Manipur News

How long must this be allowed to carry on? Why is everybody so casual about this endless self inflicted injury? Some injuries are difficult, if not impossible to heal, and the injuries these blockades, the frequency of which is continually rising, may actually cross the critical line from where there can be no easy return to normalcy or economic health or inter-community relations in the state. As it is, the fledgling private enterprises in the state have been condemned to existence in a limbo thanks to the prolonged acute shortage of electricity, abysmally bad infrastructure including most importantly surface transport, sinking standard of government schools and colleges and not the least the perpetual state of insecurity resulting out of the intractable uncertainty introduced by the law and order situation which has spiralled out of control as well as by the draconian measures and laws introduced to counter it. The latest additions to the state’s overflowing cup of woe are these blockades. Whatever the justification of the grievances that led to these extreme protests, the consequences are proving to be far too damaging and expensive. Things being what they are, it is time for all sides to climb down and rethink the method of agitation without giving up the agitation. Quite obviously the stir is beginning to prove counterproductive.

If all the parties in this faceoff were to step back a step or two each, the vision of a solution should begin to appear on the horizon. On the other hand, if they stick to where they have been standing all the while, and with a government seemingly not interested in doing anything beyond appealing to the leaders of the agitation to come to a negotiated settlement, though it has been made adequately clear on more occasion than one this is never to be if compromises are demanded, the situation can only continue to go downhill. The Central government as well as its eyes and ears in the state too seem simply content in watching the state disintegrate into total chaos for it too has not made a single gesture that it would try and bail the beleaguered state out of its present crisis. It too seems to be waiting for complete public disorder to break out and perhaps even a communal mayhem. What cynicism it would be if the doomsday prophets who have been predicting the fall of what they have termed as a failed state, are actually waiting and watching for some catastrophe to happen so that they can with academic satisfaction claim credit for self fulfilled prophesies.

Since the government obviously would not, or cannot, the all important question now is, do the people in the state have it in them to rise to the occasion and resolve this crisis amongst them? At this moment, obduracy no longer appears honourable or brave. On the other hand, it is the magnanimity of accommodation and flexibility which will go down as the qualities which define courage in this situation. It would also be a fine reward to prove the doomsday prophets wrong, and that the people of the state are able to resolve their common issues amicably in just and reasonable ways. Let the reserve of doomsday prophesies be proven instead. This state is difficult precisely because it is complex and complicated being multi-ethnic and multi-religion. But the victory will be when this complexity comes to be sublimated to ultimately begin to acquire the visage of sophistication. This we would say is the onerous challenge before the people – a test by fire which has the potential to destroy, but if the challenge is overcome, can leave the bondages that bind the spiritual and temporal integrity of the place much more securely. This would have been a lot more convenient and easy had the government been endowed with the vision and commitment called for in such moments. But unfortunately this is not to be, leaving the people to take forward this all-important project of redefining coexistence on their own. For a people who have lived together adjusting to each others’ idiosyncrasies for eons, this should not prove impossible although by no means an easy task. In the meantime, let us appeal to the government once again not to let things carry on the way it has been. Let it be accommodating but when things get beyond a point where the problem begins to threaten public welfare and order in a major way, let it not be afraid to be firm. Even as the matter of feasibility of the creation of Sadar hills district is being thrashed out, let it ensure that the highways are opened up using all the means within its command.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/09/selfinflicted-injury/

Since the government apparently has no clue as to how to break the impasse of the atrocious blockade along the state’s lifelines which is now close to completing two months, let it prepare at least to take care of the situation of extreme scarcity of essential commodities in the state, including very importantly, petrol and diesel. In its abject lack of will to do even this, other civil bodies, including students are beginning to take the responsibilities upon themselves. Like nature, society abhors a vacuum and there will always be a tendency for any vacuum of governance to be filled by whatever alternative available in the vicinity. This is precisely what is being demonstrated before everybody in the present situation. The government all of a sudden has become conspicuous by its absence and thereby leaving other power centres in waiting to step into the area of responsibility which should have been the government’s alone. It is a peculiar situation in which there is only the government to blame for students and others self-righteous, self-proclaimed leaders to assume law keeping responsibilities, and conversely, there is only the government to blame if what the students allege are being done by unscrupulous market manipulators to artificially hike prices to make a financial killing out of a public crisis turns actually to be the case. In this sense, it is a double responsibility the government is abdicating.

What the government should be doing now first and foremost is to settle the SADAR Hills issue conclusively. Even if this proves to be too complicated to resolve, considering there are conflicting interests pulling in opposite directions, it must at least do everything to control the fallouts of the blockade. First it must step out of its ivory tower to send out the message definitively that nobody can assume the powers that should legitimately rest only in its hands. Second, it must investigate and establish if the charges of gross and unethical manipulation of prices by unscrupulous traders to make capital out of the public’s suffering, is true. Depending on its findings it must take necessary actions to prevent this crime of greed and avarice and to exemplarily punish those who have been masterminding it. This is of prime importance. After all, it involves a very vital and emergent component of public welfare. If the government continues not to take this matter into cognizance, the situation can only get worse. Today it is students but who can say tomorrow who else will step in and decide to do what the government should have been doing all the while?

The government must therefore take stock of the availability of essential commodities in the market, and depending on its finding, begin a method of rationing them. If the blockade continues any longer it will be an emergency the state is faced with and emergency measures are called for during such times. It must also show its concern by personal examples. Ministers, MLAs and officials still continue to travel in huge convoys while the ordinary people are left with no option than to give up the use of their motor vehicles because of the acute fuel shortage. When these dignitaries travel together, they still use a car each for themselves. Cannot the Ibobi government at the least issue strictures on the matter directing ministers and MLAs to restrict their entourages when on necessary tours to the districts and when some of them travel together to the same destination, to share vehicles. This is not so much about saving fuel. It is more about sending out the message to the larger public that they too are concerned at the way things have been developing. Field Marshal Sir William Slim, whose forlorn cottage inside the Kangla is today becoming an important tourist attraction, had something to say of this moral solidarity between leaders and people as well as people and people in his book “Defeat into Victory”. He said when ration for the men in the battle frontline was delayed for whatever the reason, he made the soldier in the rear posts also go half ration until their colleagues in the front received theirs. This served a dual purpose. One, the soldiers in the rear posts were made to have a vested interest in ensuring there are no delays in reaching ration to the frontlines. Two, and more importantly, there was a moral bondage secured between everybody involved in the war effort on the Imphal-Kohima front. This bondage, according to him contributed immensely to the lifting of the spirit of his team and we all know how Slim and his team turned the table against the Japanese Imperial Army after a series of crushing defeats in Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia and Burma. Do we still have leaders of similar even it not comparable calibres?

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/09/blockade-consequences/

The murder of two non local immigrants was dastardly to say the least. Such crimes in the last few years, it is now clear, is not random but falls into a definite pattern. Even as the state is reeling under the impact of the economic blockade, anti-social elements are adding insult to injury by their atrocious and unthinking acts. The crime must be roundly condemned. In any case, xenophobia is no solution to whatever genuine concerns of possible demographic overturning caused by unregulated inflow of immigrants, economic or political. The government must ensure that the vulnerable sections of the society are given adequate protection to their life and property. It is very unfortunate that these ugly incidents have been periodically resurfacing in this beleaguered state. It is also unfortunate that between one massacre and the next, the government has not been able to evolve any farsighted policies to tackle the problem conclusively. All it has been doing is to fire fight, which quite obviously, to use a medical analogy, is merely in the nature of sedative but far from being a cure to the disease. So as in the past, the administration has, as a response to the most recent racial attack, herded non local immigrants to camps it set up and given them police cover. But the question is for how long can this be for? This is especially relevant because those housed in the camps are mostly impoverished daily wage earners and outside their places of work would be deprived of their meagre earnings. Sooner than later, by the compulsions of poverty, they would want to be released so that they can return to their places of work, and that is when the cycle of hate violence would likely be repeated soon as the public and government vigil drop.

The moot point is, while the government must do what it is doing now by making the security cover foolproof, it must also think of evolving longer term strategies to tackle this growing menace of xenophobic hate crimes. While it is a few miscreants who are responsible for these crimes, what is to be remembered is the crimes are the extreme manifestation of a general atmosphere of concern amongst the a good section of the population of the state that immigrants would come to outnumber the indigenous populations sooner than later. It may be recalled that so many powerful and well known civil organisations, have expressed this anxiety in no uncertain terms and indeed there is a parallel increase in the decibel in the demands for the re-introduction of the inner line permit system which would restrict immigration as well as prevent transfer of landed property to immigrants. A longer term solution to the problem would have to address this concern and seek to resolve or moderate it. If such an approach is not taken, the government would be left with no other option than to resort to the same strategy of bolting the stable after the horses have fled. This would be unforgivable for the matter involves lives and any loss of life is nothing to be callous about.

But what manifests as a concern of possible demographic imbalances may have a strong unarticulated component of competition for jobs. As had been written and thrashed so many times even on these same columns, immigrant labour always manages to drag down wages earning the ire of the local labour market. The fact that those the miscreants targeted were impoverished immigrant labourers may in fact be an indicator of this contention. Some years ago, the reason for the attacks in Assam on “Hindi speakers” was openly stated to be an outcome of competition for railway jobs of grade three and two. In Maharashtra the underlying causes for the attacks on non-Maharashtrians were also for the same reason. We are pointing out these possible factors so that the government does not miss them out in evolving its own long term strategy of tackling this ugly and shameful problem. Just to underscore the point, the government cannot afford to let its guards down in the immediate context for there are killers out there bent on creating xenophobic mayhem. They must be kept at bay. However the government should also think of some regulatory mechanism to check the inflow of immigrants. It must be acknowledged that beneath the loathsome xenophobia are some genuine concerns which must be taken care of. As the saying goes, good fences make good neighbours. At this point perhaps introducing such a regulatory mechanism, even if a mild one, is this good fence. It is needless to remind the government that such regulatory mechanisms exist in many other Northeast states.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/09/dastardly-crime/