Manipur News

By Amar Yumnam

Lord Byron depicted Napoleon in his Age of Bronze thus:

“Whose game was empires and whose stakes were thrones,

Whose table earth—whose dice were human bones.”

Napoleon was a conqueror and he had big dreams of extending his reign over vast expanses of culture, demography and territory. His targets were the sovereign kingdoms around and far. The casualties in such pursuits necessarily had to be the rulers in those sovereign countries. The collateral cost of these pursuits of expansion of empire had to be the loss of lives. Given the character of institutions (formal as well as informal) in those eras, the level of technology and the scope for pursuit of prosperity, there is a logic and consistency in the Napoleon’s chase for goals unmindful of the means.

But the world has undergone phases of transformation in the logic of nation-building, understanding the human costs of pursuing goals without bothering about means, and appreciation of the limits of one-sided actions. These have been accompanied by path-breaking changes in philosophy of life, outlook for coexistence individually and collectively, the huge potential of exchanges as a substitute for wars to cause prosperity,  

Paraphrasing Byron, we may now ponder as to what game the social agents are playing in Manipur. The people as a whole are all social agents. But the common people are not as such large in their domain of influence and so their actions are not highly impactful. This is where we need to identify the principal agents of sustenance and change in our society. In every social structure and in every stage of societal evolution it has been found that the principal agents have been the determinants of the direction and speed of change, whether of prosperity or line. Here we may think of, in the context of Manipur, the principal agents who now decide on the character and direction of social change in Manipur. In this, we have the political elites. These are followed by the bureaucrats. Among these the most important ones are the ministers holding portfolios and the institutional heads heading various departments and institutions. The way the events and the scenarios are getting unfolded in Manipur, we have to examine the nature of the games they play with information even of violation of social and democratic propriety by the principal agents is emerging.   

In the game of Napoleon, the game he was playing definitely had an encompassing component of the interests of the common men of the country. He knew pretty well also that his immediate circle of support had to be awarded even more than the rest in order to ensure his longevity in power. But the game in Manipur is altogether of a different species. Here the interests of the empire, culture, demography and territory are not involved from the collective angle as they were during the Napoleonic era. The interests of the state and the interests of the people have all been sacrificed at the altar of personal interests.   

This personal interest driven character of the principal agents of the province has now landed Manipur in a very precarious condition. We do not have any atmosphere for the innovative minds to emerge in Manipur.  In the absence of innovative minds, no innovative action encompassing the people has emerged. This is a fertile ground for groupism, ethnicity, exclusive identity and other zero-sum attitudes to get footholds and multiply. Even more unfortunate is the fact that the protagonists of these exclusionary behaviour are themselves heavily embedded in their core-orientation towards interests of the self. Thus the cycle of action prevailing in the land is one where the future is not ensured for the collective. This is significant because, while the principal agents can eke out their own prosperity in the atmosphere of non-inclusion of the common people, the common people cannot ensure their security for appropriate livelihood and prosperity in such contexts.

Now the question which we need to address is how to alter the behaviour and character of the principal agents. This is a 27 million dollar question. We have to shed the usual habit of tolerance of nonsense behaviour of the principal agents. Since we have two weapons of democratic processes and collective action, time is now for exercising these options with great involvement and intensity. The political option should be exercised to shred the principal agents in the political sector without thinking for the self but by thinking for the collective. The collective action should also be asserted and resorted to shred the nonsensical principal agents in other spheres of social life. Heads must turn to bring a social trend for positive change.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2014/05/what-game-our-social-agents-are-in-time-for-deep-introspection-in-manipur/

By Soraisam Devajani

Recent tourism trend in Manipur needs some careful look to understand the kind of development that is unfolding. Lot of
plans for tourism development is being laid out but without a proper framework or tourism policy that can guide

Manipur is experiencing hasty development in the field of tourism with the aim to bring a massive change in overall socio-economic condition of the State by exploiting the immense tourism potential of the State and harnessing the benefits of tourism development.  

The Central Government has been providing assistance as projects to promote tourism in North-east States in terms of grant. The joint effort of the State and the Centre to develop Manipur tourism has succeeded in receiving attention with recent developments in tourism sector. Manipur tourism was indeed awarded the ‘Most Promising New Destination Award’ twice in 2011 and 2013 at Travel and Tourism Fair (TTF). There is steady rise in total number of tourist arrival: Foreign Tourists Arrivals (FTAs) grew from 221 in 2002 to 749 in 2012 and Domestic Tourists Arrivals (DTAs) grew from 89683 in 2002 to 134541 in 2012 as per official records.

Marketing development schemes, several publicity and campaigns have been undertaken with the assistance from the Central government to promote Manipur Tourism. The publicity & promotional initiatives such as participation in international and domestic travel fairs and exhibitions, publicity in national and regional magazines, national media coverage, etc. has left many wanting to travel and explore Manipur.

Further, Tourism Secretary of Union Ministry of Tourism, Parvez Dewan, in his visit to the State in March 2014 to inspect the Loktak Lake, had also announced that the Union Government has resolved to direct 56 percent of the total tourism budget of the country to North-East States and Manipur would get 9 percent of the total budget of tourism of India, which is the highest among the North-East States. Interestingly, for the financial year 2013-14, 9 projects under 3 different schemes have already been approved by the central government with a total sanctioned amount of around Rs. 20,238.370 lakhs.

The Manipur Government`s development initiative at this time is very much appreciable but at the same time deplorable. Recent tourism trend in Manipur needs some careful look to understand the kind of development that is unfolding. Lot of plans for tourism development is being laid out but without a proper framework or tourism policy that can guide.

Tourism project planning of our State is done primarily based on the readily available reports generated through studies undertaken by agencies/firms/institutes based in other States and regions. Communities are overlooked throughout the entire decision making process. There is no State level open consultation with stakeholders and experts of the State, nor have any formal research activity been undertaken by the State or outsourced to State agencies/firms/institutes for effective tourism planning. As a result, the projects struggle to adapt with the area and led to failures while the Government still remains unaccountable for the same.

Manipur is projected as a promising destination rich in tourism resources in the form of serene natural beauty, favourable climate throughout the year, fascinating range of flora & fauna, co-existence of several communities in harmony, indigenous sports, lifestyles, arts & culture, fairs &festivals, rich heritage, handlooms and handicrafts, exotic cuisines, etc. On the flipside, there is rampant tourism infrastructure development taking place across the State in the process to make Manipur a tourism hot-spot in the coming years. Land for infrastructure development is created through exploitation of natural habitat &resources and forceful eviction of communities. The climatic condition have reached extreme in both Winter and Summer now, certain flora and species have already become rare and extinct. Indigenous people are left to abandon their traditional lifestyle, fisher folks and farmers end up as labourers in the pursuit for tourism development. At present, there is continuous process of protest against the proposed act of acquisitioning of 130 acres of agricultural land at Yaralpat by the State governmentafter having been acquired 35 acres of land for a tourism project. The traditional fairs and festivals, culture, indigenous practices, arts and craft are continuously being adulterated and commoditised, becoming mere showpieces. These become a big challenge in conservation and survival of the existing rich tourism resources of the State and its heritage.

The government has been swift in implementing schemes of tourism infrastructure development projects including mega projects worth multi crores. However, there is minimal or no proper implementation of various other grass root level schemes which are equally important for overall tourism development of the State.

Tourism in Manipur being in a nascent stage, the indigenous people/locals lack tourism awareness, sensitivity and skills for tourism management. Outsiders intervene and take away the benefits resulting to concentration of tourism benefits within certain privileged firms and individuals at the cost of the host. Also, no attempts have been made by the government to make the indigenous people reap the benefits of tourism.

As tourism in Manipur is rapidly being pushed as a priority industry from several quarters, there is extreme urgency to formula tea proper State tourism policy with crystal clear objectives that will work in its unique setting. Community outrage is hinted in near future when outsiders presume to intercede on community’s behalf with the government in planning and implementation of tourism projects. While developing tourism projects, proper research and monitoring mechanism at the State level should be placed in force to carefully study each of the unique tourism resources that Manipur possess and plan accordingly. Failure of projects should be accounted for and investigated right and then.

Assessment of ‘Carrying capacity’ of a destination, guidelines and regulation to evaluate and monitor tourism projects and its impact becomes a must at this stage for a planned and controlled tourism development.

Tourism in Manipur is in its infancy. As such, beyond infrastructure development there are several other key avenues to be looked upon for a smooth passage of tourism development in our State. Much emphasis should be paid to human resource development and skill development programs. Tourism awareness campaigns and sensitisation programs at grass root level should be initiated and go hand in hand with tourism development project.

Special provision and incentives should be provided to the less privileged population for even distribution of benefits from tourism development. Community participation in decision making process should be sought, suitable model(s) of community entrepreneurship be adopted and encourage local participation in constructive tourism development. Financial leakages should be checked.

Our State should be precise on what type of tourism development Manipuris looking forward to, so that necessary measures could be taken up in time to extract optimal benefit from tourism development.

(Soraisam Devajani is researcher at Indigenous Perspective)

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2014/05/in-the-quest-of-tourism-development-tourism-planning/