Troubled times: A file picture of protesters blocking National Highway 39 at Lilong Bazar in Thoubal

Is Manipur unliveable?

Manipur is used to political contortions of all kinds. If it is not a protest against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, it is something else that grips the imagination of the civil society there, albeit a civil society that is increasingly seen as an anti-establishment, anti-military force. One can say with a sense of certainty that Manipur has become for a large majority of its citizens an unliveable space. Go to any mall, any shopping centre in Delhi, Gurgaon, Bangalore or Chennai and you are bound to run into a Manipuri. A large majority of those working as sales persons are of course young people from the hills of Manipur mainly from Senapati and Ukhrul districts and a few from Churachandpur.

If truth be told, these young people have literally escaped the economic and political prison in their own states. Hemmed in by the pressure to conform and to live and uphold the many histories churned out by their ancestors, young people feel it is better to escape this mental prison and live by their own wits and according to their own understanding of history. Many of these youngsters have had a taste of liberal democracy in the educational institutions of the national capital. Here free speech and free thinking are the badges of honour. Those incapable of using their grey matter to think out of the box are considered below par by their professors. For people coming from an obscurantist milieu where narratives are all about bloodshed and revenge this space is a breath of fresh air.

No homecoming

Naturally, the young who have acquired libertarian views are reluctant to return to the ghetto of violence which has yielded nothing. On the contrary it has destroyed every vestige of sanity and killed intellectual expression. Where education institutions are not exempt from extortion how can we expect educational growth? Hence, the exodus of students from Manipur to almost all states capitals of this country is on the rise. Of all the northeastern states, Manipur tops the list of those who fill the employment hubs of this country. This is not a negative phenomenon. What is harmful is their unwillingness to return and add value to and enhance the quality of life in their home state.

Ironically this rapid onslaught on the civil, political and intellectual space and the loss of freedom and civil rights does not seem to shock the conscience of the rulers of Manipur. They continue to live in a deluded world where everything is all right. Even the recent gunning down of over a dozen Hindi-speaking people has not jerked the government from its complacency. This matter created a stormy scene in Parliament. MPs cutting across party lines questioned the legitimacy of a government that failed to control daylight killings and heinous crimes. Although the UPA government gave a spirited response, it is weighed down by the fact that Ibobi Singh leads a Congress government and there is little the party would do to unsettle that. How on earth can a state with over three dozen militant outfits be kept on a tight leash? This is a question that Ibobi Singh and his team of ministers had long since given up replying.

In fact, it is this very convoluted situation which gives the Ibobi government the alibi not to deliver. For the chief minister and his team, the situation is gone so far that they do not even consider it worth retrieving. Things can only get worse before they get better. Surprisingly, at seminars and conferences people discuss the troubled nature of Manipur with great interest. They seem to suffer what psychologists call the persecution complex where people see themselves as victims of external forces which is correlated with abandoning personal responsibility for their own life and circumstances.

Blame game

The Manipur imbroglio has indeed surpassed all definition. Everyone has been blamed. The security forces, the government of India, the government of Manipur, the outsiders. Those living in the hills blame the valley folks. The valley people blame the hill tribes. But no one considers it necessary to introspect and scan their souls to see if they are the cause of the problem. I suppose this is because all have learnt to feed on the problem just as vultures feed on carcasses. It is interesting to observe the interface between people living in the valleys and those in the hills of Manipur.

While both groups are civil with each other, the mental and ethnic divide is so palpable. This veneer of civility is bound to implode before it explodes. And that is exactly the problem with Manipur.

While discussing the militant groups and their atrocities one is surprised that there is yet a tacit support for their activities. The argument is that these groups are necessary if only to teach India a lesson. The problem is that an Indian never learns a lesson. It is too big to be bothered by the pinpricks in Manipur or Nagaland. India has only one medicine and that is to allow the states to bleed themselves to death.

Now if we in the Northeast believe that the killings here are going to send politicians in Delhi into paroxysms then we live in a fool’s paradise. Delhi is a gargantuan maze where issues are meant to be buried alive than addressed.

If we have any sense at all we would be repairing our own states.

Conflict pays

But is that such an easy thing to do? Have we not created a system that feeds on fear and violence? Is our academia not feeding on researches about troubled peripheries and the politics of conflict? Our security forces, particularly the Assam Rifles, would be jobless if Manipur were to return to normality. Without conflict people like Ibobi Singh would have no fig leaf to hide their incompetence and lethargy to deliver.

The three dozen or more militant groups would have to be disbanded and this would raise the unemployment level of the state. Also when peoples’ collective attention is diverted from conflict to governance, then the government would have to deliver.

Till such time Manipur will enjoy only limited democracy. The parameters of democracy which citizens enjoy today are defined on the one hand by security forces and on the other by militant groups. Prior to the experiences of liberal democracy, Manipur lived under a monarchy and its feudal structures. These have not yet been fully dismantled. The artificial pillars of democracy have been built upon these feudal structures. This has in turn created its own dissonance in the artificially organised polity whose allegiance is suddenly shifted from the monarchy to the Constitution.

Today with xenophobia assuming new dimensions and targets becoming more specific, military and police brutality will only increase. Very often these knee-jerk reactions are like shots in the dark. Ultimately it is the citizen who bears the brunt. With the media completely gagged and unable to express its views candidly and the absence of a free and impartial civil society things can only get worse in Manipur.

The only light at the end of the tunnel is for citizens to take charge of their lives and to challenge the forces of disruption. But this can only happen when citizens end the blame game. The buck has to stop somewhere!

The writer can be contacted at patricia17@rediffmail.com