Crime And Punishment: Manipur's Social Deviance

Dr. Laifungbam Debabrata Roy *

The objectives of rule of law and security sector development are laid out in ambitious and far-reaching terms, ranging from more fair, independent and credible judiciaries and security forces that are more effective, accountable and responsive to the public, to increased government and societal compliance with the law. Manipur's case is problematic regarding these objectives.

The situation of "law and order" was used from the 50s onwards to institute a sharing of power between the central and state forces in order to tackle the growing insurgency though legislation. All kinds of security related laws were enforced in Manipur, the most notorious being the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act of 1958, the National Security Act of 1980 and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967.

It takes little imagination to conjure up the evils committed by the state and its security apparatus in Manipur. The scale of state killings and the systematic, organised theft by ruling elites and syndicate has been staggering, and the organised and planned deviance of the government involving the violation of human rights has resulted in immeasurable pain and suffering.

A widening shroud of secrecy, official resistance, and an ideological/juridical culture confines nepotistic and hegemonic perception of criminality or the risk of criminal acts to the actions of the deprived results in an absence of realistic state crime statistics, a misplaced public fear psychosis, and a resistance within criminology to invoke the state as perpetrator. This pattern has pervaded Manipur's rule of law and security sector development to the extent that the situation now warrants a very careful scrutiny.

The domain of cultural criminology places crime and its control in the context of culture, that is, the viewing of both crime and the agencies of control as cultural by-products - as creative constructs. Furthermore, cultural criminology seeks to highlight how power affects the upwards and downwards constructions of criminological phenomenon: rules created, rules broken, the constant interplay of moral entrepreneurship, moral innovation, and transgression. It seeks to bring back sociological theory to criminology.

Looked at from this sociological and phenomenological perspective, Manipur's transition from a mere "law and order" situation to an overarching criminal one is most disconcerting. The situation touches upon every sector and creed in this State.

Violent conflict, within countries and internationally, is a significant factor in many justice issues, most notably policing. Conflict has shaped modern Manipur. Yet, despite this importance, there has been relatively little study into the policing issues that arise in relation to conflict and none that look at ethical police behaviour during conflict.

One of the primary methods of conflict management in peace times, policing, is notably hindered during times of conflict. Manipur's police force was gradually transformed from its primary general peace-time law enforcement role into a secondary counter-insurgency force. In fact, by state design, the secondary role has overtaken the primary one. This lack of general law enforcement is believed to be a strong contributor to conflict and the loss of ethical policing behaviour.

A police force that has overwhelming counter-insurgency training and role becomes a perilous force when engaged in general law enforcement duties, and even in traffic management as we see in Manipur today. Moreover, the police in Manipur have become increasingly implicated in a variety of crimes ranging from petty roadside extortion in broad daylight to blatant denial of justice and gross human rights violations to the people it was meant to serve.

As the incidence of crime escalates in Manipur, the incidence of police personnel involvement in crimes have also risen in parallel. To be candid, a culture of crime and rights abuse has pervaded both the public and law enforcement agencies. This has become a problematic social deviance but which everyone is wary of addressing. The classic question of "who will bell the cat" is a stark reality in our society.

Criminology and the sociology of deviance by the very nature of their subject matter occupy a privileged cultural vantage point in sociology. Their focus is at precisely that point where norms are imposed and threatened, enacted and broken. They are borderline subjects which foreground the processes of cultural generation and are, of course intrinsically dualistic, that is, they involve the social constructions 'downwards' of the agencies of social control (the culture of control) and 'upwards' of the deviant individuals and groups (the culture of deviance).

Criminology, studied from a cultural vantage point seems to be the very antithesis of the preceding "realist criminology", which is policy driven, interventionist and realistic about the problems of crime, attempting to place the micro within the macro societal context and committed to transformative decision making. The tendency has been for realism to concentrate on the form of social interaction, and cultural criminology the substance. Yet what is actually required in Manipur is a criminology that does both.

An 'appreciative' approach does not necessarily valorise or romanticise crime, nor does a disdain for the correctionalism of conventional criminology and the criminal justice system necessitate a hands-off approach to crime. Cultural criminology is not oblivious of the problem of crime. There are plenty of activities which need to be controlled: domestic violence, hate crimes, sexual violence, safety crimes at work, corporate malfeasance, war crimes, genocide, predatory street crimes, police criminality to name but a few. The priorities would however be somewhat different from those of establishment criminology: they would tend to reflect the gravity of the offence rather than incorporate a miscellany of the genuinely serious, the merely worrisome, and actions that simply disturb the tranquillity of the powerful.

Most importantly, if we do not understand the cultural meanings of crime and the responses to it we have little chance of a successful intervention. Firstly, without understanding the social predicament that is the source of the cultural response that involves criminality, there is no chance of an appropriate response to it. Merely counting crimes and preparing statistics is not helpful.

Merely reporting vehicle thefts or counting criminal gang members without describing the theft itself or the gang cannot bring about an understanding. They are all merely background and no foreground, 'factors' and therefore no meanings in realistic criminology which is required in Manipur. There is no understanding of this social deviance we experience today; it is devoid of social context and human emotion. If meanings are lost, all that is left for policy are the blunt machinated instruments of force and containment, of punishment and prevention, the concomitants of deterrence theory or rational choice logic.

Secondly, if we do not understand that the conventional responses to crimes are both cultural and culture based, then we have no ability to assess what are the forces that set the crime control agenda, fix the human targets; energize the police, the courts, the media, and the public. We are then left with assessing social responses to crime as if they were merely technical matters, not normative responses. Conceptions of penality and justice are deeply embedded in the culture of a state and its people. We may have had this culture of control for a long time but the same may not be so for the culture of crime and indifference to it that is so prevalent these days.

Thirdly, if we do not understand the cultural interpretation of the criminal justice response, we have no ability to comprehend the likely impact of the intervention. The same measure of punishment can be seen, for example, as a matter of stigmatized shame and social embarrassment, a badge of honour, a weighty deterrent, or an inducement to continue and escalate a life of transgression.

Manipur's increasing deviance in crime and punishment needs careful research and a studied response, informed by an understanding of the sociological phenomenon. The silence of the academia on this matter is awkward as academics have a great responsibility to make determined efforts to reach this understanding and inform public policy.