Consensus and Wisdom
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: September 21 2015 -
Throughout history, the failure of the State has been more or less attributed to the accumulation of official amnesia over the needs of the people.
Ignoring the pulse of the people has led to rejection of the State’s own polity by the citizens.
However, it should also be noted that the rejection of the State’s response to key issues are not always based on picking validated holes in the measures adopted to placate the citizens as subjects.
Though an authoritarianism State runs against the tide of popular discontent, there has also been perceptible fatigue the citizens seem to have experienced at least in Manipur.
This follows the numerous protests, shut-downs and strikes that have almost become everyday norm.
One also sees unending contradictions within each of the movement, be it social, political or economic. There are also many who offer counter narratives to such understanding.
However, one should be clear that the only way to forge ahead is to look back and see if the quantum of the energies spent on launching movements can well compensate the loss of rational democratic principles.
For a long time, Manipur has witnessed polyphonic voices against the silence or the indifference of the ruling dispensation on issues of public interests.
While observers have pigeon-holed these protests into categories for the convenience of banal consumption or purely academic purpose, few have made attempts to understand the relationship the State has with individuals or between groups.
It should be noted that the prolonged apathy of the State has also led to total ethinization of politics, each conglomerate drawing its sustenance from the perceived notions of what constitute civil society organisations.
The effective use or rather the utilization of the energies of what have been considered ethnic based civil society organisations now seems to have a tendency to rupture the State’s edifice. This does not however mean the current situation, however awkward, is beyond redemption.
While seeking State sponsored legitimization of people’s wishes, one should also remember that no one can manufacture consensus.
Conventional wisdom says that consensus has to be sought not assumed or produced.
How one deals with it remains in the court of public leaders who can truly convince that the interests they represent, in no way contravene the interests of other segments.
Most of these the suspicions raised are built on remnants of a feudal aristocracy and prolonged apathy of the State.
* Comments posted by users in this discussion thread and other parts of this site are opinions of the individuals posting them (whose user ID is displayed alongside) and not the views of e-pao.net. We strongly recommend that users exercise responsibility, sensitivity and caution over language while writing your opinions which will be seen and read by other users. Please read a complete Guideline on using comments on this website.