No peace dividend ? Try peace multiplier !

By Ranjan Yumnam *

What's the price of peace? The answer for this cannot be ascertained for peace cannot be bought and sold at a retail outlet. Off course, some JACs can be won over and finished off by dangling over some wads of cash, but that is not the purchase of peace in the spirit of the term—but more a prostitution of the human greed of some unscrupulous people.

So that's it. We neither know the Maximum Retail Price of peace, nor can we quantify peace as a tangible commodity. Most often, the seeming peace could turn out to be a dormant undercurrent of violence that can explode as a volcano : a lull before the storm.

What we know for sure is this : the absence of peace or conflict has serious impact on all aspects of our lives. In the context of Manipur, it has wrought havoc, broken families, shattered economy, driven away our best people, jeopardised good governance, killed several men and women, led to a dip in vital socio-economic indicators—and mind you, these are just the starters.

Let's see what violates peace in Manipur. The problem of insurgency is one. This is not to say that the insurgency here is hell bent on wrecking peace, but as the International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) says the mere presence of armed opposition to the State is enough to make the population and the government restive. And if we look at the definition of conflict formulated by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Manipur absolutely fits the bill of a conflict ridden zone.

SIPRI characterises a country as being affected by major armed conflict "if the cumulative battle-related deaths since the beginning of the conflict total at least 1,000, and there are at least 25 additional battle related deaths in that year," ie, in a particular year.

Insurgency has had a toll on our economy and as one study calculated the UGs economy in the North East is worth about 3000 crores annually, which means that much of money is being diverted to mobilising, organising and orchestrating of violent acts taking away from fund meant for development and social programmes. This is no peanuts; even the Maoists' estimated extortion collections of Rs 1600 crores annually pale into insignificance before the NE's outfits' underground economy.

The State on the other hand matches it by increasing its defense spending while lowering outlays on education, health, development programmes and other productive activities. Then there are unseen losses: potential investors shying away and demise of local enterprises because of extortion threats, losses which might have significantly contributed to the State's GDP and as a tax base.

As if insurgency related turmoil is not enough, Manipur's peace is repeatedly molested by Bandhs and Blockades for most part of the year on specious, flimsy and untenable grounds. The economic losses due to complete paralysis of the State are estimated at Rs. 7 crores in a day, a fact pointed out in a recent seminar on the Peace Dividend organised by the Government of Manipur. But the fact remains that the monetary losses are just a tip of the ice-berg.

More damaging is in the loss of the social face of the society, a society which allows itself to shoot at its own feet. But are all bandhs/blockades bad? This was one question pondered and discussed in the seminar and the general consensus was, in a democracy, bandhs and its myriad Gandhian forms cannot be entirely wished away and they have their utility if resorted to for redressal of a legitimate grievance. Frivolous instigators of bandhs should be dealt with firm hand.

While we are at it, here's another heated debate in the seminar on the question of whether the presence of army alleviates or aggravates the conflict situation in Manipur. Whether the kid from Chennai, just out of college, who is suddenly supplanted as an army officer in the hostile areas of Manipur is deserving of our sympathy when he is attacked by the guerillas and he fires back indiscriminately at the civilians, unable to distinguish between rebels and innocents because he is not familiar with the culture, language and ways of the locals.

A very senior army official who spoke in the seminar was of the view that public should appreciate the circumstances and the pressure under which army has to operate day in and day out for our protection and that they deserve at least a modicum of understanding, if not appreciation, for their service.

At this, a very renowned former New York Times journalist observed that the Chennai kid had no business being here because he is absolutely unaware of the culture, language and history of the locals, and so he was bound to make major goof-ups resulting in loss of precious human lives. See the interesting twist of the same justifications from different perspectives. How post-modernist !

The thorny issue of AFSPA also came up and the end-note is this : it's a political decision. We have heard that before.

So what's the solution? How do we reclaim peace so that we can reap Peace Dividend (it's a term popularised at the end of the Cold War). Good governance is the key. Provide basic amenities like electricity, water and roads. Electricity is the blood of any industry. Build good roads; trade and tourism will follow on its own. Put in place responsive public grievances redressal system. Strengthen policing, which is not to be confused with CI ops paraphernalia.

Give real and effective powers to district administration so that problems get solved nearest to its origin instead of allowing them to fester and snowball into crisis to be dealt at the top level. This is all fine, but in practice, how far is this possible? For example, to what extent can a DC act on his/her own wisdom to solve a problem? Are officers working at the field empowered enough to be creative to solve problems of the clientele public without worrying of political repercussions? Most probably not.

The problem of lack of decentralisation, however, is not specific to us. The nature of democracy as we have, appears somewhat to be at cross purposes with the ideals of decentralisation as decentralisation seeks to redistribute centres of power while existing seats of power tends to consolidate power to themselves.

Second, there must be rule of law. Justice must be done and seen to be done. Media should be allowed to work independently. In short, there must be check and balances. These are all text-book prescriptions. The challenge lies in actually making them happen—through the vision of a leader.

The reason why people approach the Minister directly at the slightest grievance may be because of the erosion of the authority of the Government agencies by the elected leaders or because the Government administrative agencies lack resources or unwilling to take risk beyond the bureaucratic routine work.

Whatever that may be, ensuring good governance by whatever means is the panacea for all our ills. Only then the migration of the best Manipuri minds out of the State will end. And unemployment and insurgency will no longer feed each other off.

Good governance, in fact, is a peace multiplier.

(Views expressed are personal)

Ranjan Yumnam

* Ranjan Yumnam, presently an MCS probationer, is a frequent contributor to e-pao.net. He can be contacted at ranjanyumnam(at)gmail(dot)com. This article was webcasted on April 17, 2010.