Tag: Editorial

Can the Manipiur Press still be described as independent? At the rate it is succumbing to pressures, this is hardly likely. We watch with disdain the manner in which the entire media establishment in the state has in the past been compelled to go on sabbatical, caught as it always was between conflicting pulls and pressures of different feuding armed underground organizations. There are also allegation that the media-men are too easily influenced by men with money and power. But the gravest threat is the new culture of intimidation. What is adequately clear is that, for the ordinary citizenry, to which the media belongs, it does not make a difference whether they are intimidated by a brigade or a band of a dozen or so armed men, the effect is the same – fear. And today, Manipur’s ordinary citizenry is in the grip of a terrible, immobilizing fear. Leave aside underground revolutionary organizations, threats from buccaneering organizations, inspired terror as effectively. Fear of death at the hands of anonymous men with guns works in an exponential way. It levels out the asymmetry of weaponry like no other phenomenon has. It is not a surprise at all that underdogs in many conflict situations around the world have resorted to fashioning this fear as a weapon in itself. The terrorism of the Al Qaeda brand is a prime example. The late Bin Laden’s attempt all along had been on this line – to multiply what it lacks in weaponry and physical resources with fear and boost his power base exponentially. The measure of success he had been able to achieve, challenging seriously as he had, even mighty America, is the proof of the pudding. Laden while he was alive may have been just a pain in the neck for the USA, but he proved to be a persistent and sometimes excruciating pain. As to how troublesome a pain in the neck can be, can be testified by the many who have been unfortunate enough to have had bouts of spondylitis.

In this modern aberration of asymmetrical warfare, popularly referred to as “terrorism” by those at the receiving end – and rightly so too – the ones who end up held at ransom are mostly soft targets. In many ways, the media in Manipur today is this soft target. Nowhere in the world, except under the most dictatorial environments, would the freedom of the media to make its own judgment on what event might be of news-worth and hence print worthy, is compromised than in Manipur. To draw any consolation at all from the fact that the situation is no better in some other neighbouring states, which have even seen the assassination of some very outspoken writers, would be a perversion of logic. But the uncanny feeling is, the soft targets in the state, including the media, have cowered far too much and have allowed themselves to be prisoned in their own image of powerlessness. Our civil society, and more regrettably, our media have lost their backbones. The pen has been overshadowed by the sword. This speaks very poorly for the media as well as those browbeating it. Maybe a contributing factor in the softening of the media is the overturning of its curious status of being a fine mix of business and mission. Under ideal circumstances, the business must remain vibrant so that it can support its own role as an important pillar of the democratic polity. Today increasingly, the primacy has passed on to the business side of the story with the mission being pushed into insignificance.

The state media must assert itself again to regain its rightful place in a democracy and more immediately, it credibility. Right now, to be very honest, outside the closed world of the state, it does not command much of it. What the media communicates can become convincing to the outside world only if is known it speaks from its free will and judgment. It is important that it does not take sides, but all the same it must show what a powerful medium for opinion making neutrality can be. A gagged media does not portray a positive image for anybody either. It shows an inherent incapacity for tolerating or shouldering freedom.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/02/who-is-afraid-of-freedom/

Leader Writer: Paojel Chaoba
Our state will witness a re-poll in 34 polling stations in five hill districts today. It is evident that compared to the valley districts the elections held on January 28 last have not been conducted in a fair manner in the hills . Moreover, following complaints made to the CEO for conduct of re-polls in certain stations and as per media reports, the NSCN (IM) and other hill based outfits have more or less been responsible for booth capturing and supporting their favored candidates.

It remains to be seen whether the re-poll will be conducted justly and the hill areas get to elect their preferred representatives.

However, in the valley areas, every person worth his or her salt is left to speculate on who will be the winning candidate and has to wait with bathed breath till the faithful day of March 6.It has become a daily routine among family members and with neighbors and friends alike to conduct exit polls. It is amusing to see the polarized political views and may be safe to say that announced favoritism have led to more than a quarrel in various quarters.

It may be said that the 2012 elections have differed in some areas from the last assembly elections in regard to blatant show of money and muscle power, thanks to norms laid down by the ECI. However, the public despite fervent appeals in the media by various civil bodies to vote for the right candidate and refuse monitory advances from the candidates seems to have made scant effect. As, it is an open secret that currency notes were doled out to family members and individuals alike and which were ‘gullibly’ accepted, not to mention that daily feasting were carried out in the leikais.

The after effects of such splurging left many a shelf empty in the local grocery shops and butcher shops in the city areas sold out in the afternoons, the much liked and expensive fish Sareng remained unavailable before, on and after the day of the assembly poll. It is evident that some sections of the electorate had a picnic.

Quoting Aristole that ‘man is a political animal’ in the regard. Though, not everyone may agree with the theory, but it is essential to understand the principals. His main ideology consists in that a man is by nature a political animal because he can reason and communicate with others, therefore, has the potential to alter or change his living conditions for better because he can recognize the difference from right or wrong. Aristotle is proposing that a man with reason has to base his approach towards politics on the fundamental concept of good for human beings. However, based on the evaluation of modern politics, we can conclude that the idea of politics aiming at the human good has diminished and Aristotle may find the majority of the Manipuri society politics rest on denominations of Rs 500 or 1000 notes or a few kilograms of meat. It may be referred to as a ‘democraziness’ and more of based on animal instinct rather than being political conscious.

But, on a positive note, it is not sinful to hope for a light at the end of the tunnel and that the electorate may one day see the light and become true political animals. As Rome was not built in a day, so will it take time to change the system and change will definitely be there one day. How long will it take ? The answer as Bob Dylan puts,“the answer, my friend is definitely blowing in the wind !”

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/02/of-animals-and-political-ones/

The screaming banner headlines about how French defence manufacturer Dassault won a massive 20 billion dollar fighter plane purchase deal with the Indian government and how the company’s rivals, the nearest one being EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space company) but including four others in the fray earlier namely, American firms Lockheed Martin (F-16) and Boeing (F/A-18), Russian United Aircraft Corporation (MiG-35) and Swedish SAAB (Gripen) also tell a story other than an exciting business battle that involved not just individual corporations but also national governments. All these countries belong to the developed world and are supposedly champions of international peace and human rights. They have plenty of money to sink into the peace and conflict studies, as well as to fund the human rights movement around the globe. Indeed their money is the fuel behind a majority of NGOs around the world working in these areas of growing global concern. From this bare outline the irony is already apparent.

The UN Human Development Report, 2002, dedicated to a study on deepening of democracy quite accurately pointed out that two democratic countries have never gone to war since WW-II and is unlikely ever to go to war again for apart from everything else, democracy is about settling national disputes by civilised debates, business competitions, and not the least, sports. The report probably had the so called mature democracies in these rich countries in mind. Indeed, it is unthinkable today that any two Western European countries or North America would go to war with each other. But the fact also is, they do not hesitate taking wars and weapons of war to other countries. If the international peace campaigns were to mean a complete ban on weapons manufacturing, probably these democratic countries would be the first to back out and begin a process of redefining democracy through cleverly sponsored NGOs and academic think tanks, to suit their ends. They remain the biggest merchants of weapons of war and therefore the vendors of death as well. Though they would talk peace, they would not like wars to end and put a seal on their highly profitable businesses. They would however not want these wars to be on their soils. Can there be a bigger hypocrisy than this?

Probably the argument then would be these weapons are not meant for war but for preventing wars. We have all heard this argument before haven’t we? Modernising the military, making nuclear weapons, developing terrible chemical and biological weapons, are all meant to be deterrents of future wars, provided of course these activities remain the monopoly of the developed countries. If other states even nurture vague ambitions to emulate these manufacturing capabilities, they would be termed as rogue states, and possibly bombed out of sanity. Iraq and Afghanistan learnt this the hard way. Iran and North Korea are also dangerously coming into the firing line of this outlook.

It must come as extremely disheartening to genuine peace workers that disarmament still remains highly unrealistic because of what Noam Chomsky called the “military industrial complex”. Both the military as well as the arms industries around the world need each other in what can actually be called an unholy alliance. If there is any alliance that is beyond severance at this moment it must be this one, considering the numerous vested interests intertwined and cemented so securely by prospects of making billons and trillions of dollars.

Beyond the “military industrial complex” and therefore the perpetuation of weapons circulation around the world, there are other implications. The one most noteworthy is the outcome, though perhaps not part of a design, of an unseen equation between this complex and the NGO movements campaigning for peace and disarmament. On this canvas, disarmament has come to virtually mean neutralising the war capabilities of non-state actors only. Recognized states can buy the deadliest and costliest weapons legally from the world market, but nobody else can. If the latter want to arm themselves the weapons have to be bought from the black market, and it is no surprise that beyond the legal arms market, an illegal one has also become a reality. In this sense even the “military industrial complex” is an endorsement of the Weberian notion of legitimate violence as a monopoly of the state. The vicious cycle of conflict, it seems is not just about to end in the backdrop of this sinister “military industrial complex”.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/02/weapons-of-war-or-peace/

The screaming banner headlines about how French defence manufacturer Dassault won a massive 20 billion dollar fighter plane purchase deal with the Indian government and how the company’s rivals, the nearest one being EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space company) but including four others in the fray earlier namely, American firms Lockheed Martin (F-16) and Boeing (F/A-18), Russian United Aircraft Corporation (MiG-35) and Swedish SAAB (Gripen) also tell a story other than an exciting business battle that involved not just individual corporations but also national governments. All these countries belong to the developed world and are supposedly champions of international peace and human rights. They have plenty of money to sink into the peace and conflict studies, as well as to fund the human rights movement around the globe. Indeed their money is the fuel behind a majority of NGOs around the world working in these areas of growing global concern. From this bare outline the irony is already apparent.

The UN Human Development Report, 2002, dedicated to a study on deepening of democracy quite accurately pointed out that two democratic countries have never gone to war since WW-II and is unlikely ever to go to war again for apart from everything else, democracy is about settling national disputes by civilised debates, business competitions, and not the least, sports. The report probably had the so called mature democracies in these rich countries in mind. Indeed, it is unthinkable today that any two Western European countries or North America would go to war with each other. But the fact also is, they do not hesitate taking wars and weapons of war to other countries. If the international peace campaigns were to mean a complete ban on weapons manufacturing, probably these democratic countries would be the first to back out and begin a process of redefining democracy through cleverly sponsored NGOs and academic think tanks, to suit their ends. They remain the biggest merchants of weapons of war and therefore the vendors of death as well. Though they would talk peace, they would not like wars to end and put a seal on their highly profitable businesses. They would however not want these wars to be on their soils. Can there be a bigger hypocrisy than this?

Probably the argument then would be these weapons are not meant for war but for preventing wars. We have all heard this argument before haven’t we? Modernising the military, making nuclear weapons, developing terrible chemical and biological weapons, are all meant to be deterrents of future wars, provided of course these activities remain the monopoly of the developed countries. If other states even nurture vague ambitions to emulate these manufacturing capabilities, they would be termed as rogue states, and possibly bombed out of sanity. Iraq and Afghanistan learnt this the hard way. Iran and North Korea are also dangerously coming into the firing line of this outlook.

It must come as extremely disheartening to genuine peace workers that disarmament still remains highly unrealistic because of what Noam Chomsky called the “military industrial complex”. Both the military as well as the arms industries around the world need each other in what can actually be called an unholy alliance. If there is any alliance that is beyond severance at this moment it must be this one, considering the numerous vested interests intertwined and cemented so securely by prospects of making billons and trillions of dollars.

Beyond the “military industrial complex” and therefore the perpetuation of weapons circulation around the world, there are other implications. The one most noteworthy is the outcome, though perhaps not part of a design, of an unseen equation between this complex and the NGO movements campaigning for peace and disarmament. On this canvas, disarmament has come to virtually mean neutralising the war capabilities of non-state actors only. Recognized states can buy the deadliest and costliest weapons legally from the world market, but nobody else can. If the latter want to arm themselves the weapons have to be bought from the black market, and it is no surprise that beyond the legal arms market, an illegal one has also become a reality. In this sense even the “military industrial complex” is an endorsement of the Weberian notion of legitimate violence as a monopoly of the state. The vicious cycle of conflict, it seems is not just about to end in the backdrop of this sinister “military industrial complex”.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/02/weapons-of-war-or-peace/

Prohibition has not worked in Manipur. It has not in all other places it was sought to be imposed. Everybody knows this, yet the farce continues. A few weeks ago, an article on the online edition of the Time said something similar with regards to abortion. It said not only has abortion been most rampant in countries that banned it, but also the practice was most unhygienic in these places. The first contention is disputable. In places these bans do not exist, people don’t notice them happening unlike in places where the bans do exist. The bans themselves arouse extra interests making researchers to do closer studies of the phenomenon in these places and less so in societies where there are no such bans. Otherwise, common sense should inform even the average men and women that the prevalence of these practices should somewhat remain the same, be there a ban on them or not. But the veracity of the second contention should be beyond any doubt.

This is for a variety of reasons. Take the case of prohibition in Manipur, which has been in place for the last three decades. Those born less than thirty years ago probably would think there never was anything legal about alcohol consumption in the state and that those who do consume it necessarily have to do so in stealth and against their conscience. They would not be wrong altogether. People continue to drink but they drink in stealth and indignity now. The only difference between the times there was no ban and now is, there are no longer any official outlets to buy liquor. Whatever is sold is in the black market. This has meant among others, two things. One, their prices have been inflated hugely, and two, there is never any certainty of brand availability so that people drink whatever is available, and this nobody will dispute has great potential of being a health wrecker.

These considerations apart, for a practice which has not been successfully abolished, the state would be losing considerably revenue each year. To make it worse, this revenue is not just lost, but turned into black money. If there are people who benefited from the long spell of prohibition, it definitely would be black marketers. Our appeal then is, those behind the longish prohibition in the state should begin rethinking on a strategy of lifting the ban but making sure its ill effect are minimised. As for instance, while sale and consumption of liquor is made legal again, drunkenness in public places could remain as infringement on the law. Today just the opposite seems to be happening. It is also interesting to note that two neighbouring states of Nagaland and Mizoram too have been officially dry for just about the same period as Manipur. In these two states it is the Church which called for the ban unlike in Manipur where it was underground organisations which made the first move, followed by the government. People familiar with these two places also know, as in Manipur, drinking has not come down. In Mizoram the enforcement is a little stricter, and alcoholic beverages are still not served openly in restaurants and bars. In Nagaland, although officially banned, the enforcement is much more relaxed and liquor is served in many restaurants openly.

It is now time to lift this ban in Manipur. Whatever lessons that needed to be driven home have been done so. The mission the prohibition was meant to achieve, that of controlling rampant alcoholism to the extent possible, has been accomplished long ago. Its continuance can now only do harm to the state and its people. As for instance, with the state preparing to open the doors to tourism, prohibition can become a big impediment. Tourists generally visit new places where they can relax, and in the universal picture of relaxation, chilled beer is an inalienable part. Those in the hospitality industry, especially the new swanky hotels which have sprung up in Imphal, where tourists, especially foreign tourists flock to, we are sure will vouch on this. Again, prohibition gives a place the image and atmosphere of puritanical orthodoxy in the sense the Taliban is fanatically so. Surely, nobody would want Manipur to suffer such an image in the outside world. We are not talking about licentiousness or permissiveness, but of a liberal approach to life, in which social norms are determined not by diktats but by individual sense of responsibility which intuitively puts a limit on the extent individual freedom can be pushed and thus draw the line between what is proper behaviour and what is not. This ability of free judgment on these matters is what should define civilised behaviour and not ones enforced through bans and diktats.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/02/end-prohibition/

Speculations of any possible outcomes of the just concluded elections to the 10th Manipur Legislative Assembly are prohibited by the Election Commission of India, ECI, in order to ensure voters in states where the elections are being held later are not swayed by what they see as a trend. Broad pictures of what may be the likely scenario after the results are declared should however do no harm in this regards provided these pictures do not speculate on which party is generally favourably inclined to the dominant public mood. We are interested in sketching such a party-neutral picture, not so much to anticipate which party is likely to come to power, but as a caution of what troubles may lay ahead. The election office in the state is in a rather upbeat mood, considering the polls went off with much less violence than initially anticipated. In the valley districts, because of unprecedented security measures, the polling day was peaceful except for some minor skirmishes. In the hill districts, because of the much larger area spread (nearly ten times the valley), security understandably could not have been as tight, and therefore the reports of disruptions of the election process at many places. As the latest information from the election office goes, there will be repoll in 34 polling stations in the five hill districts on February 4. This time, the security personnel engaged in election duty in the valley districts being now free, they should all be available for providing much tighter security to the 34 stations. Hopefully all will go well, and voters will be allowed to exercise their free will in selecting their leaders.

But election trouble can hardly be said to be over. The Congress which went to the elections as the ruling party was the only one to field candidates in all the 60 seats of the Assembly in the state. According to the chief minister, Okram Ibobi, whose comments appeared repeatedly in the media in the run up to the election, the party would return at least 35 MLAs. The only other party to somewhat rival this optimism is the new entrant, Trinamool Congress, which fielded 47 candidates making it the party with the second largest number of candidates in the fray. The CPI which was a ruling ally has put up 24 candidates and this is the third largest number. The three are also not in any pre-poll alliance. The rest of the parties are way behind in terms of number of candidates fielded. But they have managed to reach some degree of pre-poll partnerships. As to whether these alliances will be able to hold once the election results are known is another story. The larger of the alliances, is the Peoples’ Democratic Front, but even together their number of fielded candidates total only 45. The other alliance is between the BJP and the MPP, and they too together tally only 33. The MPP, once a formidable pole in any electoral equation in the state, having emerged from the popular agitation for full statehood for Manipur in the 1970s, is today only a shadow of its former self, thanks to unimaginative leadership and greedy, disloyal political turncoats in its ranks.

Under normal circumstances there would have been no cause for extra concern, but as we all know, the Congress is being opposed openly by a united committee of a number of militants groups, CorCom, in the valley, and also in an undeclared but nonetheless with bare fangs in the hills by another underground group. This being the case, if any single party, in this case the ruling Congress, is able to come out with a clear majority, the issue would not be too complicated. However, if the Congress miss the magic number of 31 to become a single party majority, it is unlikely the CorCom would not step in to ensure no other smaller parties lend support to the Congress. They would also likely nudge the smaller parties to form a post-poll alliance and come to power. That is, if the Congress fails to reach the absolute majority figure even if by a small margin, they would not have it easy to muster the required number. But, as the pre-poll partnerships are indicating, there are some parties which are going it alone. The case of the CPI is interesting, as they were an ally of the Congress in the last government, and since they cannot hope to come out with a majority on their own ever, perhaps they are already anticipating a piggy back ride on the Congress and be a strange bedfellow of convenience yet again. Whatever it is, a hung Assembly will spell much more than the difficulty of forming a government because of the low ceiling on the cabinet size imposed by the Anti Defection Law, thereby the paucity of ministerial chairs to offer and lure potential partners.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/01/aftershock-speculations/

It is pertinent to delve some more on the likely drawbacks of the prolonged wait for the result of elections to the 10th Manipur Legislative Assembly held on January 28. The anticipated government limbo on account of this is extremely ill-timed as February is the concluding month of the financial year in this country, and the Union Budget for the coming year would be out on the last day of the month. Not long after, the state too would be holding its own budget session. It is true in all the years that have gone by, the annual budget session has not been taken too seriously by successful governments. These sessions as well as the budget documents to be discussed and passed have been in the nature of annual balance sheets of the government, and thereby in their essence, an accounting affair. Under the circumstance, most of them could have been done better by a chartered accountant, for they seldom, if at all, have been a vision statement of a government. But, many in the intelligentsia in the recent past have been trying to induce the government to incline towards the latter and were hopeful that there would be an attitude shift in the near future. This Assembly limbo at such a crucial time of the year cannot but be considered encouraging from this standpoint. It has been just two days since the elections were held, and so it may yet be too early to comment on the how the caretaker government would conduct itself for the next one month, but it is expected that it would be a joyless job for those in shadow power of circumstance. Who would be enthusiastic to begin any meaningful work now, knowing full well it could be others who claim the credit for them. We do however hope and trust the present team would at least be committed enough to keep the normal functioning of the government mechanism intact without slackening too much.

On the positive side, at least the election office would be in a better position to study the performances of its officials on the ground on the day of the polling and decide on how many repolls are to be held now that it has over a month to accomplish this mission. Since there is much more time than usual, we hope and trust it will be able to tie up all loose ends satisfactorily. This is important considering the number of complaints pouring in, especially from the hill districts, of malpractices at the point of the gun by militants. Since the voting procedure included individual mug-shot of voters taken against his election ink stained finger prior to casting of vote, it should not be difficult to determine if there have indeed been cases of impersonations. If the number of votes polled and the number of pictures do not tally, the answer to this question would become obvious. There have also been complaints of intimidation and coercion of voters outside of the polling arena. On this count, we suppose there would be no foolproof way of accounting them or taking remedial action. This is basically a policing lacuna and nothing to do with the election office. But then, intimidation or no intimidation, voting was done in secrecy, so once inside the booth, the voters would have had the freedom to make the choices they want. At least from this point of view, there can be no doubt this time it would be a popular mandate on who should be in power in the state.

But the election this time, as have been noted by many, would be interesting for the verdict on at least two other issues. One is on whether the popular aspirations are still in congruence with what many underground organisations think they are. There was a virtual ban on the ruling Congress by a group of powerful insurgent organisations and if the people still vote the Congress into power, or even as the single largest party, it should serve as an alarm bell for the concerned militant organisations to introspect and read the bold writings on the wall. The other issue at stake is the question of faith, or call it challenge if you please, to the idea of Manipur as a federal home for many different ethnic groups. The entry of Nagaland chief minister, Niephiu Rio’ Naga Peoples’ Front, NPF, into the election fray, campaigning on a variation of what the United Naga Council, UNC, has been championing for some years now – that of dismembering Manipur to create a separate administration for Naga of the state, is the case in point. It will now be known if this dissenting view of Manipur has popular support when it comes to the crux. Whatever the verdict of the electorate is let the lessons the verdict offer be learnt by all concerned.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/01/badly-timed-limbo/

The Election Commission of India’s new regulations to ensure there are no extraneous or unfair influences in the outcomes to the Assembly elections in five states, namely Manipur, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Goa are novel and welcome. However, since the elections to these states are as far apart as a month, there would be many who wish a way was found so that the gap was narrowed down to the minimum. Manipur had its elections yesterday, in a largely peaceful process, except for an incident of macabre violence in which militants fired at a polling booth at Chakpikarong in the Chandel district, killing seven and injuring more. The condemnable nature of the violence needs no further elaboration, but what is pertinent to our original observation is, for Manipur which is the first to go the polls, the wait for the results is unfairly long. Not only is this about the killing suspense everybody in the state, in particular all the candidates and their supporters would be put through, but also about the governance vacuum this would create. The ECI’s logic is perfectly understood. It does not want the trends in one state to influence the voting decisions of the electorate in other states which go to the polls later. However a month of waiting for the results of an election is a little too overstretched.

In reality, for an entire month, Manipur would be under a caretaker government, which can only think of maintaining a semblance of day to day administration and not see in terms of policy visions and programmes that extend into a future. Until as long as the ballot papers remain sealed in the ballot boxes, or should we say in the digital storage of the electronic voting machines, Manipur would be under a government without a clear mandate, neither bound by responsibility and duty to the electorate nor by the demands of office.  Most likely, governance during the period is going to be at best moribund, for those in the government would be acutely aware of their lack of moral authority in carrying out their normal governance duties during the period. They would neither be able to act with confidence or firmly on most matters. The contrary could be equally true, and many who are unsure if they would return after sensing the way the polls went, may decide to make the best of the one month they would still be in power to aggrandise themselves. Politicking for the formation of the next government would have also begun in the backdrop, with men who are likely to be frontrunners in the race for the top job, selectively favouring or sidelining prospective supporters or dissidents as the case may be. Unhealthy grouping around political poles within the same parties could also stymie normal functioning of the government. Surely nobody would dispute the general perception this can result in no good at all.

If the ECI had envisaged there would such long gap between the polling and result declarations, therefore the government formation processes, what ought to have been done was for those states which have to wait long to be placed under President’s Rule briefly, so that the grey area of prolonged caretaker governance is avoided. This would also have been to the ECI’s purpose of ensuring absolutely free and fair elections, for then none of the parties in contention would have gone to the polls as the ruling party and thus the new chapter of governance would have been allowed to begin on a clean slate and a much more level playfield. However, what’s done cannot be undone. We do hope in future this lacuna is looked into.

We also hope the one month of suspense does not result in any untoward incidents. Elections are always high tension affairs, especially for those who have high stakes in them. In the emerging tradition of governments in the state, marked by a client-patron equation between those in power and their crony businessmen/contractors, the rivalry goes beyond politics but spill into contest for control of business/contract turfs. Elections here thus are also often akin to a high stake venture capital investment overtures, where prospective business/contract beneficiaries put in huge sums of money in the campaign for their candidates and parties in the hope of reaping hansom dividends in the next five years if their candidates win. As in all business rivalries, the friction can often explode in violence, sometimes resembling mafia wars. Declaration of the results would deflate the tension, but unfortunately this can only be after a month under the present dispensation.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/01/undeserved-suspense/

The Election Commission of India’s new regulations to ensure there are no extraneous or unfair influences in the outcomes to the Assembly elections in five states, namely Manipur, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Goa are novel and welcome. However, since the elections to these states are as far apart as a month, there would be many who wish a way was found so that the gap was narrowed down to the minimum. Manipur had its elections yesterday, in a largely peaceful process, except for an incident of macabre violence in which militants fired at a polling booth at Chakpikarong in the Chandel district, killing seven and injuring more. The condemnable nature of the violence needs no further elaboration, but what is pertinent to our original observation is, for Manipur which is the first to go the polls, the wait for the results is unfairly long. Not only is this about the killing suspense everybody in the state, in particular all the candidates and their supporters would be put through, but also about the governance vacuum this would create. The ECI’s logic is perfectly understood. It does not want the trends in one state to influence the voting decisions of the electorate in other states which go to the polls later. However a month of waiting for the results of an election is a little too overstretched.

In reality, for an entire month, Manipur would be under a caretaker government, which can only think of maintaining a semblance of day to day administration and not see in terms of policy visions and programmes that extend into a future. Until as long as the ballot papers remain sealed in the ballot boxes, or should we say in the digital storage of the electronic voting machines, Manipur would be under a government without a clear mandate, neither bound by responsibility and duty to the electorate nor by the demands of office.  Most likely, governance during the period is going to be at best moribund, for those in the government would be acutely aware of their lack of moral authority in carrying out their normal governance duties during the period. They would neither be able to act with confidence or firmly on most matters. The contrary could be equally true, and many who are unsure if they would return after sensing the way the polls went, may decide to make the best of the one month they would still be in power to aggrandise themselves. Politicking for the formation of the next government would have also begun in the backdrop, with men who are likely to be frontrunners in the race for the top job, selectively favouring or sidelining prospective supporters or dissidents as the case may be. Unhealthy grouping around political poles within the same parties could also stymie normal functioning of the government. Surely nobody would dispute the general perception this can result in no good at all.

If the ECI had envisaged there would such long gap between the polling and result declarations, therefore the government formation processes, what ought to have been done was for those states which have to wait long to be placed under President’s Rule briefly, so that the grey area of prolonged caretaker governance is avoided. This would also have been to the ECI’s purpose of ensuring absolutely free and fair elections, for then none of the parties in contention would have gone to the polls as the ruling party and thus the new chapter of governance would have been allowed to begin on a clean slate and a much more level playfield. However, what’s done cannot be undone. We do hope in future this lacuna is looked into.

We also hope the one month of suspense does not result in any untoward incidents. Elections are always high tension affairs, especially for those who have high stakes in them. In the emerging tradition of governments in the state, marked by a client-patron equation between those in power and their crony businessmen/contractors, the rivalry goes beyond politics but spill into contest for control of business/contract turfs. Elections here thus are also often akin to a high stake venture capital investment overtures, where prospective business/contract beneficiaries put in huge sums of money in the campaign for their candidates and parties in the hope of reaping hansom dividends in the next five years if their candidates win. As in all business rivalries, the friction can often explode in violence, sometimes resembling mafia wars. Declaration of the results would deflate the tension, but unfortunately this can only be after a month under the present dispensation.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/01/undeserved-suspense/

Leader writer: Chitra Ahanthem
When Manipur goes to the polls today to elect the 60 Assembly seat representatives, it puts an end to all the hectic run up to the final frontier: the number of votes being polled that will give candidates an edge over one another. To most outsiders, Manipur’s elections are not just seen as being about the usual fare of “will do this” and “will do that” but seen on various levels. While some look at the entry of the Nagaland People’s Front (NPF) in this election as a Meitei-Naga fight for political representation, a few look on the same scenario as a face off between Nagaland Chief Minister Nephiu Rio and his Manipur counterpart, Okram Ibobi. They think too, that the spate of poll related violence unleashed by the CorCom  following their announcement of a ban on the Congress party would be affecting people and that candidates would be actively involved in election campaigns. They see the ban on the Congress by the NSCN (IM) and foretell that the number of people coming out to vote today may be low.

But the voters in Manipur are made of sterner stuff. Theirs is not the choice of staying indoors when things are happening outside their homes. They will step right into the thick of things in any event. Elections after all, add just that extra bit of spice and mean an endless carnival of feasts and free loading. The side helping of cash for votes also helps in getting out the voters out of their homes.

But what does a voter consider while casting their vote? Is it only the money that decides which part and candidate gets the vote? Do factors like which party comes into power play an important factor? What other issues play a part? Do people vote looking at which party is in power at the Centre?

In a sense, the voters in Manipur are the most complex lot. No amount of election analysis can really catch the mood of the people here for there is no consensus on what catches the minds or the voting trigger of the people. The cash-for-vote-only explanation bites the dust as shown during the earlier Konthoujam bye-election where everyone expected a rumored to be Congress flood of money to reach the finishing line. But a Trinamool candidate swept the polls and opened the flood- gate for the Trinamool Congress to make a pitch for the Assembly elections today. The trend is for people to accept cash for votes from every candidate and every party but to vote for the one of their choice. On the other side of the spectrum, even when the BJP led NDA government came to power at the Center during the late 90’s, the party had not been able to make any major presence in the state, much less come into power.

For many voters, the main issue is unfortunately not about the withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. If it were indeed about the Act the Congress Party, which did not make any electoral promise to repeal the AFSPA (unlike every other party) in the earlier Assembly elections in 2007, would not have come to power. Incumbency or “earlier representatives not performing their duties” do make a difference in the vote count: which is precisely why MLAs go on a community hall building spree during their tenure while larger issues of governance and infrastructure development gets sidelined.

One positive take-away from this Assembly election has seen the emergence of different voices calling for a vote with a conscience or a vote with responsibility call. Apart from senior citizens pitching in with their calls for responsible voting, one is witness to innovative campaigns that are aimed at making people realize the power of their franchise. While it is too early for such campaigns to bear fruit, their presence gives hope that things may well change with time. When the day ends, it will be life as usual with less than 3 hours of electricity and no tap water. People divided by party lines will share their common history of misery and go about their schedules on dust laden roads: till the next election carnival.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/01/manipur-polls/

A second Sanskritization has become almost a pattern in Manipur today. Names from history such as that of the great king Bheigyachandra is today spelt as Bhagyachandra, although the on the Manipuri tongue the sound of the name corresponds very much with the first spelling. This is just one prominent example, but it is happening everywhere. Robindro has become Ravindra. Likewise the Kullo, Nilo, Bidhu, Bimol, Komol… have begun to metamorphosed or else have already changed unrecognizably. It is true this is about fine-tuning to the Sanskrit origins of these names, but in the process what is lost is the distinctive identity of those who use them. In a single stroke, the phenomenon is wiping off a feature of history and memories of the place. In an abstract sense, this is a silent violence of a different sort too. In much of South East Asia where too the great Indic culture spread in profound ways, influencing lifestyles, the arts and architecture, nomenclatures of places and persons too are a marriage of the essence of Sanskrit names and unique ways local tongues pronounce them. In Cambodia, Ramayan is known as Reamker and nobody would dare say that is the wrong way of doing it although some Indic bigots do so sometimes, earning the displeasure and sometimes hostility of the locals. Hinduism and Buddhism, though originally foreign religions to these countries have also been thus transformed to give them local ethos, and they have stayed that way. For instance, to make a SE Asian believe vegetarianism is an important feature of these religions and that they should also give up meat would be like trying to force an unwilling horse to drink, as it were. This would include any move to prohibit beef eating as well.

Manipur’s brand of Hinduism was also to a great extent such a marriage of cultures, and it is great and unique precisely because of this. Conversion to Hinduism of the Meiteis was not too much of a trauma precisely because they did not have to abandon much of their old ways and beliefs. They have had to give up much of meat eating, but they still retained a great deal of their pre-Hindu culture, including the worship of their old deities of the forest, sky, rivers, lakes and hills. It helped that Hinduism is flexible and accommodating enough to allow this. What is also pertinent is, it is because such a marriage of culture was allowed that the great devotional classical dance Ras Lila could become a reality, so too Sankirtan and Pung Chollom etc. Why then must this culture be made to go through the extremely apologetic exercise of divorcing its two major components? Let the names of people and places be if they are truly the original non-Sanskritized ethnic ones. But when they are the Sanskritized names, twisted by the peculiarity of local tongues, let them remain transformed, for these are what are real and not the re-tuned versions. Let Maharaja Bheigyachandra be Maharaj Bheigyachandra and not Rajashree Bhagyachandra. The former is natural and closer to the genius of the place, the latter artificial and in more ways than one, sycophantic. It betrays a lack of confidence in the independent Hindu Meitei self. To insist on this re-Sanskritization would amount to a degree of alienation, and thereby introduction of a new distance between this great king (indeed the history of the place as well) and the common man.

This lack of a collective self confidence is also visible in the ways pronunciations of local names have been anglicised.  While speaking in Manipuri, the natural way of pronouncing the name of the capital city is as its spelling suggests – “Imphal” where the “ph” in the Im-ph-al, is a heavier sound of consonant “p” and not the lighter sound of consonant “f”. However in conversing in English, the Im-ph-al becomes Im-f-al. This is regardless of the fact that to the local ethnic tongue, Im-ph-al comes much easier and natural.  This is however not a case for changing names of individuals and places, but only a suggestion that the corruption of the sounds of new cultures by the older local cultures should be allowed to stay, as they are also landmarks of history and memories of hundreds of years. There can also be no argument history and memories are the spine of anybody’s identity. As they say, if you have a heart transplant, you will still remain as the same you. But if you were to have a memory replacement or suffer from a memory loss, you will no longer be you.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/01/significance-of-names/

India will once again be celebrating the day it dedicated itself a Republic on this day in 1950, having given itself a constitution as the sole authoritative guideline by which the country is to be ruled. This constitution is said to be the most detailed ever, having borrowed features from practically every other constitutions of other successful republics, in particular that of Britain. It is also a constitution far from rigid, and it is not a coincidence that it has already undergone 115 amendments in the 52 years of its existence. What should be a matter of optimism for all is this document defining what India is and should aspire to be, is open to more changes anytime in the future, provided these proposed changes do not seek to change its fundamental character. Until the infamous Emergency of the 1970s, making fundamental changes to it, though by a very difficult 2/3 majority of the Parliament was possible but now this feature is virtually no more. As for instance, under this constitution, India can never be a dictatorship (as the Emergency almost managed to once by perpetuating itself through controversial amendments), although in a limited way there are provisions for extremely centralised emergency governance in times of crisis, such as external aggression, financial emergent situation, extreme internal turmoil resulting in complete breakdown of the law and order etc, under its Article 365. This Article, as we are well aware, can also be invoked if there is a constitutional crisis, such as in the case of the inability of political parties to form a government in any one of the states or the Union by due procedures laid down in the constitution. This temporary emergency governance mechanism which we know more popularly as President’s Rule or Governor’s Rule, is becoming increasingly redundant, as another relatively recent Article of the constitution which anticipated this lacuna, ensured the structure of constitutional politics is reformed adequately to virtually make it impossible for turncoat politicians to switch loyalty once elected to the Parliament or the state Assemblies.

True there are intransigent faces of the Republic. Without even going through the exercise of arguing the merits or demerits of it, let us just consider the developments regarding the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA, demonstrating how the spirit of this constitution can also be deliberately and unceremoniously silenced. In 2005, following wide protests in Manipur over the rape and murder of Thangjam Manorama in the custody of the Assam Rifles, and at the behest of none other than the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, a 5-member commission headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, Justice Jeevan Reddy, had been constituted to look into the issue. The commission had since submitted its report recommending the AFSPA be scrapped and replaced by a more legally accountable civil law which sought to be as close to the mandate given to the commission by the Prime Minister – to come up with a more “humane” law. If the constitution was supreme in defining what the shape of the governing spirit of the country should be, the matter should have ended there and the AFSPA should have seen its last day. But because of objections from the defence forces, the report of the commission was never made public. Thankfully, in this case, as in so many others, the Indian media proved to be the faithful watchdog of the republican spirit the constitution envisaged, and The Hindu daily published the entire report verbatim in digital format in its internet edition.

This is just one case. Obviously are many more such hiccups the Indian Republic is prone to. Notwithstanding all this, it must also be acknowledged that in the entire Asian region, post-colonial India has been one of the very few countries which has managed not to compromise its democratic character totally. Take just India’s immediate neighbours – Burma, China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh… In the years since the end of the World War-II followed quickly by their liberation from colonial yoke, nearly all of these countries have had to suffer radical authoritarian governments, causing immense trauma for their populations. Only India has remained steadfast on the democratic path. No argument about it that the Republic must cure itself of its hiccups, but the point of optimism here is, the methods for this cure is built in the very structure of its constitution. Should not it be time to think of exploring this option seriously by all dissidents?

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/01/march-of-the-republic/

The elections to the 10th Manipur Legislative Assembly is barely a week away, yet the atmosphere continues to be marked by a deafening silence, thanks largely to the strictures introduced to the electioneering process by the Election Commission of India, ECI, including a very low ceiling of Rs. 8 lakhs permissible campaign expenditures by each candidate. Obviously, the candidates would be spending much more than the specified amount, though covertly, but at least these are no longer the blatant affronts they once were. The assault on the dignity of the conscientious by overt purchases of votes with hard cash was once undisguised. What is worse, these unholy transactions had become an accepted norm, and not only those buying votes, but also those selling them had become so desensitised that they would actually haggle on how much their votes should cost. There were also extremely cynical suggestions from seemingly sane people asking the voters to take money from whoever offers it, but vote per their judgment alone. This is meant as a punishment of those offering money. But such moral breaches are never so easy to plug. Like drug, the lure of unearned money is insatiable and such attitudes have only ended up spreading a contagious corrupting influence everywhere. The fact that elections in Manipur have reached the bottom of the corruption pit today is evidence of this. Hopefully the radical changes in the structure of permissible election campaigns would reverse the trend and clean up what is undoubtedly the most fundamental feature of any democratic polity.

The silence however is regularly broken by a parallel macabre campaign of bomb blasts. A number of underground organisations have come together under the banner of CorCom to have the ruling Congress(I) defeated. They have left a violent trail of targeting the party’s offices and candidates, the latest to face the brunt being the Speaker of the current Assembly, Irengbam Hemochandra. A bomb assault in his residence resulted in the tragic death of one person and injury to four others. Undeterred the Congress has fielded candidates in all the 60 constituencies of the state. In this way, other than the contest between the Congress and the other political parties for supremacy in the next Assembly, this round of elections would also very much be a virtual referendum on the public support for the underground movement. For although the ban by these groups is on the Congress alone, the voters are free to exercise their personal choices on where they put their loyalties by the secret ballot on January 28. If under the circumstance, the voters still show their preference for the Congress, the message should be very clear as to who they are disenchanted with. It would also mean that if the Congress does get routed beyond expectations, it cannot put all blames to the violent campaigns against it, for though they could not campaign, the voters still would have exercise their free wills on either choosing or dumping the party. Whichever way the electoral fortunes swing this time, let the lesson be learnt by all parties involved and be humble enough to admit they have to change their ways so as to be the true representatives of the aspirations of the people they all claim.

This round of elections would also be interesting from the point of view of the entry of the Nagaland Peoples’ Front, NPF, into the fray. The success or failure of this party would also be a measure of the claims of support of the larger public of the “Naga districts” either for Naga integration or Manipur integrity. Here too the peoples’ verdict must be respected. Obviously the party cannot hope to win a majority in the Manipur Assembly for it is setting up only 12 candidates, but the Nagaland chief minister, Niphieu Rio, whose party the NPF is, gave an interesting twist when in his campaign speeches he said his party would join hands with the non-Congress parties to be part of the next government in Manipur. This must have to be described as the height of political ambition, or more precisely irony. Here is a party campaigning for the dismemberment of Manipur, nurturing hopes that it would be part of the next government in Manipur by teaming up with parties, all of which have sworn to fight to all extent any campaign to disintegrate Manipur. It will be interesting to watch what qualifications the political parties prefix or suffix to all the pre-poll polemic after the election results are out on March 6 in order to make their marriages of convenience.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/01/silent-elections/

The trouble with Manipur is, nothing sounds the alarm bell loud enough for it to remain awake long enough. Nothing, not even the worst crisis, it seems can shake it out of its complacency. And crisis is one thing the state has never ever been scarce of. It has been almost by rule a crisis a week recipe for the state, some not so severe while others were nothing less than nightmares. Regardless of the fact that these crises had either faded on their own with the passing time or stemmed by public resentment, one thing is clear, given the circumstance Manipur is caught in today, nobody can promise the last word has been said on the matter. Turmoil and upheavals, many of them extremely violent, seem to be an inalienable destiny of the state. The worrying thing is not so much these crises are extremely stressful, but that nobody ever seems to learn from them. Not even those who consider themselves as storm-troopers, both amongst those in the driver’s seat of the establishment as well as the vast human landscape outside it that is rather ambiguously referred to as civil society. The state and its people have come to learn superbly to live out crises and even to fight them, but no crisis, however awesome have been able to teach them the lesson that would make them think in terms of putting the roots of these crises safely to bed forever, incapable of accumulating harm potential again.

Crises explode like several kilotons of dynamite periodically, and during these crises semblance of masterstrokes of collective resolves emerge. However, once the dusts from these crises settle, the downward pulls of mediocrity once again neutralize and level out everything to square one. During economic blockades along its major mountain passes, especially National Highway-39, war cries to have the NH-53 developed, often work up to a mass frenzy. Once these storms pass by, nobody bothers what condition this uncared for highway is in. Similarly, the talk of cutting a third highway, so desperate and passionate once, has relegated to not much more than idle academic discussions. In many ways this is also a show of how resilient the Manipur society is. It does not lose its composure easily. But the line dividing resilience and complacent inaction although thin, can become glaring, as indeed it is in Manipur today, and we are sure at some point counterproductive too. The fact of the matter is, a resilient society must not only have the capacity to absorb adversities without detriment to the overall mental and physical composure of the society, but also the will and commitment to be proactive in looking for lasting resolutions to the vexing issues at hand so that the grave challenges they pose to the health of the society do not periodically repeat and threaten. Resilient as any society may be, if the challenges are incessant and incrementally severe as the case seems to be, there will have to come about when the thread that holds its sanity together snaps.

There are more sinister examples of these challenges than the ones discussed. Take the case of official corruption at high places. It is not a question of excusing corruption at the lower echelons of the officialdom, but its needs no elaboration to convince anybody that the whole enterprise of dismantling the corruption edifice has to begin from the top. After all, if the generals are corrupt, how can corruption be prevented from contaminating the foot soldiers. The generals can discipline the foot soldiers but the reverse can never be a reality. Would we then need any more proofs to convince anybody that organized robberies of public coffers still are rampant? It is everybody’s knowledge that huge percentages are still being siphoned off from development funds and shared between contractors and contract awarders? It is another story that many insurgent groups have joined this unholy league, but this can be no excuse for those mandated by the people to captain the state to be corrupt. Unless and until the establishment becomes a credible institution of governance upon which the people can repose faith in, there will always be the legitimacy of alternates, even if they are subversive, in some corner of the masses’ heart. Herein is the space upon which the foundation of any insurrection is laid. And this space cannot be destroyed physically, but won over spiritually. This is why the search for an answer to insurgency is not so much a physical war but by necessity have to be a moral one. At the cerebral level, everybody who can make the difference understands this very well. The trouble is, this cerebral understanding has never been allowed to be internalized to become a matter of the heart and soul. An often heard question amongst the masses is, what would have been the status of justice and equality if insurgency never happened? The implication is, regardless of the mutation it has undergone, the phenomenon has been and is still an anguished voice on the corrupt and unjust ways of the establishment. The Robin Hood image is not altogether unjustified, even if it is by the establishment abdicating a vital moral space. An honest and satisfactory answer to this question will, we are sure, provide a blueprint to victory in this moral war.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/01/abdicated-moral-space/