcations of the districts to see the feasibility of the proposed districts, but also added the sole criterion in this onerous project would be administrative convenience. Presuming the SADAR Hills district comes to be created after making the necessary boundary demarcations and adjustments, as well as seeking the demanded consensus of the people, we can foresee some hiccups still. Today the tussle seems to be between two hill communities, the Nagas and Kukis, but the district can also throw up potential frictions between its proponents and farmers in the valley districts, for SADAR Hills touches valley area as well. Ordinarily this would not have been a problem, for there is nothing that says a farmer or for that matter any citizen cannot have landed properties in more than one district but as we had earlier pointed out, there is an extraordinary dimension to land issues in Manipur. This is because the state has revenue districts, which are the valley districts, and the non-revenue districts, which are by and large the hill districts. Under this dispensation, non tribals cannot own land in the non-revenue districts. So if in the demarcation of the SADAR Hills district, land owned by Meitei farmers becomes incorporated, the dispossessed farmers will definitely not agree. Imagine if Langol hills, parts of Lamphel, Andro village foothills, Nongmaijing hill etc, are suddenly made non-revenue area, there would be sparks flying everywhere again. Moreover, as we had argued before in these columns, serious constitutional crisis can result in the future in matters of citizens losing their franchise rights. To take the Moreh example again, supposing tomorrow a Meitei or for that matter a Tamil domicile holding Indian passport decides to file nomination for the Outer Manipur Parliamentary Constituency, we can imagine what uproar this would result in. Constitutionally however, we cannot think how this hypothetical candidature could be dismissed. But if administrative convenience is the key consideration, it would make no sense for Langol Hills or Lamphel or the Nongmaijing Hills to be administered from the SADAR Hills headquarters at Kangpokpi. Perhaps the commission working on the demarcation of district boundaries would be seeking to address such problems as well, and if so the possible bad scenario we sketched above would be redundant.

There is another way out. If at all SADAR Hills district becomes a reality, the government must consider the possibility of making it a revenue district, or some similar arrangement so that nobody ends up dispossessed. Imphal becoming split into Imphal East and West had no problem, because nobody ended up dispossessed even if some farmers ended up with their paddy fields split between the two districts. Ideally, the creation of any new district or the splitting of existing ones into more parts should have been as was the case of Imphal becoming two revenue districts. Although it may still not be time for equal land laws for the hills and valley, the problem the state is faced with now should serve as an indicator some sort of parity is long overdue.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/08/more-sadar-spectre/