From all appearances, the present crisis in Manipur following the Manipur State Legislative Assembly passing three controversial bills designed to check population influx into the state and to make it difficult for migrants to acquire landed properties, will be reduced to another case of `conflict management`, whereby no resolution is sought, instead the level of violence is merely allowed to simmer down to a level manageable by the civil administration. Once such an equilibrium has been assured, the entire governance mechanism will revert back to its grotesquely corrupt way that has become its hallmark for decades now. In spite of all that the state has just witnessed, and is still grappling with, no lesson seems to have been learnt. The organised robbery of the state exchequer by the contractors-ministers-officials clique will be the first to be back on their feet, making unholy deals, negotiating percentage cuts to be shared from various public works. All the tears and pains, injuries and deaths the state just witnessed ultimately would hardly have made a dent in this culture. This despite the fact that it is everybody`™s knowledge corruption was what paved the ground for the emergence of the increasingly violent tradition of street protests. If corruption does not end, this trend can also only be predicted to increase. We will try and establish the interrelatedness, but first here is one glaring evidence why the corruption culture will likely remain unaffected.
Public memory is proverbially short, therefore so this reminder. About a month prior to the street violence breaking out first over the Inner Line Permit System, ILPS demand in Imphal, and later against it in Churachandpur, monsoon torrents that swept the valley also washed away a number of bridges and even a small dam. At the time, there were numerous press reports and photographs demonstrating how these constructions were made with substandard materials, including flimsy 6mm steel rods to reinforce concrete columns and walls. Here, it can almost be said with certainty that the contractors who built these dams and bridges, as well as the engineers who certified them as built to specification, would have built their own private homes like bridges should be built, using 20mm and larger steel reinforcements where even 6mm would have been enough. It is depressing to imagine what a narcissistic elite Manipur today is cursed with, and it is they more than anybody who has been responsible for the state`™s continued downward slide. Yet, till this date there has not been a single word from the government that responsibilities would be fixed for the bridges that could not withstand even a monsoon, and those found guilty would be punished. This is in a way understandable, for those in the corridors of power would also have been partners in this institutionalised crime.
Not only this, the Manipur government since the 1970s, not long after Manipur attained full statehood, has been afflicted with a progressively putrid culture of putting up `bribe tags` on government jobs. This coupled with nepotism has ensured the death of merit in job awards, with the expected result of dumbing down the government`™s own work forces progressively by the years. The consequence has been most devastating in the education sector where too there have been two or three generations of teachers hardly capable of sharing anything with their students, selected against bribes or the influences they commanded in the power corridors. Today the state is stymied by a whooping unemployment rate close to 30 percent, or eight lakhs youth holding college degrees but with little or no employable skills. The shrinking horizon of hope for the future this spells for so many young people cannot but be dangerous for the entire society. The increasing incidents of socially deviant behaviours and violence during street protests are also a manifestation of this rising level of frustration amongst these youth. This notwithstanding, the elite remain unconcerned and unwilling to give up the culture of corruption they so selfishly consider as their service privilege.
There is no way these eight lakh unemployed youth can be absorbed directly into the government job cocoon. What the government should instead have been doing was to encourage and prop up job-generating entrepreneurial initiatives in the state, and happily the state is not altogether blank on this front. There is already a rich and varied tradition of non-government professions in the state, and the government ought to have begun funnelling liberal spendings into this sector. The healthier this sector becomes, they can reciprocally multiply and absorb the state`™s mounting unemployed youth, and thus convert an overwhelming liability into a priceless asset. Unfortunately there is little evidence the government has given any importance to the thought. It has instead been dragging these incubating entrepreneurial spirits into its dreary common denominator of bribe and contract culture.