The trouble with Manipur is, nothing sounds the alarm bell loud enough for the state 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 short of. It has become almost a rule of the thumb for the state to see a crisis a week, some not so severe while others nothing less than nightmares. Regardless of the fact that these crises fade on their own, as they have to with the passage of time and if the people manage hold out without losing their cool, one thing is clear, given the circumstance Manipur is caught in today, nobody can vouch the last has been said on any of its many life threatening issues. Turmoils 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-scape outside it which are rather ambiguously referred to as civil society. The state and its people have come to learn superbly to live out crises and even to silently 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 in the future.
Crises explode like several kilotons of dynamite periodically, and during these crises semblance of collective resolves emerge, promising to shape policy matters of the government. However, once the dusts settle, the downward pulls of mediocrity once again neutralize and level out all public resolves and return the situation back to where it was before these crises. During severe and extended blockades and bandhs for instance, especially along the Imphal-Dimapur road which today is the state`™s main lifeline, war cries to have the alternate lifeline, the Imphal-Jiribam road developed work up mass frenzies. However, once these storms pass by, nobody bothers what condition this uncared for highway reverts back into. Similarly, the talk of cutting a third life line along the rail line now under construction, so desperate and passionate once, would be relegated to not much more than idle academic speculations again.
There are more sinister problems before the state than these. Take the case of official corruption at high places. This is not a question of excusing corruption at the lower echelons of 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 soiling the characters of the foot soldiers. There is no gainsaying, huge percentages are still siphoned off from development funds and shared between contractors and contract awarders? It is another story 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 look the other way. Unless and until the establishment becomes a credible institution of governance upon which the people can repose faith in, there will always be a degree of legitimacy `alternate governments` reserved in some corners 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 a moral one. The often heard question, what would have been the status of justice and equality if insurgency had not been a brutal moderator, should have provided a blueprint for this moral war long ago.
Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam