Tag: Articles-Opinions

By MK Binodini

The IFP is reproducing another past article it carried nearly two decades ago. This article is by a well known writer in Manipuri and an eminent citizen, the late M.K. Binodin. In this piece, the writer acknowledges that her account of U Triot Sing`s is inspired by recollections of her childhood memories of Shillong and of some past royalties of Manipur who had a part in the making of the history of the beautiful hill state this city is the capital of. Though the title may suggest otherwise, the article is not at all an attempt at writing history or putting its record straight. As a matter of fact, the author is not too much bothered about following or being faithful to the historical and chronological order in her narrative. On the other hand, her account is more in the nature of a walk down Memory Lane in which historical events flow out of the nebulous mist of time and memory, following an unpredictable psychological order as in the literary tradition of `the stream of consciousness.` Her portrait of U Triot Sing is hence a personal vision of a historical event, and its narrative follows the commands of her heart, rather than the academic demands of objective and linear study of facts and figures. But very often, the heart tells the truth better and more faithfully than does the head. The article was translated from Manipuri by Pradip Phanjoubam.

It was one of those long, dreary afternoons. I was alone in the house, enjoying the leisure, or boredom if you please, of having nothing to do, measuring out the minutes and hours by the coffee cups, waiting …. waiting absolutely for nothing. It was one of those rare moments in time when the mind is actually a blank with absolutely nothing weighing it down. I was not paying attention to anything so I did not notice who dropped my afternoon newspaper, The Telegraph, Guwahati edition, on my portico. When I came across it, absent-mindedly I picked it up and still without any focus began browsing through the pages. It was July 28, and a feature on U Tirot Sing caught my attention momentarily, before I drifted into that region of the mind where it is simply a milky nothingness. A bell rang somewhere, somewhere in the deep recess of my unconsciousness. With a start, I came around. U Tirot Sing I said. Of course I know who U Triot Sing is, and with an intent that surprised me, I returned to the article on him. It
was a tribute to the Khasi leader on the occasion of his 168th death anniversary. Almost instantaneously, the mist dissappeared from my head and for the first time that afternoon, I knew what I was upto. With close attention I read and re-read the article. I leaned back on my easy chair after I was satisfied I did not miss any point and this time consciously I re-entered my mind and began a trip down Memory Lane. Before I even realised it, I was already lost in a reverie. It was such a long time ago. I was so young and full of vim and thirst to explore the world around me. I was a lass of 18, studying at the St Mary`s College, Shillong. Michievious days, I should add. I remember how Khukhu and I used to be such thick friends. Her name is Anjali Lahiri, nee Anjali Das, but we used to know her affectionately as Khukhu. What fun it used to be, bunking class to enjoy the afternoon sun, chatting endlessly and tirelessly and eating local eateries at the shop near our college.

It was Khukhu who first told me about U Triot Sing during a picnic to Cherrapunji 60 km away from Shillong with her family. She was already married at that young age. Khukhu is a domicile of Shillong although not native to the place. She speaks Khasi like her own mother tongue and knows about the legends, myths and customs of the place as much as any Khasi. On the way I remember she had pointed out to me the hill ranges where the Khasi leader had once tried to organise and unite the disparate Khasi chieftians of the time to oppose the British who had already eyed the Khasi and Jantia hills to set up their administrative base. The Telegraph article wrote: `U Tirot Sing and his general, Mon Bhut. had tried to prevent the British from constructing a road from the Khasi Hills to Sylhet. Tirot Sing was arrested by the British in 1833 and jailed in Dhaka where he remained till his death… What startled me was Khukhu told me the British employed the service of two Manipuri princes to subdue and capture U Tirot Sing. I distinctly remember how unbelieving I was when she said this and when she finally managed to convince me that this really was the case, I remember I flushed in shame. How could my forefathers do such a thing as oppose somebody else`s aspiration for freedom? Haven`t they tasted the agony of losing their own freedom at the hands of the Burmese during the Chahi Taret Khuntakpa? After the paroxism of inherited guilt and shame passed by, my curiosity wondered back to the Khasi freedom fighter again. Why don`t you write about him? I remember telling Khukhu. I also remember her answer: `I am not a writer?` I had at the time thought I should one day research on this legendary Khasi leader and write about him, but never got around to do it. How fortunate we in Manipur are, I had also thought at the time. If Tirot Sing was a Manipuri, I can imagine how his exploits would be sung and immortalised in our oral epic tradition of Khongjom Parba, eulogised in Royal Chronicles, enacted in many Shumang Lilas, stage shows, dance dramas…. Even in defeat he would have been a hero and a martyr. He would at least not have been a mystical figure fading from the public consciousness as he was until recent times when there is a visible wave of revivalistic efforts amongst the Khasis. I quote The Telegraph article again: `..Students should be educated on the way Tirot Sing led the challenge to save the traditional institutions like the Nongkhlaw Syiemship…. A number of parents too expressed desire to teach their children about the legendary and historical figures of the state…. ` I do not want my son to spend the day swimming or watching television… I want him to learn from Tirot Sing.`”
(contd)

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/05/u-tirot-sing/

By RK Lakhi Kant

Self importance has foolishly risen
as we exult over an Indian
accomplishment that never was truthful.
An outcome of more money flowing
in today`s materialistic globalization.
Among many of the consequences
hardly any self worth remains.
What we have done in the bargain
is deliver the first blow at
the roots of a great nation,
which nation, many Indian`s feel
is not worth it without
extensive money making avenues.
For all the trouble in
accumulating wealth and assets
the Indian persona has no
true classical riches left
and his worth is measured
in an ordinary scale,
where classics are not given
any value, but money is.
Why the compulsion from the
leadership to acquire foreign tastes.
Water from the well kindles
the fire of life in wayfarers
but offering a bottle of cold drink
hardly brings two souls nearer.
Cola doesn`t do so much
as a pitcher of cool water
from the well does.
Deceived – people in
hardship live a low life.
One in hardship doesn`t
feel cold, others think.
Cold feet shrunken in the wintry chill.
Too thin the clothes she wears
on her bony frame,
unprotected from the weather.
The sketches acquire
coherent lines and shades;
figures begin to question
from the canvas` on entirely
different subject matters,
showing this indifference
to the poor is widespread
and now showing clearly
in all parts of life.
Tell tale signs occur everywhere
when the poor are forced to
live under these conditions.
A surrender to the line of duty
– the military, always there
in times of need.
Me as a grown up finds
so difficult now to believe
that a soldier could cheat.
Truth is – most of the system
is corrupt and
cannot be much of an inspiration.
So don`t let the rules
entangle you in them.
Self elevation – coming forth slowly
from thoughts beyond the mundane,
to lighten the burden
of the mundane.
And knowledge? Assigning a
monetary value to it silences all.
And money – what about it?
By the time they reach
that level of earning
that kind of money
they would also be as sensuous
as their counterparts in
other richer nations from
whom they learn – unavoidable!
The outcome – wine, women and wealth
are set into motion automatically
and inescapably, leaving no room
for chastity of body and mind.
Globalization on these lines
is undesirable.
So think law, logic, philosophy,
freedom – anything but money.
For instance, the slow breeze
caught in the neem tree;
flutter like my joyous heart
the leaves of the tree.
Likewise, there, a death`s calling.
Too much speed, can`t understand,
death is near and instantaneous.
Why the roaring hurry then,
the villagers try to figure out
from their calm surroundings.
And housing – a total failure;
set them up, markets and homes,
for social welfare;
not for hiking the land price
or rent hundreds of times.
Selfishness is a lower quality
as you are aware.
`Cause there are those
who are jolted out of day dreaming
by the sight of a labyrinth of sewers.
He asks, “Is this the world you and
your knowledge and money have
created for me.
O! What a godforsaken place;
what a sharp smell, stinging
like a poisonous insect.
What a life the government has
designed for me. How am I supposed
to work and live in these
miserable conditions?
So at least try to come out
of this slavery to money;
in phases, gradually.
Don`t make life difficult for others,
mainly the poorest.
Stop contemplating that money
will get them out of their misery.
No. All by itself, it can`t.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/05/more-than-money/

By Jacquelyn Nameirakpa

Around 2015,human nature changed, and when there is a change in human nature there will also be a change in ambition ,outlook and perspective.

PROLOGUE

The WORLD YOUTH SUMMIT 2015 which was held from 29 March -3rd APRIL, was definitely a life changing experience for me. FOR a third time ,I decide to change my aim!I even thought of adding a middle name `FERN`;One of hotel staffs of classic GRANDE where I was put up for the summit called and uttered, `Is this Jacquelyn fern`¦?`.I REPLIED in a Brit accent , ` This is Jacquelyn Nameirakpam and not a Jacquelyn Fernandez `.I FELT Sorry for the caller, how much did he wish that the occupant of room no.2002 was the Miss Srilanka ,the bombshell and not the simple localite Jacquelyn. I WISH Jacquelyn Fernandez comes to Imphal and stays in the Grande like a Priyanka Chopra who surprised the people by landing her foot on the Manipuri soil!!Regarding the change of aim, first I wanted to pursue television journalism, even having had wild wild dreams of becoming the first Manipuri lady to be in the BBC ,always watching BBC news ,often reading news for the School Assembly aping the BBC anchors .Though I never became one ,nor will I become one, it immensely helped in my oratoral skills.Thanks to mother ,MRS MEENI SINAM who introduced me to the world of phonetics and the lingaphones of DANIEL JOHNES in my sixth standard though I could barely understand the signs of phonetics. I would also watch documentaries of the BBC and CNN and National Geographic Channel before even a TLC came to existence. AND yes I m making my debut documentary, ON THE BATTLE OF MOIRANG-THE ROLE PLAYED BY MANIPUR AS AN INDEPENDENT PRINCELY STATE IN THE INDIAN FREEDOM STRUGGLE !! The documentary will be scripted,narrated and presented by me and noted award winning film maker oja Romi meitei will be directing it. I have begun research for it collecting books ,going for field surveys and others .

And regarding the second aim, I was given a certificate of honour by the CENTRAL BOARD OF SECONDARY EDUCATION ,NEW DELHI 2008, which read `This is to certify that Miss Jacquelyn nameirakpad/O Shri N.Shantabir of MANIPUR PUBLIC SCHOOL has been awarded a certificate of merit for her outstsanding academic performance, for being among the top 0.1 highest scorers of the country and for securing highest highest mark in political sc at the all INDIA LEVEL`.THIS led me to gatecrash into Lady Shri RAM COLLEGE,a college I have dreamt to a part of since my fifth standard ,since my icon AUNG SAN SUU KYI is also an alumnus and also going by india today`™s best college survey. I got through all the colleges of Delhi university excepting Stephens in my first cut off list.IN LSR ITSELF I got through all the subjects that I applied, and for a moment I was the male contender Of the reality show BACHELORS OF STAR WORLD too confused whom to select from all the eligible babes before him!!!.My teachers in Lsr and Delhi University really inspired me to take up the noble profession and that is when my obsession with passing net began.AND yes I have passed my North East Slet Exam held in nov 2014 in ENGLISH LITERATURE and placed in the 13 th rank for the entire north east With a whooping score of 65.14 pc!!

I realize for the first time that there is life much beyond the philosophical world of a Sartre ,a Kafka .a Camus ,a Nitzche ,a Foucault ,an Ibsen ,a Rushdie and the list goes on .Being a voracious reader, no use of the word bookworm please, it has become a cliche and has negative cannotations too,..people would ask me why do you read so much?. Some people would even say `BRAIN FATABA MIDI LAIRIK YAM PABANI` !!.NO way should I be angry with them as they still belong to the Stone Age!!

So pissed off I was, I even thought of making a video `WHY DO I READ` like an ORHAN PAMUK, Nobel Laureate in Literature 2005 who gave his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech titled `WHY DO I WRITE`, which is one of the best acceptance speech I have watched ..short and to the point!!.I Jacquelyn ,who dreamt of wearing Fab india and Wangkei fee sarees and walking down the isle of English department MANIPUR UNIVERSITY though weary of an informal inner line permit system in the University, finally realize that it is high time I learn to be practical ;`You should grow up and get a little increment in your personal freedom ` my conscience said! AND my presentation titled `MADAM WHICH COUNTRY ARE YOU FROM? RACISM AND THE POLITICS OF THE OTHER` made all the difference. I become more confident and it was an epiphanic moment which led to take up a different career option. And most importantly my presentation played its own part as Cupid`™s Arrow too!!!
Youth for global empowerment was the theme of the Summit and what I learnt was that you need to change yourself first before you point your fingers to others to change their attitude. Empowering the youths of the World is very much the need of the hour people. AND SPECIALLY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE COUNTRY INDIA WHERE THE average age is 28 .Being the largest democracy , with the second highest population in the world ,India has definitely an edge over the rest of her compititors. IT IS said that by 2020 ,the average age of Japan will be 47,40 in the case of China ,46 in the case of EUROPE ,40 IN THE US AND IN OUR COUNTRY IT WILL ONLY BE 29,BLOODY 29!!!According to ILO Survey India will have 160 million working force when our number one competitor china will have 94 million working force. In terms of figures India `s potential is great but how do we harness the potential of the youthful population is another big question !!! The World has become a global village with the introduction of the internet .Thanks to the efforts of the US Military, the realm of the knowledge sector has also expanded too which means that I Jacquelyn , though born in a corner of North East India can access to what a Shasha Obama gets in the US with the click of a button if at all I am interested In learning new stuffs!!

MAIN BODY

ME,N Jacquelyn and my younger brother ALBERT ,who were part of the young Indian delegates were given a grand reception at THE classic GRANDE. Both of us were very elated even imagining the experience of travelling to a foreign country representing India .WE were assigned room no.2002 and explored around the thotel quite impressed by the interiors of the hotel ,the Khamen Chatpa wall paper at the reception, the carpet of the corridors which has the same design as that of a wakhei fee ,the khamba thoibi painting in the lounge of the second floor and of course not to forget the hospitality of hotel staffs;On the second day I had severe headache after dancing too much and called for the room service at 3 am requesting for vicks oinment and to my surprise they arranged some how at that odd hour for the ointment. HOW thank ful I was and uttered `Thank you so much sir,thank you so much`.The experiences of staying at the Grande made me contemplate, `WHAT IF MOTHER MANIPUR HAS AT LEAST TEN DR DABALLIS AS HER SONS ,
THE CHAMLING LED SIKKIM WOULD NOT BE MUCH BETTER`!!!

My sister in law DR SALINITA came to my room and informed me of a MEGA HEALTH MELA AT IRENGBAND.SHE suggested me that I interact with the people while she diagnoses patients. Dad drove us till the venue of the MEGA HEALTH CAMP ,giving his signature advice `Athanba chafudi makhol thokte` It was an enjoyable long drive and seeing the paddy fields and the beautiful scenery around, for a moment I felt like a female LUKE NGUYEN OF THE LUKE NGUYEN AND THE GREATER MEKONG SERIES.Travelling along the Indo Burma Road made even remember the last chapter of Than mint yu`™s book, ` From china to india/Burma and the cross roads of Asia`.It made me contemplate on the strategic importance of Manipur in the upcoming Look East Policy!!

I REACH the venue of the Mela with villagers eagerly waiting their doctors from Imphal to arrive .MY SISTER IN LAW DR SALINITA AND DR AMBICA were assigned the medicine department but as I was interested in the issues of women and children, I hurried myself to gynae and padea depts..I see a group of women sitting on a bench waiting for their turn. I SMILE and introduce myself .I slowly start fixing my eyes on their tummies .For a moment I was like a Julian Morle of the MISS WORLD ORG too confused whom to select as the new Miss World!!And I choose the woman sitting in the corner whose heavily pregnant AND HER NAME IS PAKPI MAYENGBAM.THEN I shift my base and land my foot on the padaetrics dept and interview ABEM MAIBAM AND HAMIDA KHULEMBAM.

EXCERPTS FROM THE INTERVIEW

INTERVIEW WITH PAKPI

JACQUELYN=J PAKPI=P

J:Echema, can you please introduce yourself?

P:Im pakpi, 32 years of age with three kids in 3rd, 2nd and 1st standard respectively.

J:So you are pregnant with your fourth child. What are your reasons for conceiving for the fourth time?

P:I want a son

J:Echema may you give birth to a son. Even if you give birth to a girl child again, please do not be disheartened. Echema you are very much a female as I am. In this modern world there should not be any difference between a male and a female. Please do tell me about your diet .Do you take iron folic tablets?

P:Im given proper diet like fish and other nutritious stuffs. Yes I do take iron folics.. it s given for free by the government.

J(smiles I think you know a lot of stuffs given for free). Are you given proper diet because your husband wants a boy child?

P:THAT is not the case, I was given proper diet in previous pregnancies too..

(great pleasure talking to you Echema)

J:do you know SSA scheme?

P:(gives a blank gesture)

J(too confused how to explain,looks around for SSA posters,finally finds one )ECHEMA LOOK at that poster with a girl sitting on a pencil.IT IS a scheme which gives free education to all the children till the age of 14.While I try to explain more schemes like RMSA ,AND THE UPCOMING RUSA ,she hurries off as she is called for to meet the doctor

INTERVIEW WITH ABEM MAIBAM

ABEM=A

J:PLS introduce yourself

A:Im ABEM from Irengband Awang leikai and I am 24 and I have two kids

J:till what class did you study?And what does your husband do?

A:I studied till my third standard.He is a driver .He earms around 20 thousand and gives me hundred rupees as pocket money every day

J:That`™s great .How nice of him.Please tell me more about your family?

A:Apart from my husband who is soft spoken and does whatever I tell(I don`™t mean in a negative sense),my in laws are also very supportive .THEY are very concerned of the education of my kids .Though I live in a kutcha house ,I am happily married.

J:HOW lucky are you. MONEY IS NOT EVERYTHING. See we are of the same age and you are already so advanced with life ,happily married with two kids.(smiles) Eta you should also give your best from your side too to your family (it is not an advice just a suggestion)

Eta even if you are educated only till your 3rd grade, that should not deter you from giving your kids the best education. THERE is no rule that your kids cannot be an IAS,A DOCTOR OR AN ENGINEER.(SHE BECOMES EMOTIONAL AND TRY HER BEST TO CONTROL HER TEARS)

J:Do you have any idea about SSA, RMSA AND RUSA?

A:A little bit of SSA

J:((EXPLAINS all the schemes including the upcoming RUSA)Do you know DM COLLEGE?It is going to be converted into a University ,there is also a Sangai university and a Sports university coming up too .Please spread the word to your neighbours and people you know

The government does lots for the people . For MANIPUR to develop ,development has to come in from every nook and corner of MANIPUR AND NOT JUST THE IMPHAL AREA!! Let us all work together hand in hand for a better Manipur .With all these schemes ,there is no way your kids will escape from being educated!!

HAMIDA KHULLEBAM

HAMIDA=H

J:Please introduce yourself

H:I am Hamida ,32 from sora and I have five kids ,all females and my husband is a driver.

J:Does he drink or into illicit affairs?

H:NO he doesn`™t drink nor is into illicit affairs.

J:Do you own a paddy field?

H:No we do not,my husband doesnot even own a piece of land.THE land that we live is given by m family ,just a small piece ,very small it is she reiterates`¦

J:Iconsole her telling her that she is very lucky being given a small piece of land from her family.Being given something is much better than not being given anything at all(we both laugh)

J:SO you lead a peaceful life?

H:YES to some extent BUT WE are debt ridden.. around one lakh

ANALYSIS

The object of my research was to find out whether these people from Irengband area have the right kind of motivation and environment to give their kids the best education. THE study is an indicative one and not a representational one. I found out that these women would love to give their kids the best education but do not know the ways and means .All the women that I have interviewed are said to live considerably peaceful lives with no case of domestic violence.

WHY DO I ENQUIRE IF THE WOMEN`™S HUSBAND DRINK OR HAVE AN ILLICIT AFFAIR?

YES there is a logic behind such a question .In order to give your children the best education ,you need to create a cordial academic atmosphere .WHEN A husband returns late in the night drunk or after having an illicit affair, fight will naturally erupt .Do you think children of such families will get the best from their parents? For women of such families teaching and educating the kids will be given secondary priority .THE first priority will be to tame the wild ,wild ways of the husband. There is also a difference between a husband who drinks and a husband who is into illicit affair, the later being worse. THE trauma that the wife and children of men who are into illicit affair undergo is undescribable; the embarresment of the legally wed husband with a different woman, of the father with a different woman who is not their biological mother. Unlike that of a dipsomaniac, the scar that a womanizer leaves is difficult to heal!!!The legally wed wife is often labeled a nymphomaniac, if only ,if only he changes. SHE becomes a grass widow when her husband was very much alive! Sometimes she curses the good lord that gave life to a SUNNY LEONE,A RAKHI SAWANT,A MALIKA SHERAWAT AND THE LIST GOES ON ;`HAIL TOO THEE LORD THOU DATS GIVE THEE LIFE`.W hat was the difference between them and she? They were professionals and she an amateur!!!An amateur cannot compete with a professional any day and that was her fate!! Reader SUNNY LEONE has topped the list of the most google searched Indian ,followed by our own SHRI NARENDRA MODI JI.This could be asked in the upcoming MPSC EXAM,if not on Sunny Leone, the question setters too scared of a possible furor from the moral police from our state. May be a question `THE second most googled searched Indian is?`,GS questions are always underpredictable ,you never know !!!

WHY DO I STRESS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE EDUCATION OF THE GIRL CHILD?

Yes ,education of the girl child is very important .Today she will be a girl,then a lady and a mother one day. MARY WOOLSTONE CRAFT`™s 1792 essay `VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN` ,a seminal feminist work of the eighteenth century influenced by EUROPEAN ENLIGHTENMENT , was written in response to a French report that argued that women should be given only domestic education and attatcks sexual double standards and posits that women should be given an education commensurate with their position in society .Attacking male thinkers like ROUSSEAU who argued against women`™s education, WOOLSTONECRAFT emphasized the social and communal benefits of educating women. The essay talks of how educated wives make better companions to their husbands and will be able to bring up their children in a better way. Being empowered by reason and rationality would also help them from being susceptible to excessive emotion and sensibility!! The development index of a society can be known from the status of women I feel. Take the example of Japan for instance. In the second world war a Japenese lady pilot is said to have dropped a bomb in and around Chingambam Mandap at Chingmeirong. My late maternal grandmother would recount `Matamduda eikhoi leisabi pukak fare,eikhoina fanek khongdai setlingeida Japan nupidi uruplane dei bomb thadrakhrabani. Lairik tamba chatmina ningai leitabagi school kakhide, matamduda nupi na lairik tamba chatpase yam afaobini hainei` .SO IN order to make a better society ,education of the girl child should be encouraged!!
Contents

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WHY IS THERE SO MUCH OBSESSION WITH THE BOY CHILD?

Of the three women that I have interviewed, two are said to have a desire to undergo multiple pregnancies ,risking their health and of course their lives just for a boy child!!Manipuri society being patrilineal and patrilocal if not staunchly patriarchal ,leads them to risk their lives .THE FEAR OF THEIR HUSBANDS BRINGING IN ANOTHER WIFE if they do not give birth to a male child runs strong on their blood. Being able to conceive and give a new life is the most wonderful thing that can happen to a woman. But the wonderful thing should not happen every year .WOMEN should be respected since they have a very important role to play- that of giving new lives .Women look best when pregnant. Sometimes I would indulge myself in surreal dreams of how I would look like when I conceive my first baby,of the books that I would read with ROBERT KANIGAL`™S THE MAN WHO KNEW INFINITY :A LIFE OF THE GENIUS RAMANUJUN on top of my reading list!!!Being a bhuddhist and a believer of an afterlife, i imagine the after lives of men who harass ,beat their wives or are in to illicit affairs with multiple women after all the troubles a woman has to undergo, right from the stomach ache from teenage to the morning sickness and everything and the pain of child delivery.

But atleast I m happy ,these guys of the rural areas who are not even formally educated , at least know how to take proper care of their wives and children and in the case of an ABEM who is given RS 100 as pocket money everyday ,of a pakpi who is given a proper diet even in her fourth pregnancy,and that of a Hamida Begum `s husband who inspite of a debt of 1 lakh is courageous enough to send all his five kids to school.

EPILOGUE

DEAD tired I was ,but I was mentally satisfied ,at least I was able to give a ray of hope to these villagers. It was also an epiphanic moment ,that I need to work really ,really hard to serve the society .ON the way I come across Pupul village,something new to me.. .My mother asks me how the day was and hands me over a hot water bag.She further tells me `EBEMA NGAIHAK POTHARO ,ECHANA HAONA THONGBA NGA DO CHADA KUIRE ,AMUKTA CHASI` .AS the saying goes , `A hungry man is an angry man`,I reply..Ema ei Ngasidi leave lourage chak thongbadei ei sathina ware ..My mother further adds `Social work ti toue bu,yum dadi ekan kanadabei maong ama touri` to which I pretend that I did not hear!!!!

THE WRITER IS THE FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF VOICE FOR CHANGE.SHE IS AN ALUMNUS OF LADY SHRI RAM COLLEGE, AND HAS A MAJOR IN ENGLISH LITERATURE FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF DELHI. SHE CAN BE REACHED AT jacy_here@yahoo.com

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/05/love-in-times-of-swine-flumy-date-with-the-people-of-irengband-village/

By Amar Yumnam

The whole world knows that there is a price tag for every government job in Manipur. It is also known that the government is practically the only employer of people looking for jobs in the formal sector. With the very slow expansion or rather stagnancy for employment opportunities in the informal sector, the job in government is the only hope and aspiration of the people `“ youths, and parents of the youths. Simultaneously it is also the envy of all those youths and parents of youths who do not have any space in the quantum of employment in the government sector. This has been the reality`“ governance trajectory and social dynamics – of Manipur for not years, but decades with the quantum reflected in price tags rising without limits.

Globally, the mid-1980s completed the trend of realization of government failures instead of the conventional thinking that it is only the market that fails. The government is neutral and objective whereas the market is driven by the selfish motives of the individuals `“ this was the religious belief of development workers. The global research on development, poverty removal and social justice established by mid-1980s and beyond doubt at that that Milton Friedman has been right all along. Friedman had been saying all along that government is never objective and consists of self-aggrandizing individuals. While mistakes in a market would not be cumulative, mistakes committed by the government would tend to get cumulative because the state defends the government; in fact, the government performs all its activities in the name of the state only. This protection allows the government to keep on committing anti-people and anti-nation activities and all in the name of the state. This would continue without correction and the individuals performing the duties of the government would continue to flourish without any correction mechanism coming forth; while in the market any mistake would emit signals as reflected in the price, there is no such thing in the case of the members of the club performing the government functions.

Manipur is an exemplary example of government failures and the accumulation of the cost of those failures. There is a locational advantage in this phenomenon; the peripheral location allows that the club members of the government can continue with their business unconcerned by the rest of the world and the political voice of the people as well too weak to be cared for. Now the question is: how do the club members sustain this phenomenon for decades? While the whole world are witnessing drastic changes in the transformation of the character and quality of government – India is not an exception to this -, why is it that the club members of the government are able to sustain their activities with the same characteristic components in the case of Manipur?

This is where we need to have a deep look into the character of functioning of the government in Manipur. The governance in Manipur has all along worked only on the principle to ensure that the only means to assured livelihood and growth remains only through joining a job in government by hook or by crook in the real sense. This has been worked through two functionalities. First, the government has so assiduously worked over the decades to see to it that the means to livelihood do not get expanded in the non-governmental sector by imposing prohibitive political costs. Second, the government has all along behaved almost like a controlling authority than as an effective regulator. Oh! Regulation is such a foreign word to the governance mechanism in Manipur. Say control, all the members of the club (read government) would jump out as competent and committed athletes.

Here it would be interesting to quote what Claude Levi-Strauss writes in the very first paragraph of his book Myths and Meaning: : `Although I am going to talk about what I have written, my books and papers and so on, unfortunately I forget what I have written practically as soon as it is finished. There is probably going to be some trouble about that. But nevertheless I think there is also something significant about it, in that I don`™t have the feeling that I write my books. I have the feeling that my books get written through me and that once they have got across me I feel empty and nothing is left.` While Levi-Strauss writes for a very positive outlook to the whole issue of his expression of ideas to the world, paraphrasing him in connection with behaviour of the club members of the government in Manipur is interesting. It is as if they see all their actions as stand- alone actions with no links with the past and no concerns for the future; the present is all that matters. But the present is defined only by what serves self-aggrandisement; rent, rent, and rent, and production and productivity are irrelevant.

This absence of sense of regulation, enhancement of livelihood opportunities, and encouragement of production orientation of the government of Manipur has a latest manifestation in how the pre-office hour market is controlled and suppressed in Imphal. Day in and day out, we would find both the government and the society it serves shouting their respect to our women and womanhood in Manipur. But the character of controlling approach rather than regulatory approach has always got the better of the governance thinking as it serves the purpose of sustenance on non-expansion of livelihood opportunities outside the purview of government and rent-control exercises of the club-members.

There is a temporary market-shed in the Bir Tikendrajit Road. Everybody knows this place is a symbol of dirt, mud and what not. Given the fact that, the activities undertaken in this market shed are the only ones to honourably sustain a family for all the participants. It may be that the government wants to work towards making the participants subservient to government forever.

Second, for the last few weeks, we have been observing the strength of the provincial law and order maintenance force in full play in absolutely stopping the women of Manipur selling their little products on the roadside in the wee hours of the morning. Now all these women are only those putting in all their efforts to make a living for their family and to maintain their children. Remember, we are yet to experience a policy intervention of the government to enhance livelihood opportunities either in the valley or in the mountains. Further, the tax-payers do not contribute their share to have the police personnel employed to curb the activities of the people endeavouring hard to earn a livelihood.

Well, the time is now for the government to recover from nonsense and evolve towards enhancing livelihood opportunities of the people. It is not control but regulation. Please see what is happening around the world in both thinking and policy. Please do not force the people to bear the cost of governance incompetence forever.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/05/why-price-tags-on-government-jobs-state-so-unfriendly-to-livelihood-efforts-in-manipur/

y Pradip Phanjoubam

Amidst the frightening and depressing images emerging out of Nepal which was recently hit by a killer earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale, we are continuing to reproduce articles written by the author after a visit to Kathmandu 10 years ago. As was the case last week, this article too has nothing to do with the earthquake, or the aftermath of unprecedented human tragedies as well as heroism it has left behind, but one to recall the trauma`™s the nation has been going through the decades. It is from the IFP archives written a decade ago, after a visit to Kathmandu when the country was still a monarchy, but civil unrest under the banner of the Maoists was building up. What came across as remarkable at the time was a strong undercurrent anti-India feeling on the streets of Kathmandu. The article is reproduced as some of the core issues of identity and conflict remains the same though a lot has happened ever since. The issues are also in many ways a reflection of similar issues in the Northeast and Manipur. Our hearts and prayers continue to go out to Nepal and its people. May they be strong and overcome their grief, however deep, and get back to normal life again soon.

In this article, the author looks at the deeper undercurrents of insecurity which drive xenophobic visions. This is especially interesting in view of similar symptoms showing in much of the Northeast, not the least Manipur, in recent times. The demand for the introduction of the Inner Line Permit System, is just a case in point.

Nepal does not share a boundary with Bhutan, but the two kingdoms share a vexing problem. Bhutan since the mid 1980s have been pursuing an ethnic cleansing policy against the Nepali population concentrated in its southern province. As a result, there today over one lakh Bhutanese-Nepalis in refugee camps in Nepal. Bhutan government says the evicted Nepalis are recent migrants attracted by certain developmental projects during the 1980s and 1990s that needed huge, cheap, unskilled labour inputs. The Nepali migrants filled up this vacuum, but the Bhutanese claim they overstayed their hospitality. Up to the 1970s, Bhutan was lenient to its Nepali population, willingly and consciously absorbing them into the power structure of the country, but a sudden change of attitude became evident ever since, and this was prompted largely by a political foment amongst the educated Nepali population demanding the introduction of democracy in this tradition bound kingdom.

I must confess beforehand that I have not been to Bhutan since my schooldays more than two decades ago, so these observations will tend to be inclined towards to the viewpoint of Nepal, where I had gone only recently to participate in an European Union sponsored media workshop, organised by five different NGOs from various SAARC countries. The sole participant from Bhutan in the workshop was a Bhutanese Nepali refugee in Nepal. But as somebody from a region which would in a non political sense include Bhutan as well, I am sure I would not be totally off the mark to attempt understanding Bhutan`™s psychology behind its overtly xenophobic policy towards the Nepalis. It would in fact, I am certain, be the same energy that drove the six-year-long Assam Agitation against `foreigners` in the 80s and the recent move amongst certain quarters in Manipur to have the Inner Line Permit system re-introduced in the state, as in other northeastern tribal states like Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh.

A rhetorical question should be able to underscore the issues involved pretty lucidly. Why would the Nagas who are in a majority in Nagaland be apprehensive of a few thousand Bangladeshis in Nagaland? The same question may be asked of the Mizos, or Meiteis. Or in a more distant context, what was the rationale behind the Singhalese who are in an absolute majority in Sri Lanka, to suddenly turn aggressively nationalistic and alienate their co-citizens the Tamils, sparking off the bloody insurrection now spearheaded by the LTTE? Why do we have so many majority populations around the globe which suffer from a minority complex? To understand the problem, it is essential not to study these problems in closed sets but in larger and more open contexts. Rather than the telephoto lens which narrows down angle of vision and looks for details, the wide angle lens with its larger field of view must be engaged to get a more comprehensive picture. For example, we are sure the Singhalese fear of the Tamils is not just of the Sri Lankan Tamils, but in the back of their minds the fear will have to do with the larger context of the Sri Lankan and Indian Tamils combined. In this larger set, the Singhalese would be reduced to a miniscule minority. It is interesting that the majority communities in all the other cases of `majority with minority complexes` there is a larger context in which the majority in the closed set is reduced to minority in the open set.

The Bhutanese fear of the Nepali population in Bhutan hence cannot be just about the Bhutanese Nepalis, but in the larger context of the Napali population corridor stretching from Bhutan, Assam, north Bengal and Nepal. In this new demographic region, the Bhutanese would be reduced to a negligible minority. Bhutan`™s ruling and dominant community, the Ngalongs, hence would have every reason to interpret the demand for a share of the country`™s power by an unqualified system of democracy which lays a premium on numbers as a dangerous ethnic affront on them. As it is the Bhutanese capital of Thimpu was losing contact with its southern districts where its Nepali population was concentrated. These districts were already having a closer affinity with the Nepali population in North Bengal and according to an observer, Kalimpong in Darjeeling was beginning to exercise greater influence over the region than Bhutan`™s capital, Thimpu. Memories of the fate of Sikkim, where the indigenous ethnic communities were outnumbered by Nepali settlers and finally in what was a `democratic` referendum, Sikkim lost its independence and its original population marginalized hopelessly in the democratic power equation in their own erstwhile kingdom, would have added to the Bhutanese xenophobic paranoia.

A primer of the demographic profile of Bhutan should make this equation clearer. By and large, Bhutan`™s population can be grouped into three distinct ethnic categories.

The Ngalongs are the ruling community and constitute 15 percent of the kingdom`™s population. They are concentrated in the northern region of the country and are close racial cousins of the Tibetans.

The Losampas are Nepali speaking and are concentrated in the southern region of the country. They once constituted 45 percent of the country`™s population.

The Shachops are of Tibeto-Burma linguistic group and are concentrated in the eastern region of the country and their population overlap with populations of western Arunachal Pradesh in India. They constitute roughly 40 percent of Bhutan`™s population.

The total population of Bhutan being just about 7 lakhs, the vulnerability the Ngalongs would have felt at the changing demographic balance and growing demand for the introduction of democratic rule by numbers can well be visualized.

Bhutan`™s way of settling its score has been brutal. In the last one and a half decade, the kingdom has been leaving a trail of brutal prosecution again the Losampas. In 1989 the government demanded all citizens to prove their citizenship. The drive was basically focused on the Losampas.

* It first asked all citizens to produce land records and land tax receipts for the year 1958. Its excuse for not having a backup of these records was that the country`™s home ministry came into existence only in 1966.

*When this move failed to brand a good majority of the Losampas as non-citizens, it introduced `a one nation one people` decree whereby all citizen were required to prove their citizenship by demonstrating their intimate familiarity with the Ngalong language and culture.

But even this move failed to segregate many of the country`™s Losampa population.

*It then, according to some Nepali refugees from Bhutan, went about intimidating the Losampas to `voluntarily` agree to migrate from the country. In stage-managed shows where terrorized Losampas were made to sign undertakings that they were leaving the country voluntarily and were paraded before publicity cameras accepting money from a `benevolent` government helping its citizens leaving the country. This strategy managed to force 60 percent of the Losampas out of the country.

*The government also calibrated its citizenship into seven categories. Only Class One citizens enjoyed all the guarantees reserved for citizens of the country. The rest, in ascending order of the grades were progressively deprived of these rights.

The country today follows the familiar policy of one country one people policy and to qualify to be a Class One citizen, every Bhutanese will have to be proficient in the Bhutanese national language, which is the Ngalong language, have to wear the national dress, be followers of the Bhutanese national religion which is Buddhism. Those who do not meet these requirements will be graded in descending order of their falling short of these qualities, into the other six categories of citizenship.

*The country as of now has no constitution, but it is in the process of drafting one. However, no transparency is maintained in the drafting process and it is feared it will cater to Ngalong interests only.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/05/kathmandu-diaryii-of-majorities-with-minority-complexes/

By Amar Yumnam

The change is salient `“ one may enter into a mall, a cinema hall, attend a meeting in a government office, or just get into a restaurant. Cool, just be patient; I am definitely not talking of my birthplace Manipur. I am rather talking of Delhi of late. The recent changes happening in Delhi possess both ethical and cultural components, and for these they are absolutely lovely. When I talk of change, I do mean it in the positive sense of the social milieu getting better without multiplying the strangeness of both process and outcomes. In other words, we now see signs of both social contextualisation and moving forward happening in Delhi; this is visible in both the government and the market sector.

Here one would certainly be concerned as to what exactly is the scenario back home in Manipur. Well, historically Manipur is replete with experiences of change (more of the negative one, and less of the positive) and absence of change; I am more familiar of post-1949 Manipur. The changes happening have confined more or less in the valley, and the absence of change has been the fortune of the mountains of Manipur. The changes happening in the valley have been mostly material without ethical and cultural components; the changes are non-contextualised and non-rooted. These have resulted mostly in multiplication of corruption and rise of nepotism. The absence of changes in the mountains of Manipur has been even more painful for the common people. First, the mountains of Manipur are yet to experience the reality of democratic governance. This absence of governance has had a very deleterious effect on the access to services and market, and consequently on the scope for social and individual enhancement. This absence of governance or rather the notion of nation state as still inexperienced, the vacuum has long been occupied by non-state forces challenging the formal state. But very unfortunately for the common people, these non-state forces have not found time to articulate and attend to the developmental needs of the mountain population besides political mobilisation.

In these circumstances it is naturally expected that the people do long for a break from whatever developmental path they have experienced in the province. In the valley, the people do want a kind of governance structure and social atmosphere where there will be equal `“equal across ethnicity and economic status- scope for participation in whatever opportunities available for advancement in well-being and based on efforts, quality and merit. This is because the long jeopardy caused to genuine efforts and genuine quality has dampened social cohesion, social strength and deepened inter-generational transmission of poverty. The consequence is the rise to majority of the numbers experiencing unhappiness under the prevailing character of governance. This number has not had the capability to influence the democratic outcomes for the very democracy prevailing is non-contextualised, and the clubs exercising state-power are too powerful. In the case of the mountains, the people have been made to bear with the twin squeeze of absence of state-governance on one hand, and the violent impositions of all hues from the non-state forces on the other. These have forced the common people to work ever harder in a context of non-delivery of modernisation elements by the state and the extractions of the non-state forces. In the mountains, the elites on both state and non-state sides have been so strongly pre-occupied with rent-extraction from all sides without in any way bothering to attend to the needs of the common people. The state elites find the existence of the violent non-state elites a convenient excuse to concentrate on personal aggrandisement. The non-state and violent elites too apply the same logic vice versa. Thus the common people are forever caught in a stationary situation to struggle for their livelihood. This is why inter alia we see absolute degradation of forests, worsening of poverty, deep gender challenges and other serious development burdens in the mountain areas of Manipur.

Whatever the case, we must emphasise that the prevailing socio-economic milieu is unsustainable in both the geographic divisions of Manipur. Change must happen. The question arises who would spearhead the changes. There is some deep introspection required here about the contextual challenges in Manipur. It would be too much if we expect that the provincial government with the prevailing characters would be able to rise to the occasion. However, there is also the constitutional as well as contextual reality that it cannot be ignored either. This is where we expect certain impositions from the central government on the provincial government on important issues relating to the livelihood and advance opportunities of the common people. The experience of China during the mid-1990s is interesting in this regard. In order to usher into the various market-oriented reforms, the centre had to prevail upon many provinces in big decisions. It was as Henry M. Paulson, Jr., former Secretary of the Treasury of the USA has put in his just-published book Dealing With China: `reform efforts led initially to more central control, not less.`

What we need in Manipur is contextualisation of democracy by going beyond the issues of state. In other words, there is a fundamentality of the need for necessarily incorporating the civil society in conceptualising the notion of state in Manipur. Here we may recall the late-1980s`™ perception of civil society in Eastern Europe: `the notion that democratization should be broadly conceptualized in terms of civil society instead of aspects of the state, and in terms of trans-national and international interdependencies instead of domestic forces alone. Hence, in one way or another, the transitions to democracy inaugurated after 1989 were presented as the triumph of civil society. For leading democratic intellectuals such as Michnik in Poland and Havel in Czechoslovakia, civil society was a term with almost magic powers: it combined a political project of freedom, an economic project of growth, a form of international insertion and the basis for building democratic institutions. In other words, there appeared to be no inherent contradiction between finding and building democracy through civil society and institutionalizing it formally, between growth through marketization and civil and social rights.` But we have a very challenging scenario in Manipur in the sense that the civil society perceptions in the valley are not in convergence with those prevailing in the mountains in most cases. The atmosphere of governance oriented towards rent-seeking over decades have led the articulations to mostly based on contradictions of each other instead of evolving towards a shared conviction. This is where the strong intervention from the Centre for establishing democracy, democratic participation, democratisation of opportunities for individual advancements and institution building is called for. In any case, we cannot afford the repetition of the democratisation experience with civil society perspectives: `because civil society organizations were expressly political and addressed issues concerned with `high`™ politics and the form of the state, environmental, ethnic and gender problems were largely ignored.` Further, `while civil society as “democracy” does provide an alternative to state socialism, the existence of the necessary preconditions for civil society `“ based on the autonomous individual (freed from communal identities) as moral agent `“ cannot be taken for granted . . . It is not the apotheosis of the individual that vitiates the civil (and communal) pole of civil society but the continued existence of strong ethnic and group solidarities which have continually thwarted the very emergence of those legal, economic and moral individual identities upon which civil society is envisioned.`

While the imperative for change is all the more in the mountains of Manipur, the challenge and the fear for undesirable outcomes are all the more here as well. Whatever reform which might come in place should conform, at least for the mountain areas, to the second principle of justice of John Rawls which states: `Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both: (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged, consistent with the just saving principle, and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity.` But, with the prevailing realities, there is little if any likelihood of any political reform satisfying this Second Principle of Rawls, and instead it may just worsen the condition of the `least advantaged` in the mountain villages. This invites the question as to how to avoid such an outcome. This can be done only by allowing the mountain population to emerge as `autonomous individuals`. The global development experience tells us that evolving individual property rights regime has been the foundation for emergence of autonomous individuals. There is both urgency and pre-requisite for completing the cadastral surveys in the mountain areas of Manipur in the interest of the common people in general and the `least advantaged` in particular.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/going-beyond-the-notion-of-state-citizenship-governance-and-development-in-manipur/

By Pradip Phanjoubam

Today Nepal was devastated by an earthquake measuring 7.9, the biggest in 80 years the nation has seen. Our heart goes out to the sorrows the Nepali people are facing now.
This article has nothing to do with the earthquake, but one to recall the trauma`™s the nation has been going through the decades. It is from the IFP archives written a decade ago, after a visit to Kathmandu when the country was still a monarchy, but civil unrest under the banner of the Maoists was building up. What came across as remarkable at the time was a strong undercurrent anti-India feeling on the streets of Kathmandu. The article is reproduced as some of the core issues of identity and conflict remains the same though a lot has happened ever since. The issues are also in many ways a reflection of similar issues in the Northeast and Manipur.

Is Nepal in for an ethnic strife of the variety that much of the northeast region of India is going through? The starkness of this question became evident even during a 10 day stay in the nation`™s capital Kathmandu to take part in a European Union sponsored workshop on Xenophobia and Racism for South Asian countries, and jointly organized by five different NGOs from the various South Asian countries and one from Europe.

This is one question which is increasingly gaining currency in this landlocked Himalayan kingdom. Apart from the caste-Hindu (those falling within the four-fold Hindu varna or caste system) Nepali, who are basically of Indo-Aryan descent originally having migrated from India, there are 59 officially recognized ethnic indigenous communities in the state, although the actual number is as much as 102. Most of these communities are of the Mongolian stock speaking variants of the Tibeto-Burman language strain. The sanskritized Nepali language (or Khash Nepali), which is the official language of Nepal, serves as the lingua franca of the country and Nepali population in neighbouring countries, most prominently India. In recent times however, there has been an unprecedented upsurge in the identity assertion by most of the 59 indigenous Nepali communities, each claiming to be unique linguistically and conturally, but sharing their living space with other neighbouring communities.

Declining Hindu population:

Curiously, this resurgence of identity amongst Nepal`™s ethnic communities is marked by tendencies towards revivalism. As a result, this theocratic Hindu nation is witnessing a rapid decline in the Hindus population since the 1991 decadal population census. It is unlikely the revivalism wave will be total, as is the case with all such phenomenon everywhere, but if it was to be so, the official claim of the country being 90 percent Hindu may have to revise the figure to far less than 40, the indigenous, non caste-Hindu population in the country being close to 50 percent, and another 10 percent or so constituting of Buddhists, Muslims and Christians.

The Nepali communities falling within the Hindu varna are: The Hill Brahmins constituting 12.7 percent, the Chhetri (15.8 percent), the Yadav (3.9 percent), and the Kami (3.9 percent). Among the major indigenous communities are the Magar (7.1 percent), Tharu (6.7 percent), Tamang (5.6 percent), Newar (5.5 percent) and the Rai (2.8 percent). Nepali Muslims account for 4.3 percent of the country`™s population.

Rise of the Kirat:

Today more and more of Nepal`™s ethnic communities are registering themselves as followers of Kirat or indigenous animism which they now forcefully assert is as much a religion as any other. The rate of growth of the population registering themselves under this religious category in just the past decade beginning 1991 is estimated at 157 percent. Christianity is also on a rapid increase. During the same decade, followers of the religion is said to have grown 226 percent.

According to Balkrishna Mabuhang, a lecturer in the Tribhuvan University Kritipur, teaching in the central department of population studies, who belongs to the Limbu indigenous community, in the past, the practice has been to enlist anybody who does not belong to the established religions, most particularly Islam and Christianity, as a Hindu. The result has been the total denial of an independent space for the cultural, religious and other practices of the indigenous peoples of Nepal he said. Some terms and labels very familiar to India`™s northeast, such as `sankritization of culture`, `Hindu colonization`, `Brahmin hegemony` etc, are today becoming part of the parlance in any discussion on the indigenous question in Nepal.

Mabuhang says for instance that Nepal`™s indigenous population without exception love meat eating, including beef. But the superimposed Brahmanical order has declared a ban on cow slaughter. Persons guilty of the crime is punishable by a prison term of 15 years and those found selling beef can earn a jail term for 6 years. Many of the indigenous population including Kathmandu`™s dominant community, the Newars, who have not been able to give up the taste of beef has found a substitute `“ Buffalo meat. The meat is widely sold and eaten in Nepal today, and one finds the meat openly sold and relished even in vending shops on the streets of Kathmandu.

Not tribals please:

Curiously again, the non-caste Hindu population refuse to be called `tribals`. They prefer to be referred to simply as `indigenous people`, or `ethnic nationalities` or `Janjatis` saying the concept `tribal` carries with it negative and derogatory images, quite unlike in India where the official incentive structuring has brought about a total metamorphosis of the concept of pride and prejudices with regards to the term. There is no reservation policy in the country, although it is quite likely demands for such a policy may grow in the near future, considering 80 to 90 percent of all the white collared jobs in the country is currently the monopoly of the upper caste Brahminincal order. As of today the prospect of preferred treatment is met with a degree of indignation by many amongst the indigenous population who feel the pinch on their pride at being thus patronised. `We want equality not patronization,` they said.

Quite predicably, the main thrusts of the demands by the ethnic communities of Nepal today are:

* Equality of Language: Nepal has `Khash Nepali` as the official language. Everybody citizen in Nepal is expected to be proficient in it for all official transactions and job recruitment is to be based on it.

* Secular policy: Nepal is a theocratic state and Hinduism is the state religion. The Hinduism here is also openly discriminatory against non-caste Hindus, non-Hindus and the Dalits. Nepal`™s indigenous populations now want their traditional religion and customs to be officially recognized and given the freedom to be pursued and practiced.

* Ethnic autonomy and ethnic self-rule: There is also a growing demand for autonomy of the traditional territories of the ethnic communities where each can preserve their identities and customs more freely.

Maoist fodder:

Interestingly, the ongoing Maoist insurrection in Nepal encompasses all these aspirations within its revolutionary objectives. It is not a co-incidence hence that the backbone of this insurrection is formed by the indigenous population of the country. According to knowledgeable sources, 65 to 70 percent of the country is under the control of the Maoists, and the government controls merely the Kathmandu valley and its adjoining districts.

The question that not many are asking at the moment however is, what if the Maoist movement in the country fails? Would that amount to the subsiding of the growing ethnic identity assertions as well? The Maoist movement which draws much of its succour from the expanding ethnic churning is not secessionist. It is on the other hand a movement that seeks to re-order the power structure in the country by overthrowing the monarchy and ushering in a communist egalitarian rule. They are able to hold the energy unleashed by the ethnic unrest for the moment but what if the Nepali state manages to break the Maoist movement? Where would this energy go? Unchannelised, this energy can become a very dangerous loose cannon, destructive on its own, but viciously so when it falls into the hands of vested sectarian interests. Is Nepal in for the extremely divisive and fissured politics of ethnic insurgency as is witnessed in most of northeast India today? These are questions which should surely begin to ring the alarm bells sooner than later.

Insipid politics:

Compounding Nepal`™s problem is the insipid politics in the country. The monarchy which has grossly over-lived its utility, despite the popular demand for the ushering in of democracy, have shown no intent of relinquishing power. This notwithstanding there are not many who doubt its days are numbered and sooner than later it would be reduced to what it is virtually now `“ a vestigial organ. But the country`™s trouble is, at least for the moment, there seems no institution capable of filling the political vacuum this would leave. The various political parties continue to fail miserably to raise even one leader capable of taking on the challenge. They are mutually suspicious of each other, and indications are, the monarchy would be able to divide them to destroy the anti-monarchy movement they now are jointly leading currently. Nepali intellectuals are however convinced that even if a compromise is worked out between the monarchy and the political parties, it cannot end the pro-democracy movement of the people. In the eventuality of a possible compromise between the monarchy and the political parties, not just the monarchy, but also the traditional political parties may end up alienating themselves from the people.

Complex problem:

The complexity of the situation is again highlighted by the fact that the power tussles and equations are not just between the people and the ruling institutions. It is also between the different sections of the people as well. Call it the curse of democracy in its infancy, but democracy`™s mode of power sharing is creating many fissures within the Nepali society. Learning from the northeast experience, we can quite comfortably predict these fissures will harden further in the near future.

Furthermore, Nepal`™s poverty is amplifying its problems manifold. It is a large country with not enough for everybody. All the resources of the country are funneled into the Kathmandu valley, just about half the size of Imphal valley, but with a population of nearly 25 lakhs concentrated in it. Beyond the valley, there is practically nothing in terms of economic infrastructure or administrative presence, according to local journalists and intellectuals who have done extensive field studies. Poverty is all pervading and in such a situation, the sense of deprivation and neglect is natural. Not that everybody is well off in Kathmandu where most of the government infrastructures are concentrated. A mid level class one government officer in the Nepal government for instance draws approximately Rs 10,000 in Nepali currency, equivalent to a little over Rs 6000 Indian rupees.

Roots for mistrust:

But in an atmosphere of all round deprivation, relative prosperity is often interpreted as exploitation as we in the northeast have all seen all too frequently. The Sherpas for instance are seen as a major asset for the Nepali economy. They bring in big money spending foreign tourists, and today because of the mystique attached to this mountain community, prestigious mountaineering gears, ruggedly fashionable jackets, perfumes etc, use the community as their brand names. And yet, the revenue the Sherpas bring into the country, tend to ajain find their way back to Kathmandu even at the cost of the continued neglect of the Sherpa territory in the upper Himalayas. It may be a natural tendency in an unregulated or poorly regulated economy for wealth and commerce to concentrate in urban areas where it can transact and multiply most easily, but the natural pressures of economics is often overlooked and communal and sectarian motive attributed in a situation of widespread impoverishment. We have also seen this happen in our own environment before to mistake it for anything else.

Nepal`™s road ahead is as far as anybody can see it, arduous. Its salvation will have to lie in its ability to throw up capable, considerate, firm, visionary leadership and politics. We wish it precisely this so that its agonizing solitude is not prolonged unnecessarily.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/kathmandu-diary-where-are-all-the-hindus-vanishing/

BY Amar Yumnam

Many disturbingly interesting stories are coming out in the case of India as a whole. First, Nehru argued extensively in the meetings of the Constituent Assembly that the States are not to be trusted. It must be this principle which framed the Armed Forces Special Powers Act to apply only to limited places like the `Switzerland of the East`™; my little cognitive power fails to appreciate if Nehru would have had any qualms in allowing cohabitation of Switzerland and special powers of the army. Or was it a pure case that, since the States were not to be trusted, just apply the army rule to areas of which less is familiar and as acquiring knowledge takes time and involves other costs. In the light of global governance experience in a context of diversity of expedient interventions leading to long term turmoil outcomes, one cannot help feeling if this was really the case. Another second instance, which adds fuel to this suspicion, is the recent revelation that Nehru directed the Indian intelligence to monitor the activities of the relatives of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose; to a Manipuri Netaji arouses feelings of love, association, courage and unmixed patriotism. There is also the third instance of Nehru directing censoring of their communications and even forwarding them to the British intelligence (MI5) for comment; it was as if the Indian Independence and accompanying sovereignty were still incomplete. Now there is also an intense academic debate among scholars working on development issues on the imperative to go for contextualization in every attempt at understanding and policy formulation. In the Indian context, the aging Father of the Nation so emphatically argued for contextual evolution of policy when the nation got Independence. But the imitative modernization approach of Nehru carried the day. However, on hindsight, Mahatma Gandhi turns out to be much more contemporary and post-modernist.

All these stories have been put for, I am sure, many of us are puzzled by the reality of Manipur which is untouched by any debate and by any paradigm of development thinking. The case of Manipur turns out to be one where everything works only on the principle of rents and not on anything else. If we look back to the development literature of the 1950s, it would be salient to anyone how the inability of markets (market failures) to address poverty removal, care for social justice and development were so religiously emphasized. But the 1970s and 1980s saw the reversal of trend due to the global learning that market failures were only being replaced by even more dangerous government failures; rent-seeking and corruption became more real than the hypothetical market failures. In India too, the reversal became very real by the middle of 1991. Though measurement is difficult because of `non-observed and non-reported activities involved in creating, extracting, and contesting rents`, `

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/whatever-it-is-it-is-cheat-and-looting-in-manipur-telecommunications-as-an-example/

By Pradip Phanjoubam

This article was written a decade ago, after a visit to Kathmandu when the country was still a monarchy, but civil unrest under the banner of the Maoists was building up. What came across as remarkable at the time was a strong undercurrent anti-India feeling on the streets of Kathmandu. The article is reproduced as some of the core issues of identity and conflict remains the same though a lot has happened ever since. The issues are also in many ways a reflection of similar issues in the Northeast and Manipur.

For somebody from India visiting the Nepali capital of Kathmandu, there is hardly likely to be any cultural shock waiting. In fact, in many respects, there is nothing radically visible to distinguish a typical Indian city from Kathmandu, or the Nepali culture from the Indian.

But do not judge a book by its cover. In the Kathmandu valley, which in many ways is what people generally know Nepal to be, below the superficial affinity to India, there is a strong undercurrent of anti-India sentiment, and this is what would come as shocking to most Indians.

No, when I talk of this cold undercurrent, I am not talking about the violent Maoist insurrection in the country, but a sentiment shared amongst both the Maoist sympathizers as well as opponents in the Kathmandu valley, and I suppose the observation can be generalized beyond the population of Kathmandu too, although we were not allowed to venture outside of Kathmandu on account of the ceasefire between the Maoists and the government of Nepal having broken down two days before our arrival.

I arrived in Kathmandu two days ahead of my scheduled two-day workshop, thanks to the fact that there are only three flights to the city from Kolkata in a week. I had hence the time to explore the city for a whole day, and this is when I could have a feel of this undercurrent.

A long time journalist friend from India working for a New Delhi newspaper was the first to tell me not to judge by what is apparent, and to prove his point took me to a seminar in an elite school in the Kathmandu outskirts. He did not tell me immediately what the seminar was to be about, but on entering the school portico, the explanation was there on a bold banner that read, `Today`™s Youth and the Nepali National Identity.` So the identity crisis story is not just about the northeast.

The seminar, as well as observations and interactions with Nepalese in the following days revealed some of the core issues of this perceived threat to the Nepali identity, and it has little to do with the Maoists. Till then, I had believed that the Hritek Roshan incident in Kathmandu was an aberration, but not anymore.

The border between India and Nepal is open, and it is generally believed in India that this arrangement benefits the Nepalese more than it does the Indians. This belief is however not shared by the Nepalese, at least in Kathmandu. The newspapers and the Kathmandu intelligentsia in general relentless talk of regulating, if not sealing this border.

Many Nepalese, especially the intelligentsia again, are also not happy with India`™s Gorkha Rifles, saying it is an insult to them that Nepali nationals should be fighting for another country.

Many more are unhappy about what they call India`™s hegemonistic attitude towards them, and the latter`™s suspicion that their country may become, or have become, the haven for intelligence agencies of other countries, especially hostile neighbours. `It is we who should be worried about infiltration from dacoit infested Uttar Pradesh and Bihar` they retorted.

They are also resentful of the fact that most of their business is controlled by Indian business communities.

Surprisingly, there were even extreme opinions, such as those that feel the Sari should be abolished and Nepalese should revert to their original ethnic attires. The Sari they say was introduced in Nepal by the Ranas, when they arrived from Rajasthan.

The extent to which this hysteria can go, my journalist friend explained, was demonstrated by a newspaper headline in Kathmandu a few months hence which screamed, `Indian elephants destroy Nepali crops` when some wild elephants from north Bengal crossed into Nepal territory. Many other current headlines and commentaries contain elements of the same hysteria.

Nepal is a Hindu kingdom, and the RSS has declared the Nepali Monarch as Hindu Samrat, but this has not allayed Nepali insecurities. Instead, many see even this gesture as a silent aggression.

Hill-valley divide

It is difficult to understand a country on a few day`™s visit, but one safe assumption about Nepal would be that its capital Kathmandu is an island inside Nepal. Its realities do not necessarily reflect the reality of rural Nepal, so says everybody.

Nepal is a one city state, so says my journalist friend. A charming city located in a charming valley, both known by the common name of Kathmandu, are almost totally cut off from the rest of Nepal, physically and psychologically he said.

Everything is concentrated in Kathmandu, commerce, wealth, employment opportunities, education, power…. and the rest of Nepal have little or practically nothing.

The hill-valley divide, a phenomenon that happens everywhere in the world, will find few matches to its manifestation in Nepal. Not even Manipur will come close, for at least here, a certain degree of empowerment has happened amongst the underprivileged hillmen on account of reservation in the political, employment and education arenas.

Not so in Nepal. According to many, the anti-India bias is strictly a middle-class, Kathmandu phenomenon, and a larger section of rural Nepal is free from it. For much of this section, India has been a land of their sustenance.

Seasonal and sometimes more permanent migrations to India have served as a safety valve for the impoverished population of rural Nepal.

They go to India, as manual labour and all other kinds of jobs requiring unskilled labour, or else to join the Indian Army, and send back their remittance to their homes in the mountains.

This outward migration of unemployed youth have kept tension that accompany unemployment and incomelessness at considerable bay all the while.

The migrations have also not happened so much towards Kathmandu on account of mainly two factors. One, there aren`™t so many opportunities here as there are in the vast Indian market. And two, the Nepali society is structured on extremely watertight caste and religious lines.

Lower castes and tribals are still openly discriminated against socially and economically. Untouchability is still very much a practice, and many who are placed down the caste hierarchy cannot even eat in public, leave aside entering temples and other public places.

It is hardly surprising then that the Moist movement, with its promise of an egalitarian society, has drawn its chief support from amongst the hill tribals and lower castes Nepalis of the Tarai region. Nepal`™s fighting classes, chiefly the Magar and Gurung tribes, who form the bulk of the Gorkha Army regiments in India and elsewhere, as well as in the Royal Nepali Army, belong to these groups, a fact that cannot at all be not worrying for the Nepali administration.

Despite the hill-valley divide, ethnic lines are still not sharply drawn as in India`™s northeast, but many fear that such an eventuality can come about if the current Maoist insurrection does not find an acceptable resolution.

Considering Nepal`™s ethnic and caste diversity, such development will be explosive and tragic.

But Nepal`™s lived experience as a nation, centuries longer than India, claims Nepali intellectuals, should be able to prevent such an outcome, and if it does come about, absorb it without endangering the nation`™s unity and integrity.

To counterweight this optimism however, is the weak, myopic, self-serving brand of politicians and leadership that the country is cursed with.

Not very different from the kind of leadership thrown up in the northeastern states, including Manipur we suppose, whose very weaknesses and corrupt ways have given legitimacy to the mushrooming of parallel administrations, putting their people into misery and a depressing state of overriding hopelessness.

`Maoism is democracy`

Kathmandu residents are today worried. Till recently, the Maoist insurrection was a thing that happened in the distant hills, away from the immediate concern of most in the valley. But after the peace talks between the Maoists and the Nepal government broke down and ceasefire between the two withdrawn late last month, something disconcerting has happened. The Maoists have infiltrated and spread their extortion net to Kathmandu.

This is only logical says the Indian Ambassador to Nepal, Shyam Swaroop, who invited the Indian journalists in the workshop I attended for a drink one evening.

Ambassador Swaroop, before his Nepal assignment was the Ambassador to Myanmar, and knows Manipur and the other northeastern states very well.

It came to me as no surprise that he too thinks that the Manipur situation is grim, much grimmer than the other northeastern states torn by insurgencies.

Kathmandu is where almost all the business of Nepal is concentrated, and it is only logical that the Maoists would want to include Kathmandu in their `parallel tax net` to be able to run and sustain their insurrection.

According to many observers of the rise of insurrection in Nepal, the ceasefire period gave the Maoists the tactical space to make this expansion.

All this while, the Royal Nepal Army has been engaging the Maoists in the hills, but today they are out visibly on the streets of Kathmandu round the clock, patrolling on foot as well as in armoured personnel carriers.

Indians do not need to carry a passport to enter Nepal, but these days they are advised to have it on their persons always while they are in the country to make sure their identity is not confused.

The Maoist movement in Nepal would strike anyone as surprising on at least one count. In an era when democracy has come to be equated with Capitalism and hence seen to be a system opposed to Communism, the Nepal Maoists equate their movement to a quest for deeper democracy.

The Maoists are not secessionists for they only seek the total transfer of the country`™s power from what they call, and rightly so, an undemocratic autocracy, to their hands so that they may ensure a `people`™s democracy.`

Unabashedly, they claim the `Sendero Luminoso` (Shining Path) Maoism of Peru, as their guiding light, and very knowledgeable commentators have indeed drawn striking parallels between not only the rise of Maosim in Peru and Nepal, but also the social and political conditions that put the wind in the sails of their respective rebellions.

Nepali politics, like Peru at the time of the rise of the Sendero Luminoso, revolves between three poles. A long authoritarian regime represented by the monarchy; a mere shadow of a representive governance in the elected government of Nepal, discredited by incompetence and corruption, and made subservient to the monarch by the country`™s constitution; and the looming presence of what Nepalis call `Indian hegemony.` In case of Peru, `US hegemony`.

All these factors are compounded by the discriminatory Brahminical social order, which has made sure all opportunities remained in the hands of the upper castes in Kathmandu.

As an example of this `hegemony` a Nepali intellectual cited the case of a dry port Nepal developed with foreign assistance to offset some of the disadvantages of being a land-locked country.

Goods meant for Nepal were to pass through Kolkata and other Indian sea ports unhindered to Nepal. However after the port was commissioned the Indian customs insisted on the right to check the contents of any consignment destined for this port, not just in Indian territory but also at Nepal`™s own dry port.

This is an infringement on our sovereignty, he insisted. But even as Nepali blood boiled on this and many other irritants in the relations with their bigger and much more powerful neighbour, Nepal`™s only dry port remains dry of business.

Surprisingly, China hardly comes into the picture. Maoism is dead in China, and so is China`™s interest in Nepali Maoism. China has openly backed the Monarchy in Nepal, and I suppose it is also because fraternal feuds are always more bitter. China is in the cold distance across the Himalayas, while the cultural and economic links between India and Nepal cannot be wished away.

Gorkha Rifles ex-servicemen in Nepal still insist on drawing their pensions from the Indian Embassy and not through the Nepali banks.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/despite-so-much-affinity-strong-antiindia-undercurrent-prevalent-in-nepal/

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/

By Pradip Phanjoubam

Actor and social activist Rahul Bose’s mission of interpreting the idea of India will come across as exciting to academics grappling with the elusive idea, as much as to politicians eager to give shape to the idea as they see it. For Bose, this is an odyssey in the vast ocean of the Indian constitution. What is even more fascinating about this exploration is, Bose is not so much concerned with the operative part of the constitution, but with the spirit of it encapsulated in the preamble. “We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a sovereign socialist secular democratic republic and to secure to all its citizens: Justice, social, economic and political; Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; Equality of status and of opportunity; And to promote among them all Fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation; In our constituent assembly this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, do hereby adopt, enact and give to ourselves this constitution.”

In the 68th year of its independence and 65th since it became a republic, having given itself a new constitution to replace the Government of India Act, 1935, even the constitution itself has undergone several changes, having seen 121 amendments. The idea of India somewhat remains contested on the political arena, as evidenced by the swings of the fortunes of political parties with different ideas of India, but the question is, has the original idea of India, so much rooted in liberal humanism, been rendered unsteady and amorphous. When things get too complicated, it is always helpful to go back to the basics. And the Indian constitution’s very basic is its preamble which declares Indian would be a “sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic,” making the individual citizen, the ultimate sovereign.
Would this common, consensual, democratic will of the people guarantee justice if the largely impoverished and the illiterate masses to be given franchise? A question which haunted Western democracies for centuries was boldly discarded by India in its existential plunge over half a century ago, giving every adult the right to vote, a phenomenon many Western observers watched with amazement and some even predicted doom, as did journalist and academic, Neville Maxwell in 1956 covering the run up to India’s first general election. The idea of India survived to yet redefine the universal understanding of democracy itself, though with many battle scars and aberrations, a painful process which chroniclers of Indian history after 1947, such as Sunil Khilnani and Ramachandra Guha, have been endeavouring to give intellectual coherence. In Many ways, Bose’s enterprise is to give substance to these liberal ideas of India.

“In such a vast country as India, our effort is to bridge the gulf between the core and the peripheries,” Bose said in an interview in Imphal recently. “The idea is to bring changes in attitudes and understanding in both, so that accommodation and adjustment to each other’s uniqueness result. In this process both change and tend towards a broader common denominator,” Bose explained further.
Since Bose’s idea of India is nuanced, and not always confined by the constitutional definition of the Indian citizen, or the nationalism associated with the idea, a little more on this preface may be essential for a better understanding of the project itself. Bose says “we want to make the idea of India and its generous spirit, become the bridge that connects all Indians.”

The constitution of India was written at a time India was most insecure. The traumatic partition had just happened, and there was absolutely no guarantee that the new nation would not Balkanise further. The prospect before the newly decolonised nation was to yoke together more than 560 Princely States, many of them, including Junagadh, Travancore, Kashmir, Hyderabad, Manipur… not wanting to join the Indian Union. While the preamble of the constitution can afford to be a poetic visualisation of the idea of ideal India, the operative parts of the text of the constitution had to reflect this insecurity of the time.

Few have been as articulate and lucid in pointing this out than Fali S. Nariman. The drama is contained in the first three articles of the constitution. The first article reads: “India, that is Bharat, will be a union of states.” Nariman says this is the only indication in the entire constitution that India is to be a federation. Otherwise, there is absolutely no mention of the words federal or federalism or federation, indicating an anxiety about the notion of federalism. The second article leaves provisions for the Indian state to incorporate more territories other than bequeathed by the British on August 15, 1947, indicating the founding fathers considered the idea of India still an incomplete project at the time. The foresight proved prophetic and it was by this article that Sikkim was absorbed into India in 1975. But it is the third article which startles. In Nariman’s words, it is the textual refutation of the first article. It empowers the Union to split, merge, change boundaries, change names of the states etc, with or without the consent of the states. This is a warning to rebelling provinces, in particular the Princely States, that if they do not behave, the Union can tear them into parts, merge them to another, abolish them, or even change their names. No federal intent here.

Nariman’s campaign was for making India truly federal, and in his earlier deliberations, he was almost militantly opposed to some of the features of the Indian constitution which he says diminish the federal spirit of the preamble. These include Article 3, the Commission of Inquiry Act 1952 which empowers the Union to institute inquiry into the functioning of the states, the provision of “eminent domain” which also empowers the Union to acquire land in any state, some of the powers given to the Governors etc. He was particular opposed to Article 3, which he says is a shameful legacy of an insecure past, and should be abolished without further delay. In his latter articles, and in his latest book “The State of the Nation”, he is still opposed to these features but has visibly sobered in the recommendations he makes. Since amending the basic features of the constitution has been made virtually impossible after the Emergency experience, he now has reconciled to allowing these features to remain, but only as brooding archival reminders of the country once insecure past, but never again to be used in the present or the future.

Bose’s project also has reminiscences of this brooding spirit against the features of the idea of India which has gone against the ideals it set for itself. Constitutionally if there is a widening difference in the perception of what federalism should be in India, there is a reciprocal rift in the spirit of India, between the included and excluded. This rift between the two Indias is what Bose’s organisation, The Foundation, has taken upon itself to bridge. The intervention targets therefore are the peripheries of Indian nationhood. “We want to bridge these regions, isolated and forgotten for various reasons, geography, politics, culture, poverty, education or whatever else, with core India.” True to this objective, the declared credo of the foundation is to see a world free of discrimination of all forms”. The instrument fashioned to execute this project is REACH, (Restoring Equality through Education and Advancement of Children) an education outreach programme “which provides full scholarships for students from areas that are infrastructurally disadvantaged due to geography or history to the most appropriate schools of the highest standard,” reads the foundation’s own brief of the REACH initiative on its website.

The Foundation seeks to establish democratic, secular, non-discriminatory bondages between what is core India and its peripheral regions. It seeks to do this by extending a profusion of goodwill to the deprived peripheries. And towards this, it sponsors six underprivileged children each from a target peripheral state to study in the best schools and colleges in India and see the child through to the completion of education and beginning of a career. It began this initiative in Andaman and Nicobar Island in 2007. Four years later, in 2011 it took it to Kashmir. This year, it has chosen Manipur as its third target state, and the search is already on to identify the most deserving six children.

“These six children will have to be from families with incomes less than Rs. 15,000 a month, have scored 60 percent in class exams and they will have to get through the screening process of the foundation,” Bose said. “In the case of Manipur, they will also have to be at least 12 years of age, as the law here does not permit children below this age be sent outside the state, in view of the increasing cases of trafficking,” he added.

“They will also have to be in love with Manipur. The foundation’s intent is not providing an escape opportunity, but a social investment that these children would someday come back as young adults and be the catalysts of change in their home states,” he added.

“In REACH one and two in Andaman and Kashmir, we discovered the connections we establish go far deeper than just the six students making friends with other children in their schools. Parents too establish connections, and we have had three families of school friends visiting the families of the Kashmiri students,” Bose said with the pride of an achiever.

“The screening process is long and elaborate. All tests are designed to identify creativity and generosity of spirit. An expert team will be looking not just for leadership qualities in the children, but also the equally important quality of integrity and humility” Bose said.

The foundation raises its funds from auctions of priceless artefacts donated by internationally renowned personalities, such as Roger Federer, Sachin Tendulkar, Raghu Rai, Abhinav Bindra, Amitav Ghosh etc. “Federer donated his shoes from the Cincinnati Open in 2010, Bindra his Olympic gold winning rifle etc. We were able to raise, Rs. 2 crore last year from these auctions. Approximately we spend about Rs. 5 lakh a student in a year and with the increase in the number of students, the overheads are rising. The target is 200 students in the decades ahead,” Bose explained.

The organisation’s brief sketch of the Manipur Scholarship Initiative, says it “offers students from Manipur a full educational scholarship from std. VII to std. XII in New Era High School, a residential school in Panchgani, Maharashtra. After passing standard XII, the scholarship will be further extended upto employability post an overall evaluation at the time. The Foundation will bear all academic, boarding, lodging, travel (to and from Manipur twice a year) and all miscellaneous living costs of the children while in school including the travel expenses for all parents to visit the children at New Era High School twice a year for the first year and once thereafter.”

It welcomes candidates and guardians to query at Email: manipur.thefoundation@gmail.com and at Phone: 0385-2421366.

Now for a little anecdotal account. I had gone to meet Bose after I was told a little of his Manipur Initiative by a journalist friend. I did not know who he was, but was keen to meet someone who had such immense drive. During the course of the interview I even asked him quite irreverently what he does for a living. Bose explained he was an actor. When I returned home, I casually mentioned my meeting with Bose to my 12 year old daughter, and to my surprise, she screamed and asked if it would be possible for me to get her his autograph. When a staff of The Foundation offered to do the needful, my elder daughter found out what her younger sister would be in possession of, and she too screamed at me that she was not around when I told her sister about the Bose visit. Wow! I felt like a discarded piece of antique furniture, gathering cobwebs in a forlorn corner of the family attic.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/reach-reaches-out-to-substantiate-idea-of-india/

By Deepika Gurumayum

Lucky, this time! I had wanted to watch the film Karigee Kiruni Nungsiradee (KKN), a production of Introspective Media and Seven Salai Films, presented by Akoijam Communications and directed by Angomcha Bimol Akoijam, since its premiere in Imphal on 4th January, 2014 but missed out on it like always. So, I decided not to let go off the opportunity this time, which had its Delhi Premiere on 21st March, 2015, on Sajibu Cheiraoba, and it was worth the wait. As was expected from the versatile academic, who has not only written and directed the film but also written, composed and sung one of the songs titled `Sandrembi` in the film himself, has given us a film which is hard-hitting and conveys a strong political message.

This is perhaps one of the first Manipuri films to have an actor from the hills in the lead role and we also see the undoing of the stereotypical `Ching-gee Ichal, Tam-gee Ibung` into `Tam-gee Ichal, Ching-gee Ibung`. Laced with motifs and Freudian semiotics, half of which I could not understand though, the film offers a gripping experience and it is indeed a new kind of cinema making its way to the Manipuri film circuit, as has been opined by noted filmmaker A.Syam Sharma.

The story is of a young couple Thoibi, a Meitei girl and Ashang, a Tangkhul boy, both research scholars based in Chandigarh and Delhi, respectively with `the glimpses of the life and times of contemporary Manipur` as the backdrop. They `dream of a life together despite the inter-community estrangement` and yet are `haunted by the situation in their home state.` The story as it unfolds deal simultaneously with the grim reality of Manipur as well as the couple`™s love life filled with anxiety.

Rightly for me as well, the political is brilliantly interspersed with the personal as the minds of the lovers unwind slowly throughout the movie, traversing all aspects of a mundane existence. The dark scenes of suffering Manipur is constantly juxtaposed with the light and independence most of us associate with a metro.

The title `Karigee Kirunee Nungsiradee?` in the beginning draws us more towards the inter-communal relationship of the couple. As the film progresses, we slowly begin to see the interstice through which the political creeps in and by the end, there is a complete turn with the political overshadowing the personal, though there is a continuous interplay between the two. It is also interesting to note that Dr.Akoijam has chosen an epigraph to introduce his film which reads, `Fight or Flight. It`™s a matter of choice`. I see in this a projected reality as well as an irony in that the common perception is `Either stay home, be a part of the place to improve the situation or just escape`. Moreover, the epigraph may also point to the fact that what we see as present day reality is the result of the choices made in the past. Thus, we make that reality which we want to. The decisions we make as a people are crucial to revive the dying land. This seems to be the gist of the film to me.

The use of colloquial language and new generation Meiteilon words in the film gives it a different taste altogether and makes it easier for the audience to identify with the contemporary situation. The use of Tangkhul dialect when Ashang speaks to his mother is an authentic aspect of the film. The film`™s music and lyrics are extraordinary, coming from masters in their respective fields (the music is scored by noted folk musician Mangangsana Mayanglambam and one of the songs in the film sung by well-known Tangkhul singer Rewben Mashangva and a relatively new singer with a sweet and haunting voice, Premlata; lyrics by Bobo Khuraijam.

It is always a breath of fresh air to see new faces and KKN gave me that rare sense of having unacquainted faces playing out the dilemmas faced by many of us today. And I could so well connect to it! Trained for only a couple of weeks by the director himself, the lead actors (Lucky Awungshi, Anushree Kshetrimayum were students at Delhi University when the film was shot and journalist Aribam Dhananjoy popularly known as Paojel Chaoba ) are amateurs but did a pretty good job. This I see as another reason for the film being able to drive home the point effectively.

It is impossible to point out a single instance in the plot which I like because there are so many of them, but what touched me very deeply was Thoibi`™s anguished questioning if it is only the politicians and the insurgents who should think about our homeland. The same question has been lingering in my mind for quite sometime now and it is overwhelming to realize that it is not just me but there are many more tormented youth who are concerned about our homeland. This question should be addressed and need not remain behind the scenes anymore.

The film also subtly touches upon various aspects which ail the state like unemployment, subsequently leading to people going to the metros to seek a better life, frequent water and power cuts, law enforcers indulging in extortion, nepotism, civilians taking law in their hands and many others. However, we are also shown the hideous facets of life in a metro as is reported in the film by a phone call about a woman from Manipur being misbehaved with by the landlord. Altogether, the film is an eye-opener which seems to suggest that it is high time that we do something to save this beloved land of ours.

By the end of the film, the title also carries with it an additional burden- What stops us from saving our own Home? The director silently seems to reiterate the need to act urgently. There is a constant pricking of the conscience that makes us feel the need to do away with the sense of suffocation and suppression, communalism, daily dose of blasts and shootouts at home which tag along with them the uncertainty of life. Where is our land heading to? Ashang says,`Loirani natte, loirabani`. His words are pregnant with the despondency and exhaustion from the dawning realization that the place indeed has become a killing field.

So this piece of art has conveyed its message, but what about the other points of view? Say, of a normal person with no `intellectual`™ mooring as such. I fail to comprehend why, despite dealing with such a sensitive issue; does the film seem to target a restricted group? There are highlights of certain aspects but at the same time, the film seems not to have adequately that catch to keep a common person glued to the seat for the entire duration. I agree that the director might have a targeted audience but with so intense a rendering of a contemporary subject matter, the film would have actually better served its purpose if it had catered a little more towards the common audience.

There are instances of long silences, particularly in the beginning where the male lead takes his own sweet time to carry out his ablutions with the voyeuristic camera trailing his every move. There may be justifications of slowly building up the tempo of the film but it looked a bit overstretched to me, which could have been bettered. Moreover, instances of repeated dialogues and longish scenes such as the restaurant scene and shortcut through the forest scene, plays hide-and-seek throughout the film. As I have pointed out in the beginning, it may be my own lack of knowledge, but it is difficult at times to get to where the director actually intends to lead us.

Thus, the film is slightly difficult to be understood without pointers, but the point has been made and that is what struck me. As a powerful medium to convey social and political messages, such films have a responsibility to cater to a wider audience and I hope Dr.Akoijam would make this a pioneering instance to lead many more in the future. Kudos to the KKN Team!

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/a-tryst-with-karigee-kiruni-nungsiradee-on-sajibu-cheiraoba/

By Paonam Thoibi
`It is quite common for adolescents having occasional mood swings, especially when they are nearing their periods. But if she shows unusual irritability and sadness or crying that becomes concerning`

Q: My daughter is in her eleventh class. She is normally an outgoing and jolly child but has become idle of late. She shows no interest in anything she used to do. I am scared if she is having depression. What are the warning signs and what do I do about it? Basanti, Sega Road.

Ans: Dear Reader, it is quite common for adolescents having occasional mood swings, especially when they are nearing their periods. But if she shows unusual irritability and sadness or crying that becomes concerning. This is one of the early signs that your teenager child is having depression. If there was anybody in the family who has had depression there are chances of her developing similar symptoms. Observe the change in grades, performances, friendship in school. Observe if they are talking less about their friends and showing no interest. See if she alone in her room or aloof from the rest of the family most of the time. You have already said she shows less interest in anything she used to do. Try to let her talk out and share her feelings. If this is difficult, please consult the counselor in school or a mental health professional to know what exactly she is going through.

Q: What is the best thing I can do as a friend for a person who is having mental illness? There is this friend of ours and he is showing weird behaviors since he was a kid. We don`™t know what his problem is and we are not able to talk about this freely to his parents too. But we know for sure that he is going to see a doctor quite often. -name withheld

Ans: Dear Reader, it must be difficult on your part to initiate a dialogue with your friend or his parents about his condition. You must be also feeling that there isn`™t much you can do about it. But let me tell you, there are a lot of good things you can do. To start off, you can try to build an environment that encourages him to open up. Changing how you act and speak to them can create a lot of difference. They are highly functional people who must be having areas which are not affected and they can perform in a conducive environment. Don`™t be quick to label them as `crazy`™, `insane`™, `stupid` etc. Treat people with mental illnesses with respect and dignity, just as you would anybody else. Most importantly, learn more about mental health to remove your doubts and share the facts with others too.

Q: Dear Madam, nowadays there are a lot of teenagers drinking alcohol. If people dread Drug addiction so much why do they have drugs? They use drugs making it look like drug addiction is a voluntary choice. Please comment. -Prahlad, Imphal West

Ans: Dear Reader, your observation is not wrong but it isn`™t right too. It is not true that all teenagers drink or do drugs. Even if the majority uses, there are still a percentage of youth who are not into it and are aware of its consequences. These very youngsters can influence others who are trapped in the habit and help them come out of it.

People do drink or experiment with a drug for a first time voluntarily even if they are pressured by peer and surrounding. Addiction however is not voluntary. Over time, abuse of alcohol or drugs can alter the body`™s biochemistry and result in addiction. For some persons, addiction happens immediately, for others the process can take longer. Each substance can cause different changes in the neurological circuit, but in general they seem to affect the “reward circuits” or “pleasure pathways,” the information pathways that tell the brain when something is pleasurable. The changes can make normal, pleasure-producing things seem less pleasurable, while reinforcing the need to use the addicting agent

Not everyone who takes drugs or drinks alcohol will become addicted. Genetics and environment together play a role in a person becoming addicted to drugs. There are risk factors which increase the chance for addiction just as there are for other diseases and disorders. They include the type of the drugs; which means that some substance can cause addiction faster. Other factors like genetics also play a huge role. For example, study reveals children of substance using parents are more vulnerable to drug addiction. The age of introduction to a drug is also critical. Earlier the exposure easier it is to become an addiction. The social environment where one thrives is also a factor. Any psychological condition like anxiety, depression, mood disorders, adjustment issues and conflicts also makes a person vulnerable. Children who have had a history of neglect, abuse (psychological, physical and/or sexual) and other traumatic experiences are at greater risk of developing addiction.
Readers are requested to send in their queries at mindmifp@gmail.com

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/mind-matters/

By Pradip Phanjoubam

(This is the third of four articles the author wrote 11 years ago after a 10-day visit to Italy to study conflict resolution mechanisms in practice in the country`™s north where ethnic Germans had once raised the banner of revolt against the State of Italy)

Most European nations are not mono ethnic as those of us who know of these nations from a distance believe. There are minority nationalities forming what are referred to as `national minorities` in almost all of them and this facet of nations in Europe became an open book after the savage ethnic clashes in the former Yugoslavia and its subsequent balkanization.

`National minorities` are distinct from `immigrant minorities`, as the nomenclatures suggest. The law in most European nations acknowledges the existence of both, with the exception perhaps of France, which acknowledges immigrants, but not national minorities. It constitutional philosophy is, all citizens are equal regardless of ethnicity, and since the law levels all, there are no national minorities or majority, an idealistic position which many proponents of the politics of minority recognition view with skepticism when it comes to its capacity for dispensing justice to all.

Of those nations that face ethnic unrest in Europe, Italy has been the one of the most successful in tackling its own. Of immediate interest and relevance, especially to a conflict torn state like ours, was the core subject of the workshop I attended at Bolzano/Bozen, the capital city of the northern Itailan province of South Tyrol `“ `Politics of Recognition` and the interesting case of South Tyrol. Those who have been following the discourses in India on the issue of autonomy and political recognition of ethnic aspirations, thrown up especially by the conflicts in Kashmir and the Northeast, will recall how with increasing frequency, the autonomy models of South Tyrol, Aland Island and the Sami Council are being cited as possible prescriptions for settlement of problems of ethnic nationalism in India.

Prof BK Roy Burman, the man who was in Imphal recently to lend his solidarity to the agitation for the withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA, was, it may be recalled, the first to propose the Sami model of non-territorial nationalism, for the Nagas. In more recent writings appearing in the media, well known columnists Prem Shankar Jha, have been toying with the idea of autonomy modeled on South Tyrol and Aland Island for the Kashmiris.

What then exactly is the nature of the problem of Italy`™s South Tyrol which in the 1960s had threatened to become a violent internal ethnic insurrection of the kind we are so familiar with in this part of India.

Very briefly, South Tyrol is an ethnic German dominated province in Italian majority Italy. United Tyrol was, before the First World War, a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

After the fall of the Empire at the end of the war, Tyrol territory falling south of the Brennero/Brenner pass on the southern range of the Alps was annexed by Italy on the claim that the watershed ridge of the range should be its natural boundary with Austria from the position of the defensibility of the nation.

Further into history the territory was the homeland of the Ladins, but they were conquered and subdued by the more powerful and aggressive German principalities up north.

Today, the Ladins in South Tyrol speak German as their first language, Italian as second, and as for their own ancestral language and literature, they are now trying to revive.

Much like the Sami people, and also many South Asian communities, they today live in three different nations. But the spirit of what Benedict Anderson, calls an `imagined community` is common to them. This despite the fact that languages that the Ladins in these different countries profess as their original, are mutually unintelligible.

To the question what makes them feel they are one people, director of the Ladin cultural center in Selva village said `culture`. As to what the core of that culture is, he was ambiguous, for it was, like much of their history, a distant memory and not a living tradition anymore.

When Italy annexed South Tyrol in 1919, much against the wishes of the German/Ladin speaking population, it was with the promise of maximum autonomy and non interference from the Italian state, then under King Vittorio Emanuelle III.

Guarantees were given that their schools, institutions and associations would be given protection. But things changed drastically with the advent of Fascism in Italy under the dictator, Benito Mussolini.

Italy`™s policy towards national minorities henceforth reversed, and a systematic homogenization by relentless Italianisation swept the land, often through very repressive methods.

All special status given to minorities were withdrawn, German schools were prohibited, German culture and language excluded from official spheres, German names of places as well as German surnames of the ethnic German population, Italianized. Bolzano, the name for the capital of South Tyrol province is for instance the Italian name for the German, Bozen.

To offset the demographic pattern, Mussolini introduced a policy of industrialization of the region whereby Italian workers by necessity were driven to migrate to the region. Germans by and large avoided working in Italian factories. Immigration of Italian into Bolzano was also actively encouraged through housing schemes etc.

Because of the discriminatory policy of making only Italian the language for all official transactions, institutional jobs became exclusively the reserve of Italians. The fallout of this policy is seen even today in the settlement pattern in the province. While most townships are Italian majority, the rural hinterlands are overwhelmingly populated by ethnic Germans.

When Adolf Hitler`™s Third Reich rose towards the end of the third decade of the 20th Century, South Tyrol German speakers saw hope for a reunification with its German speaking kin state, Austria, and an overwhelming majority of them aligned with Hitler.

Unfortunately, history again did not favour them as Hitler aligned himself with Mussolini. Just before the outbreak of the Second World War, the two leaders arrived at a compromise on the issue and gave the South Tyrol Germans two option. They could retain their language and culture by migrating to German speaking North Tyrol, or else stay in Italy and give up their ethnic identity.

A majority of South Tyrolean chose to migrate and preserve their ethnic identity at the cost of giving up their homeland.

The war however delayed the migration process and at the end of it, only a fraction of the number that chose to migrate had actually managed to do so. Of these, most returned to South Tyrol after the war.

History yet again came against South Tyrol aspiration when Hitler`™s Germany lost the war. The South Tyrol issue became a `pawn` in international politics and the winners of the war ratified Italy`™s position and awarded it the right to keep South Tyrol.

But the South Tyrol issue remained in the international discourse and even reached the United Nations, particularly with active assistance of Austria. Italy in keeping with international pressures committed itself to work out a comprehensive autonomy model for South Tyrol.

However when it spelled out its commitment, it was with a hidden agenda which was at once sensed by the South Tyrolean Germans. The autonomous region formulated constituted not just German majority South Tyrol, but it was clubbed with the adjacent Italian dominated Trento, upsetting the demographic constitution of the entire autonomous region heavily in favour of Italians giving them an overall majority of 71 percent. Administrative decision making process remain in Italian hands giving cause for resentments amongst the ethnic Germans.

The legacy of the policy of ruthless Italianization process introduced by Mussolini proved counter productive, and in the 1960s, tempers flared up and radical elements amongst ethnic Germans began a campaign of sabotage by blowing up institutional symbols that represented the Italian government. The chief targets were electricity pylons. The Italian state`™s response was what was expected of any nation state. It militarized South Tyrol. But this only accentuated the problem rather than bring it under control.

The conflict situation was finally defused successfully in the 1970s. Under international pressure, and because of Italy`™s own need to buy peace, it set about working out an autonomy model that would be able to meet the aspirations of the South Tyrolean ethnic Germans without any compromise on its own sovereignty.

As a first step, although the autonomous provinces of South Tyrol and Trento remained as a single Autonomous Region, the constituent autonomous provinces were vested with independent powers so that they rather than the region became the centre of administrative power.

The Autonomous Region remained merely as the `territorial roof structure` but most of the executive powers were transferred to the Autonomous Provinces.

Another momentous factor in recent history had turned out in favour of South Tyrol has been the formation of the European Union, EU. In 1992 Austria too joined the EU.

The concept of nationalism was already beginning to recede in Europe ever since the end of the First World War, and the Second World War hastened this fading process. Supra national bodies such as the League of Nations first and then the United Nations, were the index of this process of melting down of national boundaries.

The emergence of the EU is a logical consequence of this trend. In such a scenario, conflicts engendered by the 19th Century concept of nationalism also must have to recede.

In this regard, the Treaty of Schengen in 1998 has been a landmark in Western Europe`™s march towards a boundary less supra-nation. A lot many boundaries are disappearing, although some new ones, it must be said, have emerged.

The EU is very much such a post nationalism supra-nation and today, South Tyrol`™s fight does not any longer have to be the classical `centre versus periphery` antagonism visa vis Rome, for it can also equate with the EU, thus diluting the very basis of its conflict with Rome.

In our context too, there is every reason to be optimistic that in the event of the SAARC, ASEAN etc, strengthening, one of the inevitable consequences would likely be the diluting of ultra-nationalistic sentiments, which is at the roots of most of the conflicts in the region.

South Tyrol definitely is a success story, but can the model be applied unaltered to our situation? We are definitely doubtful.

When the size of the cake available to be distributed to the conflicting parties is big, and each party can gets adequately big slices from the whole, conflict resolution can be a lot easier than in a situation where the cake is small and each party gets less than their expectations. In the latter case, as in our situation, mutual suspicion and feelings of discrimination not only have persisted but often actually assumed hallucinatory proportions. Besides everything else, ours conflicts are also a problem of poverty.

But even in the case of South Tyrol, although the fact remains that it is one of those rare success stories in ethnic conflict resolution in history, there are acknowledged loopholes. Skeptics even refused to call it a success as they say it is a matter of `living side by side` and not `living together.`

The German speakers and Italian speakers are still very much segregated although there are no overt conflicts.

`If there is a German tennis club, there will be an Italian tennis club nearby, just there would be German football clubs and Italian football clubs.` Said an NGO worker we interacted with.

From our short stay in Bolzano, we could gather that as of now it was a conflict resolution by shutting doors, not so much physically but psychologically. The ideal conflict resolution situation in which everybody opens doors and still each retains and respects each other`™s private space remains a far cry. Only time will tell if the internal contradictions arising out of these are healed in the course of history. It will be interesting to watch if the `purchased peace` in the long run transforms into true peace through the establishment of genuine fraternal bonds and bridges.

South Tyrol is an extremely prosperous region, in fact, we were informed, one of the most prosperous regions in the whole of Europe. The per capita annual income is a stupendous 36,000 Euros, (Rs 20 lakhs) per annum, the annual budget of this province of about four and half lakh population, is 4 billion Euros, (Rs 23,200 crore), unemployment rate is 0.2 percent, and this too consisting mostly of students looking for summer jobs and who do not really need to be working. The few actually unemployed are taken good care of by the social security system and although unemployed still have an income. In such a situation, it is not surprising that the crime rate is next to zero.

So prosperous is the province and so comprehensive the autonomy given to it in recent times, that it even has an independent, even if circumscribed, foreign policy. The provincial government is allowed to maintain a level of diplomatic relations with other countries, basically in areas of extending humanitarian help.

As for instance it was a generous donor during the rescue operations in the aftermath of the Gujarat earthquake. Its foreign office also funds NGOs working in the areas of development, peace initiative building etc.

Some of the other salient features of the extent of its autonomy are:

The South Tyrol provincial government gets to keep 90 percent tax revenue collected from South Tyrol.

While South Tyrol was to give up its demand for external self-determination, it was to be given comprehensive internal self-determination.

Italian and German languages were to be treated at a par. Qualification for government jobs entails fluency in both the languages.

Government jobs were to be made proportional to ethnic population ratio…

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/04/italy-diaryiii-politics-of-recognition-how-italy-bought-its-peace/

By Pradip Phanjoubam

(This is the last of four articles the author wrote 11 years ago after a 10-day visit to Italy to study conflict resolution mechanisms in practice in the country`™s north where ethnic Germans had once raised the banner of revolt against the State of Italy)

Although South Tyrol`™s autonomy model has been exemplarily successful in resolving a vexing conflict situation involving the nationalistic aspirations of the minority ethnic German Italian citizens, some nagging problems remain to be sorted out. Among the two most immediate of these are: The positive discrimination mechanisms factored into the model to appease the minority German sentiment has resulted in creating other situational minorities. The Italians in South Tyrol province have ended up with a feeling of marginalisation, and there has been a natural tendency for Italians in the province to incline towards radical rightwing nationalist politics, threatening to undo all the overt weightages and institutional incentives given to the minorities in the autonomy experiment. Much like I suppose the rise of rightwing Hindu nationalist politics in India in recent times, fed on the fears, real or imaginary, of the majority Hindus getting marginalised. The resounding success of a recent book by Italian author Oriana Fallaci that championed the reassertion of majority rights and justified suspicion of immigrant population is a reflection of this trend. I have not read the book, but a rather uncharitable review of it by Christopher Dickey in the American magazine, `Newsweek` and more interestingly the letters to the editor subsequently in the October 11 edition of the magazine, most of which came out in fervent defence of the author and attacks against the reviewer. The problem, it is also apparent, is not restricted to Italy, but spread to almost the entire Europe.

There is another problem. Of all the 137 measures for ensuring autonomy, it was the ethnic based reservation system, in jobs and other benefits of the establishment, that is drawing unexpected flaks from another quarter `“ children of mixed marriages who were at a loss trying to classify themselves into any of the ethnic categories. These problems are now being sought to be resolved through the establishment of a number of `open` institutions that are ethnicity neutral. The establishment of a Free University, in which courses are offered in both Italian and German is just one example of this effort. Ethnicity neutral non government organisations such as the European Academy, are still some more.

Reservation and other incentives are also multi-layered. For example, the largest circulated German language newspaper in South Tyrol, `Dolomiten` is treated as a minority newspaper and gets a handsome government annual incentive, but so does the local Italian newspaper, `Alto Adige` because the Italian speaking community is a minority in the local context of South Tyrol. (Encouraging language medium is very much a clause of the autonomy structure)

The volume of the incentive depends on the circulation of the newspaper, and the `Dolomiten` which does about 75,000 copies daily on weekdays and nearly double that on Sundays on account of the numerous suppliments and magazines it adds on the day, gets and annual grant of 1.5 million Euros (About Rs 7 crores) from the Italian government. Because the media is considered an important part of the autonomy structure, journalists in the local media are a privileged class of professionals. The entry level salary of a reporter in the `Dolomiten` for instance is about 1,500 Euros. Even journalists in Italy`™s national media is not as priveleged.

What is it that makes South Tyrol rich?

South Tyrol`™s money spinning resources are basically tourism with the ski resorts uphills in the Alps as the major attraction, wine, horticulture and agriculture. It came as quite a surprise to see not a square feet of arable land, as you travel across the district and beyond into Italy`™s other less prosperous regions, lying fallow. Vineyards, fruit orchards, and maize fields in that order of acerage seem to carpet all of the flatlands and all other bits of land with the semblance of a topsoil cover. There apparently is also a prosperous meat industry. An executive from the European Academy, the institute that hosted our conference, traveling on a field trip to the Brennero/Brenner Pass on the Alps told us the maize is basically meant for consumption by the pork industry and very little of it will make it to the South Tyrolean kitchen. Much like, I suppose, the Japanese feeding fish that would have made coveted dinners in poorer countries, to the Tunas in their fish farms for their own more luxurious dinners.

Along the route we had lunch at a mountain village called Selva, inhabited by the Ladins, the other national minority of Italy. Do not equate the image of the village that we generally have with this one or with any of the villages in this part of the globe. These are villages only because their population is small and they are far away from the major commercial centers. All comparisons should end there. Five stars restaurants and bars, high speed internet, extremely expensive, specklessly clean hotels and lodges for big spending tourists are what these villages boast of. It is difficult to imagine that a village like Selva alone sold 3.5 lakh night stays to tourists last year, which is about a sixth of all of the tourists Nepal received in the same period. Tourism is indeed a booming industry in these dolomite mountains. Tourist flock here for the pleasant climate and the scenery in the summers and in the winters for snow sports. The only worry of the industry here is the receding snowline on account of global warming.

The hard working `peasants` have also converted every inch of flat land in the non mountainous region of the province into cash yielding arable fields. As you travel in a bus or train, what you see are miles after miles of fields carpeted by vineyard, peaches and nectarine orchards, and maize.

There is one thing that is common to both the South Tyrolean Germans and the rest of Italy. Ninety five percent of them are Catholic by faith. While the conflict of interest between the Italians and the ethnic Germans exists despite this shared space, there is an interesting indirect outcome that would answer why and how Catholic charitable organisations such as the Caritas, with bases all over the world, are so rich? To many in India, particularly those who are not informed of this background, this abundance of resources of Christian missionaries have always been a matter of suspicion. I had the fortune to be educated on how this money is raised, at least in Italy after a visit to the Caritas regional office. Almost all of the money in the hands of Italian Catholic missionaries come from government encouraged donations from the public. Italy`™s income tax law says that tax payers are allowed to divert 0.8 percent of his annual income tax dues to a religious charitable organisation belonging to a government recognized religion. The tax payers do not have to, but if they do not, the 0.8 percent would go to the government coffer. Most do divert this percentage of their income tax, and most of it go to Catholic organisations, the predominant religion of the nation. There can be no question about it that 0.8 percent of the national income tax of a developed Western country would be more than just respectable.

The first thing that strikes a first time visitor at Bolzano/Bozen is the prosperity of the population and the cleanliness of the city. The atmosphere is that of a hill station, although it is located at the foot of the Alps. Life`™s pace is not at a rush as in the other cities, but definitely not stagnant either. You do not need to worry when you cross the streets, for the cars slow down, and even halt and wait for you, especially if the drivers in them see you are a foreigner and is having difficulty with the traffic. The basic driving courtesy is admirable and simply astounding.

The air is cool and crisp, the streets and pedestrian walkways are dustless. The cobblestones that line them in definite and pleasing patterns have acquired a dull metallic glint through constant contact with the rubber tyres of vehicles or else soles of the shoes of pedestrians. By August middle, the deciduous trees along the avenues and city parks have begun shedding leaves, but this rather than mess up lends texture and warmth to the place. The leaves are also cleared regularly and do not stay to rot.

As you walk into the commercial streets, flanked by well lit showrooms and shops, be prepared to be surprised by pleasant aromas that give you a feeling of homely warmth. At a turn of the street, it may be of oven hot cookies, at another of brand new leather and at still others the fragrance of seasonal flowers etc. As to whether these were from artificial perfumes or from original sources, I did not find out.

Much of the aroma could actually be coming from the numerous eating joints and bars dotting the streets, many of which have signs inscribed in Haettenschweiler type face on wooden boards, and interior decors that give them prominently very Alpine and German looks.

Within the city heart, bicycle is a very popular mode of transport, next only to walking. Indeed, everybody seems to be either on bicycles or else walking, from grandmothers to grandchildren, company executives to housewives. Even company heads come to office on bicycles. Only on out of city travels, people seem to use their cars. I never imagined that the sight of sturdy mountain bicycles in mass use can lend such a health conscious look to the entire town. Nobody messes up the streets either. Middle aged ladies coming out for evening walks with their little dogs carry with them special tissue papers to clean up and carry away night soil that their dogs may decide to drop in public places, dogs being dogs everywhere.

Everything seems to be made of stainless steel too, from the street lamp posts to the railings on the sidewalks, adding to the aura of clean lustre of the place. Every 50 meters there are public telephones `“ near the walls, at a street corners, on the side of the pedestrian walkways, near the bus shed etc. All of them have the stainless steel finish with glass hoods looping over them.

From my hotel room balcony every morning I watched Blozano/Bozen wake up. The hotel maids in specklessly white aprons are the first to be up and about, mopping the floor of the verandas and staircases of the hotel. In the street down below, a young man in denim and white T-shirt, white working gloves, and bright orange working helmet, gets off from his pickup van, collects loads the garbage cans outside the hotel and dumping them into his truck drives away. The dignity of labour, even of the menial variety, is a natural thing here.

Very soon the warm, pleasant sunshine fills up the streets. By 8.30 am, people young and old are pacing the streets on the way to their offices even as the resonance a church bell floats in, riding the cool breeze coming from the direction of the dark and silent Alps in the background announcing another day in the life of Bolzano city.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/03/italy-diaryiv-bolzano-a-city-of-cyclists-and-pedestrians/

BY Amar Yumnam

The term development has undergone many stages of evolution since it became popular after the Second World War. In the beginning, it was perceived as consisting of only the rise in the quantum of tangible items. But now it encompasses intangible items as well reflecting the significance of social aspects in ensuring a good quality of life and in a way much more than the materialistic components of life. This is where we are eager to search for an understanding of the prevailing scenario of Manipur, and the direction in which the polity and economy of the province is moving. Is Manipur moving towards a direction of peaceful transition to a sustainable development? Is she progressing towards a shared development trajectory? Is the governance alive to the development pre-requisites and requisites of development of the land and people of the province? Is the relationship between governance and development evolving towards a direction of inclusive development here? These and other related questions need urgent and involved discussion in Manipur.

In this context, the latest two editions of the World Bank Legal Review are of immense interest. The 2014 Review (Cisse, Hassane, N. R. Madhava Menon, Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, and Vincent O. Nmehielle, eds. 2014. The World Bank Legal Review, Volume 5: Fostering Development through Opportunity, Inclusion, and Equity, Washington DC) dwells on how to establish an atmosphere for justice for all to fruitfully share the scope and outcomes of development. The 2015 Review (Wouters, Jan, Alberto Ninio, Teresa Doherty, and Hassane Cisse, eds. 2015. The World Bank Legal Review, Volume 6. Improving Delivery in Development: The Role of Voice, Social Contract, and Accountability. Washington, DC: World Bank), which has just come out, dwells on the issues relating to reaching the effects of development the targeted groups.

On page 617 of the 2014 Report, it is asserted that `Traditional thinking has expanded to include intangible deliverables, and there is a growing demand for values such as rule of law and justice, participation and inclusion, equity, good governance, and sustainability over the long term. The current development landscape requires more attention to law and justice, such that efforts must now include or be hinged on these values.` From the development perspective of Manipur, the issues of `participation and inclusion, equity, good governance, and sustainability over the long term` are of critical relevance. While the issue of rule of law and justice is as important as it should be, it has a dependent feature on the quality and character of governance; governance is an independent component determining the characteristics of other determinants of development. There is diversity of ethnicity and geography in Manipur; this is a given datum which cannot be altered by any intervention. This given datum necessitates that development interventions in Manipur should be alive to these differentials such that the outcomes are shared by all and the opportunities are equalised. The differential food systems need differential interventions for transition to higher stages of development. But it is exactly the appreciation of these differential needs of variegated development interventions which has been put to the winds by the governance in Manipur so far. The orientation and effectiveness of governance have been confined to the delivery of tangible outcomes to the pockets of those manning the governance. This being the case, the issue of sustainable development as globally understood has not sunk into the principle of working of governance in Manipur.

In the 2015 Review, it is emphasised on page 5 thus: `In broad terms, delivery may be understood as getting goods and services to people in a way that meets their expectations`¦`¦`¦`¦`”delivery means getting goods and services such as material infrastructure, education, health care, economic development, social protections, and other beneficial social or economic support systems to targeted beneficiaries. Such targeted beneficiaries of development initiatives, whether instituted at the multilateral, national, or subnational level, through formal or informal institutions, or a combination of these entities, are ultimately recipients who require effective and efficient delivery of outcomes if they are to transcend the interlocking social, political, and economic factors that hold them in relative poverty or disadvantage. Such entrenched and interlocking factors operate to prevent beneficiaries from justly and equitably sharing in their nation`™s wider social and economic assets. By extension, if such beneficiaries continually remain unsupported by successful delivery of outcomes, they also remain continually impeded from a fair and equitable enjoyment of the various social and economic benefits wrought by globalization and economic integration in the wider international community`. In this background, what has been happening in Manipur is painful lock, stock and barrel. The delivery in terms of both tangible and intangible components of development intervention do not have the positive social spillover implications. Besides the quantitative drawbacks, there is nothing surety about the qualitative aspects either. This applies to every aspect of governance activity right from the conventional tangible infrastructure components to other non-tangible components like education, health, etc.

In fine, the time is not in favour of Manipur in so far the evolving regional, national and international changes are concerned. It is already rather late for the governance here to transit to a phase of contextualised understanding of the differential development needs of Manipur, to transform from a habit of bluffing the population in this digital age, to appreciate the vastly different development intervention needs in the highly networked world, to self-analyse the policy space of the provincial government. The race in the world today is such that if one runs forever faster and runs along, one survives. In the otherwise case, one would be just left behind and fall into oblivion if not participating in the race. In the case of Manipur, it is as if the governance has already ensured that Manipur is out of the race even before attempting to join. It is absolutely dreadful.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/03/development-ethnicity-and-geography-manipur-habit/

By Pradip Phanjoubam

Few journalists have done this and fewer still would probably do what Rajeev Bhattacharyya and his colleague, Pradip Gogoi, have accomplished. They crossed into Myanmar illegally and trekked the upper, mountainous region of the Sagaing Division of the country to the combined headquarters of several rebel groups from the Northeast under the benign hospitality extended by the enigmatic Naga rebel leader S.S. Khaplang, to meet the ULFA`™s elusive chief of staff, Paresh Baruah. The entire assignment took them over three months to complete.

Bhattacharyya`™s book which came out of this unusual adventure `Rendezvouz with Rebels` (Harper Collins 2014; Rs. 399), is as much a travelogue as it is about a journalistic assignment to interview an important insurgent leader of Assam and indeed the entire Northeast, who is among the rare league of rebel leaders who continue to steadfastly hold on to the ideal of winning sovereignty for their land and people, at a time most others have decided to hang up their boots and think of negotiated compromises.

The book is timely as it comes in the wake of another vertical split in the ULFA which has put the rebel organisation in a virtual existential crisis. The organisation`™s chairman, Arabinda Rajkhowa, now leads the pro-talk ULFA faction having left the armed struggle for Assam`™s independence and pledging to achieve the same end through negotiations with New Delhi. Chief of staff Paresh Baruah remains at large, but speculations have been that his faction has been almost completely marginalised and rendered effectively irrelevant.

The journalist duo were escorted by ULFA cadres from somewhere in the border area of Nagaland into adjacent territory of Myanmar, that the rebels refer to as `Eastern Nagaland` and from there on, on a month long trek to where Paresh Baruah is headquartered, a safe liberated zone under the sway of NSCN(K) leader, S.S. Khaplang, where a number of other Northeast insurgent groups have also found sanctuary.

The accounts of the journey itself is fascinating for the sheer novelty of the encounters with the Konyak Nagas and Konyak align tribes living in near complete isolation from the outside world in their hill top villages. The author`™s temptation to often assume an anthropological tone, though obviously untrained, is understandable. Whenever this happens, he does not however, and wisely too, allow himself to digress far into a field of study he is not too familiar with.

The first half of the book is thus about the journey itself, recounting the difficult terrain and the dangers it posed to untrained mountaineers, the captivating sceneries, the simple but hospitable Naga hill villagers… What comes across as amazing is the almost total absence of signs of the authority of the government, either of India or Myanmar. This should have been disconcerting, but strangely the sense is one of security. Rebel soldiers walking in an out of villages seem to have become nothing eventful and a routine part of life of the villagers. Perhaps this is because of prior information passed on by the rebel network of the arrival of the author and his team, but seldom were they taken note of with any wonderment by the villagers, and life in the villages carried on as usual.

From the author`™s account, there did seem to be another unwritten law that bound every villager intuitively `“ that of the NSCN(K) leader, S.S. Khaplang. Everybody seems to hold him in great esteem, and it was as if in awe and respect of his wish that the Northeast rebels were allowed to move amongst these villages without the fear of facing hostilities anywhere. Again, as if it was their bounden duty, the villagers provide porters for the rebel groups whenever sought, without any charge. As to whether such accounts are settled at the organisational level of the rebel groups with Khaplang`™s underground government, is not known.

Although the author was forbidden and does not indicate the route taken in their trek to meet Paresh Baruah, or name the villages they halt in, there are unintended hints that many of these places were not too far from the Indian border. At some of the hilltops the author talks of receiving mobile signals (obviously of Indian service providers), and at some of the villages, caution had to be taken as there were reports of movements of Assam Rifles soldiers in the vicinity. Moreover, this journey was also done by Bertil Lintner, a Swedish journalist, nearly 30 years ago, though his was a much longer journey, and Eastern Nagaland was only the first stop. His accounts of that journey, with graphic details of the routes taken, are there in the author`™s classic Land of Jade: A Journey Through Insurgent Burma.

If the Bhattacharyya successfully makes the first half of Rendezvous with Rebels rife with a sense of anticipation of the upcoming encounter with Paresh Baruah, the meeting and interview with the ULFA chief itself were somewhat a letdown. At the end of the series of interviews, stretched out over a week, and punctuated with football matches, chess games, shooting practices at firing ranges, inspections of freshly acquired armoury, many of the most eagerly awaited answers pertaining to ULFA`™s future remain unanswered. Baruah does not appear so forthcoming, but equally Bhattacharyya did not probe aggressively enough. Perhaps it was the atmosphere of cordiality that existed between interviewer and interviewed, between guest and host, or perhaps it was a case of the interviewer overawed by the towering charisma of the interviewed, sadly the interviews shed no fresh light on many important questions, as for instance on genesis of the rift in the ULFA between Baruah and Chaiman Arabinda Rajkhowa.

Practically nothing likewise was said of the much speculated fault line between Upper and Lower Assam, with the ULFA base continually being confined to less mainstream Motok Ahom and aligned communities in the Upper Assam, and Lower Assam drifting away from secessionist ideologies of ULFA. If Baruah answered queries on these matters, they were more in the nature of platitudes and homilies, and the interviewer also did not show much journalistic aggression to corner and extract more. Instead the interviews drearily meandered on issues and incidents already worn out and exhausted by decades of discussions, such as the reason for Sanjoy Ghosh`™s killing, Bhutan operations, Baruah`™s narrow escapes from capture etc. which amounted at best to encouragements for the latter to go into leisurely nostalgic anecdotal flashbacks. Although the interviewer did not force the issue, Baruah`™s elusiveness does in some way does come across as his having not too much to demonstrate of his faction`™s strength at the moment.

If the Baruah interview was a damp squib, Bhattacharyya`™s interview of Khaplang, which he said he got unplanned, is a worthy bonus. Khaplang was forthcoming and forthright, and revealed interesting information without even being nudged to do so. He explained for instance that the sanctuary he gives Northeast guerrillas is also of benefit to him, for their presence as his allies serves as a deterrent for the Myanmar army to make forays into his territory. He also did not hold back anything when he said although he would not compromise on sovereignty for his people in Eastern Nagaland, he has agreed to a ceasefire with the Myanmar government for the sake of his people`™s peace of mind.

He also tells the interviewer that the unity amongst his people was initially forged by their fight with their neighbours, the Kachins, and later their conversion to Christianity, which he says ironically the Kachins brought to them. He also revealed to the interviewer that part of his early schooling was in Margherita in Assam, and that he converted to Christianity in 1957. This is contrary to widely held beliefs amongst the Indian intelligentsia that he was a non-Christian till as late as the 1980s, and that this was another factor in his rift with other NSCN leaders from the Indian side of the border. Although this is nothing new, he also explains he decided to break off from Muivah and Swu in 1988, for he was convinced the two were preparing to make compromises with the Government of India, something which Muivah and Swu deny vehemently to this day. All in all, Bhattacharyya`™s interview does make Khaplang sound very much like a revered and undisputed leader of his people.

It would be interesting to round off this review with a very short comparison between Rendezvous with Rebels and Land of Jade, as they are of the same genre and because both talk of the same issue. Lintner pitched tent at the same rebel headquarters Bhattacharyya stayed but the dramatis personae at the camp are different. When Lintner was there, the NSCN was still undivided, though it would be only a year or so later. He was hence writing of the camp when the seeds for the split were beginning to germinate quietly and unseen.

It is possible there is a bit of hindsight knowledge he introduced in his book which was first published in 1990, to augment his actual, on the spot observations, but it must be said his accounts of the Naga camp does give the reader a sense of foreboding of the animosity building up at the time between ordinary Eastern Nagas and NSCN leaders and cadres from the Indian side of the border. The latter he described were arrogant and condescending in their dealings with the then very backward Eastern Naga villagers, and also forcefully converted them to Christianity which the latter resented bitterly. When the massacre of NSCN cadres and leaders happened in 1988 by the Khaplang group, in articles Lintner wrote at the time, he could be heard almost saying, `I always knew this was coming.`

Rendezvous with Rebels leaves readers with no such sense of foreboding, but this per se cannot be a fault. There probably is nothing grand or cataclysmic in store for ULFA in the near future and it will be the same road of dreary low intensity conflict it is destined to walk for much of the foreseeable future.

This said the book is interesting as an unusual travelogue and for the courage of the writer in undertaking the journey. Despite whatever its weaknesses, it will also remain an important addition to the growing body of literature on insurgency in the Northeast. If there is a subsequent edition, the editors can note that the readability of the book can be enhanced considerably by tighter copy editing. A little more library work can also add to its value. As for instance, when the two journalists crossed into Myanmar territory, the author notes that they passed through `no-man`™s land`™ and that this is called so because no government has ever been able to establish its authority in the area. We know of course this is not the case. Such copy sloppiness are no big blunder, but they do flatten the flavour of the book a little each time.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2015/03/book-review-who-says-no-one-writes-about-the-chief-anymore/