Living with an indecent State

Arambam Noni & Naorem Kishorchand *

Rally to protest Killing of Student by Police firing and pro-ILPS on July 20 2015 :: Pix - Shankar Khangembam

Yet again Manipur is burning. If we go by what has happened in the recent times, several events have put people and state in a pitched battle. Long stretched blockades on highways, three months long hue and cry against the killing of Rabina and Sanjit in 2009 and the ongoing JCILPS led movement to enact a law that could effectively contain the unofficial influx of foreigners and outsiders are distinctively fresh in public memory.

Unabated seeping in of outsiders is a reality that bites state’s habitation while implicating outsiders’ control over economy, resources, livelihood, and labour. The present turbulence has again brought before us the question of successfully meeting a particular people’s demand. The great resistance of women in Manipur in 1939 was a direct response to the growing colonization of local market and economy by a handful of non-local traders who had then established their monopoly over daily economic transactions.

The 1939 women’s war, perhaps, for the first time articulated the need for preparing against future possibilities of monopolistic mercantile onslaught. Towards the end of the Second World War, questions were raised on how to check the increasing influence of ‘outsiders’ in the economic affairs of Manipur. As a response to the public pressure, the Manipur State Darbar Resolution No. 14 of 23rd December 1946 resolved to formally screen the entry of outsiders and visitors to Manipur.

The move of Manipur State Darbar coincided with the British India Government’s initiative to bring in a large number of Princely States closer to the Indian Union through the Standstill Agreement and Instrument of Accession in the mid of 1947. The same year witnessed partition of India followed by a huge displacement of population all over South Asia. The issue of foreigners and outsiders took a complicated turn. India’s interest to accommodate displaced population seemed to have directly or indirectly encouraged influx of outsiders in today’s Northeast. Incidentally, on 18th October 1950 the Permit System for outsiders and foreigners that prevailed in Manipur was abolished.

Since then the demographic composition in states in northeast India have witnessed unprecedented upsurge of outsiders and that had been a pattern throughout the decades. Decennial average growth rate of India stood at 21.51% in 1961 whereas the same stood at 35.04% in the case of Manipur. Similarly, in 1971 India’s average population growth is 24.51% while the figure was a thumping 37.53% for Manipur (Statistical Handbook of Manipur 2002 & 2011).

Reflecting on this rising trend of the number of outsider population in Manipur JCILPS is canvassing on the details and probabilities arising out of the fear of being turned into non-entity in their own land. The death of Robinhood, a young student of 16 years, in the police action has only reaffirmed the fear. Brutalities of such kind have however remained largely unconvincing to the public by any yardsticks. The death of Robinhood, a young student of 16 years, in the police action has shocked the commons. The imposition of public curfew has aggravated the situation as it gives legal shield to the state apparatuses to use force and even fire upon, in case of any disobedience. Even to file a complaint against an erring policeman, prior consent of the state government is necessary (IPC, 188).

If one is to go by the counts of long drawn people’s movement for fulfilling their grievances and rights, the states has proven time and again non-engaging. The state is non-engaging and non-dialogical as it hardly adapts itself to a public good delivering agency, leave aside highly political issues like autonomy, freedom, etc. One is perennially confronted with how to live with an indecent state. It is this indecency and timidity that has provoked the students’ participation in the movements. Absence of mass scholarship, and non-intervening nature of intellectuals, weak support base of non-governmental Organisations and sterility of the public leaders have left students with no option but to directly confront the regime. In this scenario of an existing vacuum the students have transcended their role into that of an agency for change.

In a practicing democracy, as we were supposed to be governed by, states are to be fundamentally representative in its manifestations. Democracies devoid of dialogical functional capabilities often resort to routines of their institutional existence rather than relying on what the governed actually speaks for. The breakdown of communication between the elected and electors is seen once again. The functional incapability of the State to bring the JCILPS spearheaded movement to a conclusive point is reflective of the institutional indecency generally shown to public voices.

When institutions of administration, let’s not say governance, excessively rely on its prowess and ability to prospectively survive, the fate of people’s movements tend to get complex, only coercing it to opt for harsher language of protests. The ongoing movement seem to have moved to such a level where the return to normalcy without making a significant deal with the state is beginning to be perceived as suicidal on the part of the movement.

Joint Action Committee (JAC) formed in connection with the death of Robinhood has made it clear that it would not claim the dead body, unlike many other previous JACs, of the young student which means that the JAC is not in favour making a deal with the state government, except on inner line permit system. In this situation of despair, one can only hope to see a minimal recovery of decent governance. JCILPS has made their arguments more than clear with year baseline for outsiders’ identification, routine checking, and deportation etc,. Agreements between AMSU, AMSCOC and Government of Manipur in 1980 and 94 provide sufficient clues to break the deadlock.

If we go by what Ernest Renan once said, (nation) state is subject to an everyday plebiscite. The images of meira paibi sit-in-protest, rallying students, blockades, youths donning slingshots and stone pelting speaks the volume of daily plebiscitary character of Manipuri polity. One needs to be able, if we are ever to be, to only galvanise our everyday plebiscites when it comes to engaging with the state with its mighty non-dialogical methods. The public reasoning has to take into account of its routine loss of memory in times of crucial decision-making as observed in their collective (electoral) political behaviour.