The age of the queues : Blooding the people
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: August 29 2011 -

It is time to dismantle the ivory tower which has come up around the centres of power and jerk the occupants down to reality. Shock treatment is perhaps what the doctor may prescribe here.

It is amazing to see how the political leaders running the Government can act so nonchalantly and continue to preen from within the ivory tower which they have built around them over the years even as the ordinary folk are forced to line up at petrol outlets for three days at the stretch to get fuel worth Rs 500 for a car and Rs 300 or something like this for a motorbike or a scooter.

In time, it may well become a distinct possibility for the oil companies, like the IOC, NRL and others to specifically point out the indispensability of a lane leading to the petrol pump, whenever licenses are to be issued for opening a petrol pump in Imphal.

This obviously sounds absurd but then so is the need for people to queue up outside a petrol pump for more than 48 hours at a stretch topped off by a Government, which has the gall to put on a public demeanour which says that everything is hunky dory.

Aiding the Government to stay put in its ivory tower are the people, who seem unperturbed with the nonsense that is being staged at their expense. In fact everything is normal. Shelling out Rs 100/110 for a litre of petrol in the black market is absolutely fine.

So is paying RS 1500/1600 for a filled LPG cylinder. So is shelling out the hiked prices of essential commodities by the sharks, who are out to make a killing. In the face of such a response from the people, the Government has been on a song.

Putting aside the on and off highway blockade, the year 2005 stands out for the 52 days economic blockade imposed by the All Naga Students' Association, Manipur against the decision of the Government to declare June 18 as Integrity Day that year.

Manipur was not prepared for such an eventuality and the dry petrol pumps, the escalating prices of essential goods, the deserted highways, especially NH-39, the number of vehicles stranded on the Nagaland side at Mao, the closure of schools as transportation had to be grounded due to the unavailability of fuel, the thriving black market for cooking gas, petrol and other essential items, was a grim reminder of the fallacy of depending on only one lifeline for a population of close to 25 lakhs.

This was in 2005 and it was then that the call to promote NH-53, now NH-37, to the status of a National Highway was given with renewed call. To those, who followed the developments of those days more than 6 years back, the memory of the then Governor Dr SS Sidhu getting a first hand account of the condition of NH-37 by road must still be vivid.

Equally vivid will be the memory of the indifferent distance the Chief Minister kept from this highway, figuratively and practically.

Five years down the line, in 2010, the highways were blockaded for more than 60 days to protest the decision of the State Government to go ahead with the election to the Autonomous District Council with the shadow of the aborted attempt of Th Muivah to visit his birthplace hanging ominously in the background but hogging the limelight. The question, were any lessons learnt from the garguantan negligence ?

The serpentine queues in front of the petrol pumps, the Rs 100/110 per litre of petrol in the black market, the escalating price of essential commodities, the Rs 1500/1600 per filled LPG cylinder all tell the stories of a Government which has refused to move or learn a lesson from the 52 days in 2005.

It is the same case with the more than 60 days in 2010. Loud sermons, tall talks, tough sounding words emanated from the political class in the days that followed the blockades of 2005 and 2010, and all these tough postures took the shape of blaming the BRO for the shoddy conditions of NH-37, toying with the idea of opening the Tongjei Maril road, taking over the work of maintaining and constructing NH-37 from the BRO etc.

In short with just a wave of the hand and jacking up the vocal chord, the Government reduced the ordeal of the economic blockades to a blame game with the BRO and road side jamborees like tough posturings and this is how the lifelines of a 25 lakh people have been played and messed around.

Amid this, the stoic silence maintained by the people has been one of the more amazing characteristics of the people. Is it a question of resilience ? Or is it a question of raw selfishness ?

A question of ‘If I can get my share of the fuel or if I can afford to buy from the black market, it is okay’ ?

Either way, it is hard to find a rational explanation for this unique mindset which is queer. To those who are not well acquainted with the state of affairs here, this will look and sound like madness but there is a method behind this madness, scripted by elements who get a sadistic pleasure out of depriving the people of the most basic of needs and perfected by a group, belonging to a clique who live in the ivory tower mentioned here.

The equation is simple. Everytime there is a scarcity of goods, the hoarders, the black marketers and those who are supposed to check these irregularities benefit and this benefit goes up the command chain.

And of course favours can be doled out by those who live in the ivory towers during such times of scarcity and this favour can be turned into vote banks. Unsaid here is how the common people are bled dry.

Simple. The casualty is the rule of law and democracy.

Everything seems to be going to script for those living in the ivory tower and the question is how long are they going to remote control the manner in which the people are bled dry ?