By Dr DS Sharma
Particularly vulnerable Manipur was the crisp but meaningful reference, Thursday, of prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh during Chief Ministers’ Conference on Internal Security at New Delhi. But it’s certainly not the first occasion that these words have been used for the same Manipur, sort of.
A British legacy:
For, British ethnographers, Thompson & Garrat, used the same word vulnerable while referring to NE Region, and virtually lamented that, ‘except … the vulnerable northeast…’, Britain could leave ‘a permanent mark upon Indian life’. Discernably enough, till date, everything else in the former Indian colony has ‘since been forthcoming’, quoting selfsame historians’ post-modernistic or ex ante view, with the caustic exception of North East region. The prime minister too laments that so far North east has not been able to share in the benefit from our booming economy.
The question was why. Why – despite various Central efforts – couldn’t any sane man kick-start in vocations and become viable, as in mainland? Is it because Delhi has failed to convince and rev-up NE Indians? Or else, are they acting more like unwilling horses led to the trough? One thing is however certain. The polity-formation (NE Reorganization Act) came two and half decades late; and that too not unasked for and/or unagitated. Then came serial political instability and culturally complex conflicts (cultural warming) depriving the region of its fair share in growth all these years – along with all those lagged prospects from joining in the bandwagon of a miraculous Asian economic boom under the still hazy Look East Policy.
On reckoning, it is still unclear if north east has even now become congenial enough for a final polity delineation so that all such polities can render effective administration and, among others, deliver welfare stance and provide infrastructural needs for onward development of individual self (the economic man) and his appurtenance.
Perhaps the colonial vestige (Exclusion, Partial Exclusion and Non-interference) could not have been fully unshackled even during the last six decades. For that matter, even the famously sneering Britishness character couldn’t go scot-free for having embedded in the region the seed of a Christian empire, as since unfolding.
It sounds safest from the analytical standpoint to adopt the occidental standpoint (keeping the global netizen viewpoint) and presume the fundamental difference of an average north east homo sapien from his mainland counterpart in terms of a basic immaturity, where: ‘Immaturity is defined as inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another’, following Immanuel Kant: An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?: Lawrence Cahoone (Ed.) From Modernism to Post-Modernism: An Anthology: Cambridge: 1996: p. 51).
Global/Cultural Warming:
Without doubt, the present humanity has since 1990s faced an increasingly serious problem (glacier melt-down, sea-level rise, global warming, irregular rainfall, unseasonal flood and drought). Concurrently Manipur has itself seen sort of a replica of the global problem by way of complex conflicts among major ethnic groups with unprecedented consequences.
If for global warming the leading superpower US – the world’s largest green house gas emitting nation – has so long blamed China and India but has now at the Bali meet somehow agreed to fall in line and solve the global problem, then for Manipur’s growing inter-ethnic lovelessness and the resultant cultural warming the same Aristotelian logic may well help at arriving at a consensual formula.
In that vein, even prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh cited, although in general terms first, that ‘There are many regional and tribal demands which need to be addressed systematically.’ But his ‘add-on’ runs in as specific as; ‘… each state has its specific nuances and characteristics and we cannot generalize the problems.’ Yours sincerely may add that each of Manipur’s own 36 so-called recognized groups claim their own ethnicity.
A two-fold scientific treatment would thus seem apt for Manipur’s Achilles’ heel. First whether, and to what extent, these 36 existing groups are really 36 or else reducible into a common origin to South China’s Yunan, over its at least two millennia-long history? Second, whether their cultural warming (read rigidity) can now be otherwise sorted out and moral responsibility for past differential growth benefits somehow amicably agreed upon to the satisfaction of one and all, and also a trade-off between harm and benefits be settled?
In particular this magic wand can be used to solve cultural warming problem in Manipur. Initially one can address a few queries squarely to the satisfaction of each ethnic group. Who is responsible for Manipur’s inter-ethnic or cultural warming (growing lovelessness)? Or since when is it consensually deemed valid and hence accountable to which extent? And so on?
Bali summit on global warming:
So long global warming couldn’t have been thrashed out for want of a consensual (carbon-emission responsibility) sharing-in formula. Rather, USA and Canada – two most developed and industrialized countries responsible for emitting huge carbon dioxide CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere – were dissenting since the 1st Conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held at Rio in 1992.
Their main plea then was that two developing countries with increasingly CO2 emitting industries viz. China and India be also fixed a higher carbon emission share, and did not therefore sign the on-going Kyoto Protocol. Now at Bali of course, all summiting nations have reached a landmark consensus by morally persuading even economic superpower US and of course exclusivist Australia to agree on a new (post Kyoto-Protocol) global sharing roadmap to 2050.
Due credit for the convergence goes to the Aristotelian logic, as since adapted by Benito Muller and his team towards apportioning moral responsibility for climate change among nations. Coincidentally, India is now adjudged at the very bottom of all other nations while fixing moral responsibility for global warming. The application of the Aristotelian precept to fostering a solution to climate change is no doubt superbly innovating, but can also be extended to solution of yet other problems such as population rise, rural-urban disparity, health care, microcredit administration and whatever.
If at the international level, developed countries need to share greater economic burden, in the same way at home it is the rich and the middle class who have to take energy cuts. In fact, India can be hit hard by climate change as it is densely populated and is affected by energy scarcity, depleting resources and biodiversity. Whereby India need rely more on CFL, public transport, eco-friendly technology and stop mindless consumerism and conserve water and power.
Aristotelian Innovation on climate change:
What merits special mention is of course the analytical framework or the Aristotelian theory underlying the consensual sharing-in of the moral responsibility for climate change or global warming.
For Aristotle recognized that (i) blame and praise for actions with either harmful or beneficial consequences are deserved by only those who are in control of their actions and are aware of the immediate and delayed consequences their actions might have.
Global warming problem is addressed by Muller & colleagues by distinguishing between contributions to climate change from the responsibility thereto.
Tracing to the very ancient (1628 BC) eruption of the Santorini volcano in the Aegian Sea – then causing global cooling by 1.5 degrees for a full hundred years since and literally freezing the Minoan civilization of the bronze period, they argued that in particular that suffering was because of natural calamities (a la modern tsunami). Further, the question of awareness also does not arise as the cause was natural and not caused by human action. Obviously, for present day CO2-pollution problem the moral responsibility can not be so easily detached from its impact and deservingly shared-in among nations.
In the realm of retrospection, the Aristotelian logic next proceeds to enunciate that (ii) delayed consequences involve intervening time and need therefore be discounted as per responsibility attached thereto. This was precisely the crux of the global warming issue hitherto. To sort out tough myopia and its resultant confusion among negotiating nations, the Muller team innovates two basic concepts: (a) basic allowance of harmless emissions and (b) subsistence allowance. So analysed they could facilitate smart negotiations for wider acceptance. One understands what the other seeks to convey in crystal clear terms. Thus they could arrive at the least carbon.
Finally the Aristotle theorem states that (iii) the consequences might not be universally harmful or beneficial. A parallel example – far more commonly experienced – is that of an irregular or a pre-monsoon (March) rainfall, which may immensely benefit jhumias but bring calamity to rabi (winter crop) farmers in the valley. Farmers have only their luck to either praise or blame. If for instance, the Trans-Asian Railway (TAR) or the Asian Highway (AH) need pass in the periphery of (and benefit) a settlement, rather than another, it’s all a matter of sheer technological question and viability.
Manipur’s cultural heritage:
To introduce the time factor in the analysis from an empirical angle, one may begin by asking questions relating to the past. Different questions may crop up requiring answers each giving rise to different sets of history. By no means one set could be deemed better than the other, for all such sets are based on similar fundamentals, methods and pri-nciples. Attempting acade-mic answers would follow the natural process of evolving a body of knowledge – such knowledge that has to serve some purpose.
For Manipur’s woes during the colonial (1891-1947) and pre-Statehood (1947-1972) period, the blame can thus be levelled only upon those responsible for those actions – colonial power earlier and afterwards Centre. British exploitation of Manipur valley’s natural bounties or fertility for cheap but quality rice export led to differentiating growth between the hills and valley. If worldly-wise Britishers drained water even out of the (Ganges so also) Im-phal river to the Thames, and if thereafter the Central government were too preoccupied with post-Partition reparation and thence with mainland politics to become aware of Manipur’s yawing hill-valley gap, who will bell the cat?
Of course after 1972 a long chain of Manipur’s own government leaders hailing both from majority and minority groups stand morally responsible for all actions. But then the disabling factor was political instability @ 2/3 years for an average regime (or chief minister) all through with few exceptions (Ri-shang Keishing and O Ibo-bi Singh). Under the circumstances on whom could its moral responsibility be fixed?
Admittedly, China has now become the fastest-growing economy in the globe with an average growth rate between three-four times that of even the US or Japan.
The fact that its population growth has already been controlled over the last two/three decades prior to this spectacular growth has become too commonplace a knowledge. The wherewithal of the miracle on the development front deserves more than a passing reference in this endeavour. What is striking about Li was the way he provided a liberal broadside to the otherwise hierarchical regime – acceptable to the hard-boiled theoreticians of the Communist order. What is still more striking was how he became determined to toughen the grit, steely determination and the esprit de corps of the world’s most populated nation so as to convert even a half-chance into goal, by tactically playing up disadvantage into a vantage point, as say, in a game of football. The point stressed is that, the success story did not come as easy as for anybody just to pick as in the random walk theory, but rather more like a climber up against a gradient having < 90o degree through meticulous planning and assiduous cliff-hanging.
To provide an important historical dimension for his concept, Li analyzes the historical process of the Chinese quest for modernity, which he claims underwent three important interrelated stages between the middle of the nineteenth century and the May Fourth era. The first stage, the Westernization concentrated only on modern western technology and science. The second, the Hundred Days Reform and 1911 Revolution (Wuxu bianfa and Xinhai geming) focused on western political institutions; and the third, the May Fourth Movement, was concerned mainly with cultural tradition, intellectual thought and value systems. But the new quest for modernity in the 1980’s fused all the three previous stages into an integrated process, meaning that Chinese intellectuals were now seeking changes in all three areas.
However Li observes that there is an imbalance, with a strong emphasis on the culturo-psychological aspect and relatively slow progress in the area of politico-economic reform. He warns that more advanced conceptual ideas could cause social tensions and a social reality marked by backwardness. According to Li Zehou, the most crucial dichotomies in the existing Chinese social order are: a) Individual subjectivity versus historical necessity (getixing yu lishi biranxing); b)Human alienation versus progress of modernization (yihusa yu ziandaihuade er li bei fan); and c) Practical subject versus objective laws (shijian zhuti yu keguan guilu).
Rather than go into details of Li’s contemporary Chinese intellectual discourse which helped transform the national economy through reoriented individual character-building, it is sufficient for the present endeavour to quote some highlights, to show the compatibility of his approach, philosophy, precepts, and ideology: a) If people are completely immersed in a universal form, they will become neutral robots…… Accordingly, there will be the rule of bureaucracy; b) Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. c) The motto of Enlightenment is therefore ‘Sapere aude.’[Have courage to use your understanding] Li’s contribution is to be appreciated in the enormity of his task to bring about a consensus in the party as a key component of the party’s legitimacy, after the excesses of not merely the Cultural Revolution but also of the reforms.
Need for deconstructing/reconstructing:
As in the occident, the orientalists have belatedly started phase-wise, area-wise and subarea-wise promotional and objectivity-focused micro-studies based on primary and secondary sources which sound quite erudite. Like applied scientists, such applied historians would concentrate on specific but hitherto difficult topics. At a later stage the desired integration and synthesis would become possible. Inherent in such viewpoint-shifting is the necessary refocusing of analysis in tune to the time-angularity. In the process some reconstructionist approach need be cited which lays stress on why the neutral record (logic) should suddenly declare to become interventionist (rhetoric). Besides, analytical tools get outdated as time-dimension is shifted backward or forward. Whatever problems found relevant today and analyzed with such tools as enunciated and sharpened and hence found compatible in the present time may become irrelevant tomorrow when problems may assume a new metamorphosis. Pretty well-known is the fact that empire-building analysis used to be relevant in colonial history, although in postcolonial period concepts like ‘empire’ have become obsolete and may not find even a place in the futurologist’s tool.
Specific mention may herein be made of yet other analytical tools similarly found obsolete in Western history, like ‘tribal’ or ‘village’ as in a sharp rural-urban framework. In other parts of the world where the urban-rural continuum intermingles, these two concepts do not merely find relevance but therein, even if traced out in extreme environs and sparsely inhabited islands, they would certainly survive with heavy subsidy and State support as living museums hardly posing much of a problem. But in south Asia, southeast Asia or elsewhere the rural continuum is still characterized by feudalism, swidden cultivation etc. but studded by limited islands of urban complexity.
Continuum of tribe-village-complex society:
Much to the chagrin of planners and policy-makers during the last half-century or so, these tribal villages have proved to be the real stumbling block. Hopefully the tribe, if not village, may soon die out after another fifty years or so, if at all the tribal villages would adopt improved technology for greater productivity when they would enjoy average, if not higher standard of life as urbanites. Like ‘empire’ and ‘colony’ becoming obsolete in western world, ‘tribe’, ‘feudalism’ among others, will then become obsolete from this part of the globe too. Already, dispersed tribes have come into being and one would hope to see much more of this emerging category. It goes without saying that use of tribe as an analytical tool will be relevant only in modernity analysis of history in the south Asian or southeast Asian context.
Prima facie, some general traits of Manipur may be laid out. First, it may be stated that past history has typified natives and indigenes to be generally harsh and revengeful upon enemies (whether relatives; or kings of Burma and Cachar; or even the powerful Englishman J.W.Quinton, the Chief Commissioner of Assam, at the peak of the British ascendancy i.e. when the Sun would not set in the British empire), rather than forgiving as generally seen in both occident and the orient. This can be explained away in terms of the constraints and limitations placed on Manipur history by Manipur’s geography (topography) and climate (monsoon and deep jungles).
For instance, any territorial expansionist move under a powerful king through either
marriage, diplomacy or war had perforce to be across the ranges of mountains either eastward or westward. Hardihood and tough attitude thus became the mainstay of Meitei nationalism, at least till 1891. In the lower order of constraints are of course, ethnic propinquity to southeast Asia and linguistic belongingness to Tibeto-Burman group, which of late seem to create problem for integration of Manipur into the national mainstream, particularly after the Partition of India (1947).
[The Sangai Express]
Particularly vulnerable Manipur was the crisp but meaningful reference, Thursday, of prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh during Chief Ministers’ Conference on Internal Security at New Delhi. But it’s certainly not the first occasion that these words have been used for the same Manipur, sort of.
A British legacy:
For, British ethnographers, Thompson & Garrat, used the same word vulnerable while referring to NE Region, and virtually lamented that, ‘except … the vulnerable northeast…’, Britain could leave ‘a permanent mark upon Indian life’. Discernably enough, till date, everything else in the former Indian colony has ‘since been forthcoming’, quoting selfsame historians’ post-modernistic or ex ante view, with the caustic exception of North East region. The prime minister too laments that so far North east has not been able to share in the benefit from our booming economy.
The question was why. Why – despite various Central efforts – couldn’t any sane man kick-start in vocations and become viable, as in mainland? Is it because Delhi has failed to convince and rev-up NE Indians? Or else, are they acting more like unwilling horses led to the trough? One thing is however certain. The polity-formation (NE Reorganization Act) came two and half decades late; and that too not unasked for and/or unagitated. Then came serial political instability and culturally complex conflicts (cultural warming) depriving the region of its fair share in growth all these years – along with all those lagged prospects from joining in the bandwagon of a miraculous Asian economic boom under the still hazy Look East Policy.
On reckoning, it is still unclear if north east has even now become congenial enough for a final polity delineation so that all such polities can render effective administration and, among others, deliver welfare stance and provide infrastructural needs for onward development of individual self (the economic man) and his appurtenance.
Perhaps the colonial vestige (Exclusion, Partial Exclusion and Non-interference) could not have been fully unshackled even during the last six decades. For that matter, even the famously sneering Britishness character couldn’t go scot-free for having embedded in the region the seed of a Christian empire, as since unfolding.
It sounds safest from the analytical standpoint to adopt the occidental standpoint (keeping the global netizen viewpoint) and presume the fundamental difference of an average north east homo sapien from his mainland counterpart in terms of a basic immaturity, where: ‘Immaturity is defined as inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another’, following Immanuel Kant: An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?: Lawrence Cahoone (Ed.) From Modernism to Post-Modernism: An Anthology: Cambridge: 1996: p. 51).
Global/Cultural Warming:
Without doubt, the present humanity has since 1990s faced an increasingly serious problem (glacier melt-down, sea-level rise, global warming, irregular rainfall, unseasonal flood and drought). Concurrently Manipur has itself seen sort of a replica of the global problem by way of complex conflicts among major ethnic groups with unprecedented consequences.
If for global warming the leading superpower US – the world’s largest green house gas emitting nation – has so long blamed China and India but has now at the Bali meet somehow agreed to fall in line and solve the global problem, then for Manipur’s growing inter-ethnic lovelessness and the resultant cultural warming the same Aristotelian logic may well help at arriving at a consensual formula.
In that vein, even prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh cited, although in general terms first, that ‘There are many regional and tribal demands which need to be addressed systematically.’ But his ‘add-on’ runs in as specific as; ‘… each state has its specific nuances and characteristics and we cannot generalize the problems.’ Yours sincerely may add that each of Manipur’s own 36 so-called recognized groups claim their own ethnicity.
A two-fold scientific treatment would thus seem apt for Manipur’s Achilles’ heel. First whether, and to what extent, these 36 existing groups are really 36 or else reducible into a common origin to South China’s Yunan, over its at least two millennia-long history? Second, whether their cultural warming (read rigidity) can now be otherwise sorted out and moral responsibility for past differential growth benefits somehow amicably agreed upon to the satisfaction of one and all, and also a trade-off between harm and benefits be settled?
In particular this magic wand can be used to solve cultural warming problem in Manipur. Initially one can address a few queries squarely to the satisfaction of each ethnic group. Who is responsible for Manipur’s inter-ethnic or cultural warming (growing lovelessness)? Or since when is it consensually deemed valid and hence accountable to which extent? And so on?
Bali summit on global warming:
So long global warming couldn’t have been thrashed out for want of a consensual (carbon-emission responsibility) sharing-in formula. Rather, USA and Canada – two most developed and industrialized countries responsible for emitting huge carbon dioxide CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere – were dissenting since the 1st Conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held at Rio in 1992.
Their main plea then was that two developing countries with increasingly CO2 emitting industries viz. China and India be also fixed a higher carbon emission share, and did not therefore sign the on-going Kyoto Protocol. Now at Bali of course, all summiting nations have reached a landmark consensus by morally persuading even economic superpower US and of course exclusivist Australia to agree on a new (post Kyoto-Protocol) global sharing roadmap to 2050.
Due credit for the convergence goes to the Aristotelian logic, as since adapted by Benito Muller and his team towards apportioning moral responsibility for climate change among nations. Coincidentally, India is now adjudged at the very bottom of all other nations while fixing moral responsibility for global warming. The application of the Aristotelian precept to fostering a solution to climate change is no doubt superbly innovating, but can also be extended to solution of yet other problems such as population rise, rural-urban disparity, health care, microcredit administration and whatever.
If at the international level, developed countries need to share greater economic burden, in the same way at home it is the rich and the middle class who have to take energy cuts. In fact, India can be hit hard by climate change as it is densely populated and is affected by energy scarcity, depleting resources and biodiversity. Whereby India need rely more on CFL, public transport, eco-friendly technology and stop mindless consumerism and conserve water and power.
Aristotelian Innovation on climate change:
What merits special mention is of course the analytical framework or the Aristotelian theory underlying the consensual sharing-in of the moral responsibility for climate change or global warming.
For Aristotle recognized that (i) blame and praise for actions with either harmful or beneficial consequences are deserved by only those who are in control of their actions and are aware of the immediate and delayed consequences their actions might have.
Global warming problem is addressed by Muller & colleagues by distinguishing between contributions to climate change from the responsibility thereto.
Tracing to the very ancient (1628 BC) eruption of the Santorini volcano in the Aegian Sea – then causing global cooling by 1.5 degrees for a full hundred years since and literally freezing the Minoan civilization of the bronze period, they argued that in particular that suffering was because of natural calamities (a la modern tsunami). Further, the question of awareness also does not arise as the cause was natural and not caused by human action. Obviously, for present day CO2-pollution problem the moral responsibility can not be so easily detached from its impact and deservingly shared-in among nations.
In the realm of retrospection, the Aristotelian logic next proceeds to enunciate that (ii) delayed consequences involve intervening time and need therefore be discounted as per responsibility attached thereto. This was precisely the crux of the global warming issue hitherto. To sort out tough myopia and its resultant confusion among negotiating nations, the Muller team innovates two basic concepts: (a) basic allowance of harmless emissions and (b) subsistence allowance. So analysed they could facilitate smart negotiations for wider acceptance. One understands what the other seeks to convey in crystal clear terms. Thus they could arrive at the least carbon.
Finally the Aristotle theorem states that (iii) the consequences might not be universally harmful or beneficial. A parallel example – far more commonly experienced – is that of an irregular or a pre-monsoon (March) rainfall, which may immensely benefit jhumias but bring calamity to rabi (winter crop) farmers in the valley. Farmers have only their luck to either praise or blame. If for instance, the Trans-Asian Railway (TAR) or the Asian Highway (AH) need pass in the periphery of (and benefit) a settlement, rather than another, it’s all a matter of sheer technological question and viability.
Manipur’s cultural heritage:
To introduce the time factor in the analysis from an empirical angle, one may begin by asking questions relating to the past. Different questions may crop up requiring answers each giving rise to different sets of history. By no means one set could be deemed better than the other, for all such sets are based on similar fundamentals, methods and pri-nciples. Attempting acade-mic answers would follow the natural process of evolving a body of knowledge – such knowledge that has to serve some purpose.
For Manipur’s woes during the colonial (1891-1947) and pre-Statehood (1947-1972) period, the blame can thus be levelled only upon those responsible for those actions – colonial power earlier and afterwards Centre. British exploitation of Manipur valley’s natural bounties or fertility for cheap but quality rice export led to differentiating growth between the hills and valley. If worldly-wise Britishers drained water even out of the (Ganges so also) Im-phal river to the Thames, and if thereafter the Central government were too preoccupied with post-Partition reparation and thence with mainland politics to become aware of Manipur’s yawing hill-valley gap, who will bell the cat?
Of course after 1972 a long chain of Manipur’s own government leaders hailing both from majority and minority groups stand morally responsible for all actions. But then the disabling factor was political instability @ 2/3 years for an average regime (or chief minister) all through with few exceptions (Ri-shang Keishing and O Ibo-bi Singh). Under the circumstances on whom could its moral responsibility be fixed?
Admittedly, China has now become the fastest-growing economy in the globe with an average growth rate between three-four times that of even the US or Japan.
The fact that its population growth has already been controlled over the last two/three decades prior to this spectacular growth has become too commonplace a knowledge. The wherewithal of the miracle on the development front deserves more than a passing reference in this endeavour. What is striking about Li was the way he provided a liberal broadside to the otherwise hierarchical regime – acceptable to the hard-boiled theoreticians of the Communist order. What is still more striking was how he became determined to toughen the grit, steely determination and the esprit de corps of the world’s most populated nation so as to convert even a half-chance into goal, by tactically playing up disadvantage into a vantage point, as say, in a game of football. The point stressed is that, the success story did not come as easy as for anybody just to pick as in the random walk theory, but rather more like a climber up against a gradient having < 90o degree through meticulous planning and assiduous cliff-hanging.
To provide an important historical dimension for his concept, Li analyzes the historical process of the Chinese quest for modernity, which he claims underwent three important interrelated stages between the middle of the nineteenth century and the May Fourth era. The first stage, the Westernization concentrated only on modern western technology and science. The second, the Hundred Days Reform and 1911 Revolution (Wuxu bianfa and Xinhai geming) focused on western political institutions; and the third, the May Fourth Movement, was concerned mainly with cultural tradition, intellectual thought and value systems. But the new quest for modernity in the 1980’s fused all the three previous stages into an integrated process, meaning that Chinese intellectuals were now seeking changes in all three areas.
However Li observes that there is an imbalance, with a strong emphasis on the culturo-psychological aspect and relatively slow progress in the area of politico-economic reform. He warns that more advanced conceptual ideas could cause social tensions and a social reality marked by backwardness. According to Li Zehou, the most crucial dichotomies in the existing Chinese social order are: a) Individual subjectivity versus historical necessity (getixing yu lishi biranxing); b)Human alienation versus progress of modernization (yihusa yu ziandaihuade er li bei fan); and c) Practical subject versus objective laws (shijian zhuti yu keguan guilu).
Rather than go into details of Li’s contemporary Chinese intellectual discourse which helped transform the national economy through reoriented individual character-building, it is sufficient for the present endeavour to quote some highlights, to show the compatibility of his approach, philosophy, precepts, and ideology: a) If people are completely immersed in a universal form, they will become neutral robots…… Accordingly, there will be the rule of bureaucracy; b) Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. c) The motto of Enlightenment is therefore ‘Sapere aude.’[Have courage to use your understanding] Li’s contribution is to be appreciated in the enormity of his task to bring about a consensus in the party as a key component of the party’s legitimacy, after the excesses of not merely the Cultural Revolution but also of the reforms.
Need for deconstructing/reconstructing:
As in the occident, the orientalists have belatedly started phase-wise, area-wise and subarea-wise promotional and objectivity-focused micro-studies based on primary and secondary sources which sound quite erudite. Like applied scientists, such applied historians would concentrate on specific but hitherto difficult topics. At a later stage the desired integration and synthesis would become possible. Inherent in such viewpoint-shifting is the necessary refocusing of analysis in tune to the time-angularity. In the process some reconstructionist approach need be cited which lays stress on why the neutral record (logic) should suddenly declare to become interventionist (rhetoric). Besides, analytical tools get outdated as time-dimension is shifted backward or forward. Whatever problems found relevant today and analyzed with such tools as enunciated and sharpened and hence found compatible in the present time may become irrelevant tomorrow when problems may assume a new metamorphosis. Pretty well-known is the fact that empire-building analysis used to be relevant in colonial history, although in postcolonial period concepts like ‘empire’ have become obsolete and may not find even a place in the futurologist’s tool.
Specific mention may herein be made of yet other analytical tools similarly found obsolete in Western history, like ‘tribal’ or ‘village’ as in a sharp rural-urban framework. In other parts of the world where the urban-rural continuum intermingles, these two concepts do not merely find relevance but therein, even if traced out in extreme environs and sparsely inhabited islands, they would certainly survive with heavy subsidy and State support as living museums hardly posing much of a problem. But in south Asia, southeast Asia or elsewhere the rural continuum is still characterized by feudalism, swidden cultivation etc. but studded by limited islands of urban complexity.
Continuum of tribe-village-complex society:
Much to the chagrin of planners and policy-makers during the last half-century or so, these tribal villages have proved to be the real stumbling block. Hopefully the tribe, if not village, may soon die out after another fifty years or so, if at all the tribal villages would adopt improved technology for greater productivity when they would enjoy average, if not higher standard of life as urbanites. Like ‘empire’ and ‘colony’ becoming obsolete in western world, ‘tribe’, ‘feudalism’ among others, will then become obsolete from this part of the globe too. Already, dispersed tribes have come into being and one would hope to see much more of this emerging category. It goes without saying that use of tribe as an analytical tool will be relevant only in modernity analysis of history in the south Asian or southeast Asian context.
Prima facie, some general traits of Manipur may be laid out. First, it may be stated that past history has typified natives and indigenes to be generally harsh and revengeful upon enemies (whether relatives; or kings of Burma and Cachar; or even the powerful Englishman J.W.Quinton, the Chief Commissioner of Assam, at the peak of the British ascendancy i.e. when the Sun would not set in the British empire), rather than forgiving as generally seen in both occident and the orient. This can be explained away in terms of the constraints and limitations placed on Manipur history by Manipur’s geography (topography) and climate (monsoon and deep jungles).
For instance, any territorial expansionist move under a powerful king through either
marriage, diplomacy or war had perforce to be across the ranges of mountains either eastward or westward. Hardihood and tough attitude thus became the mainstay of Meitei nationalism, at least till 1891. In the lower order of constraints are of course, ethnic propinquity to southeast Asia and linguistic belongingness to Tibeto-Burman group, which of late seem to create problem for integration of Manipur into the national mainstream, particularly after the Partition of India (1947).
[The Sangai Express]
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