Editorial of The Imphal Free Press [9/19/2007]
No public indictment seems strong enough to shake Manipur awake to the reality surrounding it today. Reams after reams of newsprint must have been spent on reports and analysis as to why and how the state is rotting both physically and spiritually. It is almost becoming a matter of routine for neutral outside observers who come visiting to call Manipur a failed state in their writings, and the adjective is beginning to stick like a painful carbuncle not only because of its continual repetition but because of the increasing irrefutability of the description. Nothing about the state at this moment suggests all is well. Its roads are rotting, not just in remote districts, but in the heart of the capital city too; it must have been ages before garbage was ever cleared from the roadside dumps; when it rains even Imphal roads become un-navigable stretches of slush and mud; when it is not they come to be under a shroud of dust kicked up by motor-vehicles; safe piped drinking water is a distant memory, and today people have no other resort than to buy water from private parties. These are not scientifically treated water, but simply fetched from public ponds and rivers. Those who cannot afford these private services, fetch their water themselves from these same sources. These are only some evidences of the physical decay, but these visible signs are the metaphors of a much deeper spiritual erosion. As for instance, even as everybody is recovering from the startling, although not altogether unexpected news of police busting militant hideouts in the homes of ruling party legislators at the high security and exclusive ministerial colony of Babupara, some more militants were again apprehended in another police raid in the same colony yesterday. The brazen audacity and disregard of the law, not so much by the militants, but by the VIPs, is bewildering beyond words.
It is rather ironic that the chief minister, Okram Ibobi, is thinking of touring Southeast Asia soon to woo investors and USA a little later, even as the state is stuck in this depressing state of decay. Shouldn’t he first think of straightening the home front, particularly because he also has reserved the home portfolio, among some other most lucrative ones, for himself? Quite obviously, nobody would want to do business with a place that has become so unstable in terms of basic governance, but in particular, law and order. The trend today is not of capital gravitating towards the state but of a reverse flight, all for the lack of governance. Even tourist traffic, both domestic and foreign, has trickled down to nearly nil. Who would want to come here and choke in the stench of filthy dust and garbage anyway? In the last decade or so, the image of Manipur before the world has become so shamefully negative, and yet our leaders and elites still seem only bothered about feathering their own nests by hook, but more familiarly by crook. They should realise, when Titanic sank, both rich and poor passengers drowned together.
So while poverty and unemployment ravage a growing percentage of the state’s population on the one hand, opulence far beyond known sources of income are evident in the surreal pictures of palaces that keep sprouting up from amidst expanding urban ghettos, to rub shoulders with mud hovels and ramshackle homes. If corruption has been reined as claimed, those holding the reins do not want it to end its avaricious gallop. Needless to say, the future is grim. Take just the case of the employment situation, undoubtedly one of the keys to many of the state’s ills. In the absence of a tangible employment generation programme, unemployment is spiralling. At last count, the government employed about ninety thousand directly, and even this was considered above its ceiling of need as well as affordability. At best, it can marginally expand this capacity artificially, but not without the financial blessing of New Delhi, unable as it has always been to generate enough of its own resources. As it stands today, the only sector which can absorb this extremely onerous burden is the private sector, but unfortunately this sector is increasingly condemned to remain weak and ailing in the absence of sustained and tangible policy props with the result that the crowding of job-seekers at the government employment exchange continues unabated. Considering all this, we appeal to the government once again to do some serious house cleaning first, so that the investment capitals it intends to invite can genuinely feel welcome and at home.
==========================================
DAN’s Election Gambit
9/20/2007 1:55:39 AM
The Nagaland Assembly has gone ahead to okay a proposal to allow schools from outside the state to affiliate with its own board of secondary education. Those who have been following the issue will have no problem understanding that the Assembly resolution was targeted at Manipur where there has been a strong campaign amongst the Naga dominated hill districts, spearheaded by the All Naga Students Association Manipur, ANSAM, and the United Naga Council, UNC, to dissociate schools in their areas from the Board of Secondary Education Manipur, BSEM, and transfer their affiliations to the Nagaland board. It may be recalled, earlier this year, six UNC supported MLAs and the lone MP from the Outer Manipur Parliamentary constituency, had even taken the matter to New Delhi, submitting representations to various Central leaders, including the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh. The complaint is, the syllabus of the BSEM, is replete with Meitei hegemony, and school education under the board has become an unfair indoctrination process to Meiteis ways of life and culture. We have not really looked into the syllabus in depth, so it would be unfair for us to comment, but one thing is obvious, the allegation has to do with the humanities subjects, for surely there can be nothing as hegemony in the study of the exact sciences and mathematics. Even in the humanities streams, this will have to be about a few subjects only, for again surely there cannot be anything as cultural bias in the studies of economics, commerce, environmental sciences etc. The needle of suspicion then is on history, and here too only the portion dealing with local history, for BSEM school history cannot possibly be just about Manipur, and there must be Indian history and world history too.
Still, since there is a strong resentment expressed by the leaders of a major community, a reassessment of this miniscule portion of the BSEM syllabus may be pertinent. This should not be all too difficult too. But then, we are also not at all sure if this is actually the cause for all the ado. We are inclined to believe this is only an excuse and the real objective is something else. As a Manipuri song lyric from yore, sung by the late and revered singer Nongmaithem Pahari goes, it is impossible to wake up somebody who is only pretending to be asleep. It is unlikely under the circumstance, that reason can be the principle by which the problem is resolved. Even if the BSEM agrees to drop the supposedly objectionable portions of the syllabus, it is hardly likely that this obdurate campaign will recede. It will also be noted that the opposition in Manipur to the affiliation move is on account of this barely disguised agenda and not so much to do with the affiliation to the Nagaland board by any school per se. As for the Nagaland government’s part, it was expected to bring up the issue from its own cold storage at this time. After all the elections to its Assembly are just a couple of months away and the political parties are hot on the hunt for emotive issues on which to peg their campaigns. The affiliation issue must appear as a hot candidate for such a campaign plank. After the elections are over and the verdict known, the matter should presumably acquire a different colour.
In the meantime, the important question is, what must constitute an appropriate public reaction in Manipur to this new challenge. The government by a cabinet resolution today has done its bit. It cautioned any school in the state from affiliating to any board outside the state on the pain of their students losing the privilege to be entitled to seats and jobs in state government subsidised higher and specialised education as well as jobs. It remains to be seen how the drama unfolds but in the meantime we suggest the public by and large to remain alert of the hidden agendas but all the same never to abandon reason and resilience in its approach. There is a problem at hand and it must be tackled. The undercurrent of covert and sinister politics has made the problem difficult to pin or handle, but even without the subversive elements, it must be acknowledged there is a very real issue of different communities in the state drifting away from each other. The solution to this problem surely cannot be as simple as organising community feasts and festive and exaggerated masquerades of past fraternity. The bridge must ultimately have to be built with economy, opportunities, empowerment, and egalitarian justice as foundation. In evolving an actionable route to these values, enlightened intellectual intervention is vital.
No public indictment seems strong enough to shake Manipur awake to the reality surrounding it today. Reams after reams of newsprint must have been spent on reports and analysis as to why and how the state is rotting both physically and spiritually. It is almost becoming a matter of routine for neutral outside observers who come visiting to call Manipur a failed state in their writings, and the adjective is beginning to stick like a painful carbuncle not only because of its continual repetition but because of the increasing irrefutability of the description. Nothing about the state at this moment suggests all is well. Its roads are rotting, not just in remote districts, but in the heart of the capital city too; it must have been ages before garbage was ever cleared from the roadside dumps; when it rains even Imphal roads become un-navigable stretches of slush and mud; when it is not they come to be under a shroud of dust kicked up by motor-vehicles; safe piped drinking water is a distant memory, and today people have no other resort than to buy water from private parties. These are not scientifically treated water, but simply fetched from public ponds and rivers. Those who cannot afford these private services, fetch their water themselves from these same sources. These are only some evidences of the physical decay, but these visible signs are the metaphors of a much deeper spiritual erosion. As for instance, even as everybody is recovering from the startling, although not altogether unexpected news of police busting militant hideouts in the homes of ruling party legislators at the high security and exclusive ministerial colony of Babupara, some more militants were again apprehended in another police raid in the same colony yesterday. The brazen audacity and disregard of the law, not so much by the militants, but by the VIPs, is bewildering beyond words.
It is rather ironic that the chief minister, Okram Ibobi, is thinking of touring Southeast Asia soon to woo investors and USA a little later, even as the state is stuck in this depressing state of decay. Shouldn’t he first think of straightening the home front, particularly because he also has reserved the home portfolio, among some other most lucrative ones, for himself? Quite obviously, nobody would want to do business with a place that has become so unstable in terms of basic governance, but in particular, law and order. The trend today is not of capital gravitating towards the state but of a reverse flight, all for the lack of governance. Even tourist traffic, both domestic and foreign, has trickled down to nearly nil. Who would want to come here and choke in the stench of filthy dust and garbage anyway? In the last decade or so, the image of Manipur before the world has become so shamefully negative, and yet our leaders and elites still seem only bothered about feathering their own nests by hook, but more familiarly by crook. They should realise, when Titanic sank, both rich and poor passengers drowned together.
So while poverty and unemployment ravage a growing percentage of the state’s population on the one hand, opulence far beyond known sources of income are evident in the surreal pictures of palaces that keep sprouting up from amidst expanding urban ghettos, to rub shoulders with mud hovels and ramshackle homes. If corruption has been reined as claimed, those holding the reins do not want it to end its avaricious gallop. Needless to say, the future is grim. Take just the case of the employment situation, undoubtedly one of the keys to many of the state’s ills. In the absence of a tangible employment generation programme, unemployment is spiralling. At last count, the government employed about ninety thousand directly, and even this was considered above its ceiling of need as well as affordability. At best, it can marginally expand this capacity artificially, but not without the financial blessing of New Delhi, unable as it has always been to generate enough of its own resources. As it stands today, the only sector which can absorb this extremely onerous burden is the private sector, but unfortunately this sector is increasingly condemned to remain weak and ailing in the absence of sustained and tangible policy props with the result that the crowding of job-seekers at the government employment exchange continues unabated. Considering all this, we appeal to the government once again to do some serious house cleaning first, so that the investment capitals it intends to invite can genuinely feel welcome and at home.
==========================================
DAN’s Election Gambit
9/20/2007 1:55:39 AM
The Nagaland Assembly has gone ahead to okay a proposal to allow schools from outside the state to affiliate with its own board of secondary education. Those who have been following the issue will have no problem understanding that the Assembly resolution was targeted at Manipur where there has been a strong campaign amongst the Naga dominated hill districts, spearheaded by the All Naga Students Association Manipur, ANSAM, and the United Naga Council, UNC, to dissociate schools in their areas from the Board of Secondary Education Manipur, BSEM, and transfer their affiliations to the Nagaland board. It may be recalled, earlier this year, six UNC supported MLAs and the lone MP from the Outer Manipur Parliamentary constituency, had even taken the matter to New Delhi, submitting representations to various Central leaders, including the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh. The complaint is, the syllabus of the BSEM, is replete with Meitei hegemony, and school education under the board has become an unfair indoctrination process to Meiteis ways of life and culture. We have not really looked into the syllabus in depth, so it would be unfair for us to comment, but one thing is obvious, the allegation has to do with the humanities subjects, for surely there can be nothing as hegemony in the study of the exact sciences and mathematics. Even in the humanities streams, this will have to be about a few subjects only, for again surely there cannot be anything as cultural bias in the studies of economics, commerce, environmental sciences etc. The needle of suspicion then is on history, and here too only the portion dealing with local history, for BSEM school history cannot possibly be just about Manipur, and there must be Indian history and world history too.
Still, since there is a strong resentment expressed by the leaders of a major community, a reassessment of this miniscule portion of the BSEM syllabus may be pertinent. This should not be all too difficult too. But then, we are also not at all sure if this is actually the cause for all the ado. We are inclined to believe this is only an excuse and the real objective is something else. As a Manipuri song lyric from yore, sung by the late and revered singer Nongmaithem Pahari goes, it is impossible to wake up somebody who is only pretending to be asleep. It is unlikely under the circumstance, that reason can be the principle by which the problem is resolved. Even if the BSEM agrees to drop the supposedly objectionable portions of the syllabus, it is hardly likely that this obdurate campaign will recede. It will also be noted that the opposition in Manipur to the affiliation move is on account of this barely disguised agenda and not so much to do with the affiliation to the Nagaland board by any school per se. As for the Nagaland government’s part, it was expected to bring up the issue from its own cold storage at this time. After all the elections to its Assembly are just a couple of months away and the political parties are hot on the hunt for emotive issues on which to peg their campaigns. The affiliation issue must appear as a hot candidate for such a campaign plank. After the elections are over and the verdict known, the matter should presumably acquire a different colour.
In the meantime, the important question is, what must constitute an appropriate public reaction in Manipur to this new challenge. The government by a cabinet resolution today has done its bit. It cautioned any school in the state from affiliating to any board outside the state on the pain of their students losing the privilege to be entitled to seats and jobs in state government subsidised higher and specialised education as well as jobs. It remains to be seen how the drama unfolds but in the meantime we suggest the public by and large to remain alert of the hidden agendas but all the same never to abandon reason and resilience in its approach. There is a problem at hand and it must be tackled. The undercurrent of covert and sinister politics has made the problem difficult to pin or handle, but even without the subversive elements, it must be acknowledged there is a very real issue of different communities in the state drifting away from each other. The solution to this problem surely cannot be as simple as organising community feasts and festive and exaggerated masquerades of past fraternity. The bridge must ultimately have to be built with economy, opportunities, empowerment, and egalitarian justice as foundation. In evolving an actionable route to these values, enlightened intellectual intervention is vital.
The Imphal Free Press
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