The Gap, and Why it is so

JC Sanasam *

Natural flow of Nambul River in the heart of Imphal chock-a-block with garbages - Pix :: Hueiyen Lanpao

Those in the governance still continue their habit of letting things go slow and sluggish. People on the other hand seem to get more satisfaction indulging in the affairs of racism, communalism, ethnicism and political and religious identities.

Manipur has a history of its own, two thousand years old, a saga of great kings, rich with bravery stories of its women; has an epic from its Moirang Kangleirol; has a rich language, Manipuri (Meeteilon or Meiteilon), sort of a lingua franca of the land with its own original script (the Meeteilon script); has a wealthy heritage of art, literature and culture, and now is a store-house of sports persons, its people good hearted, hospitable, ever welcoming, home loving, god fearing and very orthodox some time; has beautiful landscapes of enchanting valley and hills rich with its lush green forests and fauna interspersed by well organized villages and lovely hamlets, well gifted with Nature's bounty, although diminishing now; has or had plenty of water resources, good harvests of rice, fruits, vegetables. In short, it proved to be a lovely place, although enclosed by indomitable ranges of hills in all directions, an ideal place for salubrious healthy living coveted by visitors.

Prof John Parat and his colleagues at the Birmingham University are going to bring out a paper to prove that the Meeteilon script is as ancient as those of Sanskrit, Tamil, Telegu, etc. definitely older than the Devanagari scripts like those of Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, etc. Out of the odd 6,500 living languages of the world now, the Manipuri language is still among the 162 recognised by the Encyclopedia of the Cambridge University, USA and is one of the odd 122 languages enlisted by the Japanese Foundation of Language. It is only the Assamese and Manipuri in the Northeast which get such recognition. That is how the world still recognizes our language and literature.

However, if one makes a list of cities or places, in order of modern development, Manipur or Imphal may not find a slot in a list of thousands; in such a count no body may find the mention of Manipur or Imphal. That is where we stand now. Considering its its glory in the past, Manipur at the present age should have been in the forefront of the well qualified and well developed areas.

But the sad thing is it is not as it should be. Needless to harp on these lines again and again, Manipur now seems to be the collection centre of all the dirt, evil, grime and the negative traits of human nature. We are now two to three hundred years behind except in the realm of e-technology, perhaps. For that matter Manipur is still doing good with the modern advances that have evolved in the last two or three decades or with those technologies that had their beginnings in the adjoining years of the 20th and 21st century e.g. TV, computers, cell-phones, digital cinematography, medical equipment technology etc.

Was there a gap? What was it we missed or where was it that we made a mistake? Did we, in Manipur, fail to meet the impact of the arrival of modernism or modernity that already had started well ahead to wake up and energize people all over the rest of the world? Perhaps we need to ask ourselves these questions seriously and make it up where we lost or where we got impeded.

Those areas that could have been done with, in the beginning to the fag-end of the twentieth century were perhaps where we failed, the time we did not catch up; the time we languished aimlessly. As history would have it, maybe the political changes, the wastage of time in the religious incursions of our society and related matters like the doldrums we had when the British left us high and dry, the negligence by the people in the centre for this corner region numbed us to remain idle and spend our days in dreaming mid-summer night dreams.

Perhaps there was nobody in Manipur to question Nehru, Sardar Patel and the like in Delhi why they wanted Manipur to get merged in India if they (those in Delhi) would not have time to think of the future of Manipur. We perhaps did not do anything with the things worthy of first priority like generating or harvesting a good power source to last for many a decade to come, a bountiful source of supply of drinking and hygienic water and establishment of a good network of class roads, intra-state all over the districts and subdivisions as well as to connect the National Highways.

The gap is still there in every sphere. Those in the governance still continue their habit of letting things go slow and sluggish. People on the other hand seem to get more satisfaction indulging in the affairs of racism, communalism, ethnicism and political and religious identities. There are, in this tiny state, so many overflowing militant and civil organizations who enthrall themselves in shouting and yelling rhetoric but who hardly can bring their grievances into action.

Identities in the lines of racial, political or religious discriminations always bring the wider gaps, animosities, misunderstanding and communication gaps; this they know; still they never fail to keep harping on these strings and keys. They know understanding and recognition of each other's cultural identities bring closeness, understanding, and sense of belonging to each other and emotional integrity; but they seem to overlook these areas all the time. The gaps between the suppliers and consumers of every kind too seem to become wider and wider in Manipur.

In the assembly, it was put on the table that supplying power16 hours a day in the houses of consumers in Manipur would cost more than Rs. 20 crores a month. Nobody in the assembly or from among the civil organizations raised the questions:

• Why so in Manipur, if it is not so, even in neighbouring states like Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram? Why cannot Manipur do the same as these states do?
• Why cannot the departments which are on dues to the electricity department in terms of crores and lakhs make their budget plans and pay out their dues from their budget allocation money? This non-payment of dues has been in the air for the last 20 to 30 years.
• Why does the power department allow the consumers to enjoy their electricity without paying their dues so long?
• Why does the power department allow people to have illegal connections? In fact it is the staff, the linemen of the department itself who commit this illegal connection for their corrupted pocket money. It is just a sheer lack of control of the staff? And they blame the public.
• Why does the Power department of Manipur fail to collect their revenue when those in the electro-communication departments or corporate bodies like BSNL, Airtel, Reliance etc. do not fail? Why cannot the power department serve their bills in time and collect the payments regularly?
• Why did the department fail to erect adequate transmission lines to collect adequate power from the available grid?