Inheriting abnormalities
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: May 28 2015 -
There are many ways to understand how societies in transition have understood the notion of governance with the introduction of democratic institutions.
Here, the idea of transition is taken not as something bereft of dynamics. The utilization of transition at the conceptual plane here is aimed at grasping the temporal contingency of switching over from one phase of history to another.
For instance, the way most countries pigeon-holed into the working category of ‘developing’ have inherited the idea of governance or for that matter even democratic institutions spawning impact very few had expected.
The way a State like Manipur began adopting modern institutions for effective democratic governance has been based on a juxtaposition of the inherited system over lingering values and vices derived from the traditional social structure.
The intensity of distorting universal values should not only be analysed from the perspective of tradition and modernity or the conventional binary relations.
When one resorts to picking up the correct perspective, it would be easier to pin point the missing links on ascertaining why Manipur has always been caught in cycles of social, economic and political turmoil.
Following this framework, one issue that needs to be addressed is how modern education has not been able to shape and mould the public mind based on the necessities of infusing values into the adoption of modern institutions for governance.
To cite an example, everyone seems to know that indulging in corruption by those occupying responsible public positions is not sanctioned by the state.
However, bending the rules and indulging in corrupt practices have become the order of the day.
Whatever considered abnormal has been absorbed as the normal.
Otherwise, how does one explain the acceptance of bribery as the necessary evil of survival or how set agenda of the state have been so wilfully discarded?
Most social and political observers have attributed the reason for willy-nilly distortions of public life to the state of prolonged turmoil.
Thus, the process has been recycling reasons for the causes and causes for the reasons.
Whether or not one accepts the argument, it is certain that generations have now inherited abnormalities of all hues excluding ideal democratic values.
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