‘The Meira Paibis have become ineffective tools that are being used by different partisan political groups to settle political scores’

Guess which state in the Northeast gets electricity only on alternate days and that too in fits and starts? Manipur is that state where people have learnt to meticulously count the hours when electricity is due. They time their activities in a way that they are out doing other things when there is load shedding and then come back on time to complete those jobs that require electricity just when the power comes on. Working on computers is a difficult process unless one has a personal generator. Washing machines, ovens and microwaves are grandly displayed in shop windows and people buy them more as status symbols because they can hardly be used.

The India of the 21st century is light miles away from Manipur. Travelling to some of the villages of Senapati district is a back-breaking journey. If one does not reach one’s destination before sunset, the journey can be quite a horrendous one with only the car headlights for company. Forget about the digital divide, this is Bharat at its worst. India ends somewhere in Imphal and that too only in the VIP colonies. There is a sense of utter neglect in these hilly hamlets of Manipur which are mainly inhabited by Mao, Maram Nagas. People seem to accept everything as part of an ill-fated destiny. In a sense the attitude of the Naga people seems to be a wait-and-watch one. They are living with the hope that things will improve when Nagalim becomes a reality.

Rebel business

In the Imphal valley the dozen or so militant groups have made it a regular business to collect their share of taxes from all salaried persons. The current percentage fixed is 7.5 per cent of the salary. No one can escape the dragnet. The collection system is very slick and so is the sharing among the groups; so much so that many professionals from the valley find it more worth their while to be posted in the hills where only one militant group — the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak Muivah) — is identifiable and currently in operation. Ask anyone from Manipur why they tolerate such a pathetic state of affairs and the standard answer is that there is no civil society group to demand what is rightfully theirs from the government in power. None of the militant groups operating in the valley have ever demanded better services, including basic services such as water, electricity or good roads. Governance in Manipur has completely broken down and there seems to be no alternative system that can replace the present one or to restore the democracy, which the rest of India speaks of.

Then what about the Meira Paibi? Are they not a very vocal women’s organisation? Are they not the moral vanguards of Manipuri society? The answer again is that Meira Paibis, while being a very well-organised group and fairly disciplined at that, have become ineffective tools that are being used by different partisan political groups to settle political scores. Their habit of policing the streets has not seen any reduction in the number of alcohol users because of the very crude method of physical punishment, instead of the gentle and more professional counselling that alcoholics require. Residents of Imphal who depend on government water supply schemes have gone without water for the more than 15 days in January, because there was no electricity to pump water to the tanks. Still the people are silent.

Power crisis

So habituated are people to not getting their basic rights delivered that they have learnt to live without them. The well-to-do have all acquired inverters to tide over the power crisis. Hotels and other bigger establishments have generators. Hospitals too cannot function without generators. This power crisis would not have hit the state of Manipur so badly if its rulers had some sense of commitment to the people who vote them to power. The famous Loktak Lake Hydel project being a centrally commissioned one, the power generated is sold to Assam and other neighbouring states. This is due in no small measure to the fact that Manipur has no stake in the Loktak project. Its politicians never envisaged that the state would one day run short of power to the point that its citizens would have to suffer intermittent power cuts.

With this kind of power scenario, talking of industrial growth is idealistic. The government of Manipur had recently declared Senapati district as the horticultural export zone. The district produces passion fruit and a processing unit has come up in Kaibi village. But this project too may run into rough weather if electricity supply is so erratic. A plant that is ambitious enough to think of a foreign export market would not be viable if it has to run on generator most of the time. Yet the villagers are excited about the project and they have been told to cultivate passion fruit in a big way because the processing unit is seen as the immediate procurement agency. For the sake of the people of Senapati district one can only hope that the passion fruit processing centre succeeds.

Passion unit

Incidentally, the minister for horticulture, R.K. Thekho, represents that same area of Senapati. But the state government has not put in a single penny into the project. L. Dikho, the entrepreneur who has set up the processing unit, has now gone in for a more sophisticated plant with support from EXIM Bank, among others. This plant envisages better quality control and a more cost-effective mechanism. Bottled passion fruit juice has a ready local market and Dikho has been meeting this local requirement. But he has ambitious plans. Dikho knows that passion fruit is the strength of Senapati and he wants the small farmers who grow the fruit to benefit from its sale in the more lucrative markets of Southeast Asia. Dikho is not just profit-oriented but has a social commitment as well. He wants his people to be in a win-win situation. That probably makes him different from other entrepreneurs. But he has had to face problems. His success would depend on his ability to start production at the earliest. This would require a more professional environment.