Govt to Tamenglong : Clear the dues or starve - The bully mentality
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: October 04 2011 -

Clear the dues or starve. This is the message that the Government has sent out to Tamenglong district.

What exactly is the Government trying to prove ? That it is a tough customer and will not brook any nonsense from the district administration ?

If the Government is under the impression that it has conveyed an image of a tough master by not alloting rice and lentils to the least developed district in the State just because the district administration has not cleared the dues for the foodstock procured during last year’s economic blockade imposed by the United Naga Council and the All Naga Students’ Association, Manipur, then it needs to be yanked back to reality.

This is not what a tough Government does. This is what the school bully does.

That the Government is taking a somewhat sadistic pleasure out of the mess brought about by the economic blockade has been proved time and again and the latest information that the people of a district have been pushed into a position of starvation is nothing but an extension of this sadistic trait with the bully mentality intact.

Bullies are cowards. This what the State Government is all about.

It is a coward of the highest order and in its desperate endeavour to show that it has some vestige of the qualities that define a tough regime, it has decided that the Consumers Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Department would not allot anymore rice to Tamenglong district as long as the dues remain unpaid.

The approximate amount that is due to be paid, as reported in this paper on October 4, stands at about Rs 17 lakhs. The question is, what was the Government doing before the current blockade came into force ?

Everything in the decision not to send the rice quota to Tamenglong district is wrong, woefully shorn of all logic and smacks of a Government which has been blinded by its arrogance.

There can be no two ways about this. It is this arrogance which led the Government into thinking that since school vans and buses have not ceased service on account of fuel, the situation is not that acute.

It is this arrogance which has made the Government immune to the crisis unfolding before its very eyes. The question is how has this arrogance come about ?

The massive mandate it received in the last Assembly election ? If this is the case then the time is well at hand to educate Mr Ibobi and his men of what the mandate of the people is all about.

The poverty of idea, the shallowness of the present political leadership, the inflated ego which has reduced the 12 men to megalomaniacs, the perverted understanding of being in power have all combined to make this Government impotent so much so that the huge mandate it received at the hustings in 2007 has not translated into governance but self aggrandisement.

In many ways it is also a reflection of the harsh fact that the mandate of the people was not won but bought. This is one reason why the Government and its elected members have developed the view wherein the people themselves become commodities to be bought at the great election bazar.

Who allowed this to happen is a question that should prick the conscience of the people. Or are the people going to be a reflection of the Government ?

The year 2007 meant so many things to so many people and to Ibobi it meant that he became the first Chief Minister of the State to complete a full term in office. It also marked the first time that a single political party was able to capture 30 seats in the 60 member Assembly.

A fantastic showing by any stretch of the imagination. However as things have unfolded, all the good showing at the hustings have come to mean only the personal aggrandisement of the people who come under the definition of Ministers and Congress MLAs. Nothing for the people at all.

The incomplete Imphal Sewerage Project, the incomplete Capitol complex, the hopelessly behind schedule Cultural Centre complex, the farce of a National Highway that is NH-37, the inter-village road condition of NH-2, the utter failure of the Government to deal with the Sadar Hills impasse, the skyrocketing prices of all essential items are some of the more visible extensions of the farce these projects have been reduced to.

It is in the midst of this all round failure that the Government has decided that Tamenglong will not receive its rice quota because Rs 17 lakhs or so dues have not been paid.

This is a cruel joke played on the people of the said district. Manipur certainly does not need such jokes, or is the SPF Government hell bent on donning the garb of the comedian in the disaster they have scripted ?