Unceasingly amazing: Measuring negligence
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: August 20 2011 -

Manipur never ceases to amaze. The main, in fact the only life support system National Highway 39 (NH-2), has been crippled for nearly three weeks and yet there has been no institutionalised voice of protest against the inaction of the Government to resolve the issue.

This in a place where protests can take the ominous turn of a general strike or a bandh for reasons as innocuous as the failure of the Government to repair a lane and the scenario of a lost people with no sense of direction emerges.

Serpentine queues in front of fuel outlets with some camping over night so as not to be grounded on account of an empty tank best conveys the acute scarcity of fuel following the snapping of the only lifeline for the last three weeks or so.

In any other parts of the country or even the world such a situation would have meant people abandoning their motor vehicles and taking to other means of transportation where fuel is not required such as the cycle or the rickshaw cycle. And in all likelihood this would have also meant the Government being put on the scaffold for utterly failing to govern.

Such a situation should have automatically meant a reduction in the number of engined vehicles plying on the roads but traffic remains as heavy as before and the familiar sound and smell of noxious fumes, the honking of horns, the audibly clear swearing under the breath of some behind the wheels continue to characterise the roads of Imphal even now at this point of time when fuel rationing is seemingly on in full swing.

There can be two reasons for this interesting contrast that one sees all around. One, either the Government or the IOC authority is lying through its teeth when the information was issued that the stock of fuel has hit rock bottom or else it could mean that fuel is actually sold not through the designated petrol pumps but in the shady world known popularly as the black market.

Either way, any of the two possibilities does not cast the Government in good light. While some appear unwilling to patronise the black market and have talked about the possibility of suspending their official work, majority of the Government Departments continue to function as normally as earlier.

This in a way means that the latest round of fuel scarcity is on the verge of crippling some while others are still going full steam ahead. A case of fuel being available to those who can pull strings at the right time and at the right place ?

And no we are not talking about the Police Department or the Fire Brigade or the Health Services here. This is not all. School vans have also sounded the warning bell that they would not be able to continue their service if situation does not improve and with the SHDDC adamant on sticking to its course of action, it remains to be seen how the Government plans to address the issue.

So while the Government dithers, the public continue to take everything in their stride as if nothing is wrong. People's resilience or the failure to articulate their frustration and angst against a system which has failed to deliver even the most basic of needs ?

A number of hospitals have been forced to close their operation theatres as the supply of medical oxygen has been snapped since the SHDDC announced the enforcement of the highway bandh on August 1.

Amazingly there has been no protest from the side of the patient parties, a group of people notorious for losing their head over anything they perceive as negligence on the part of the medical professionals.

A different scale is perhaps used to measure the performance of the Government and the failure to ensure the delivery of something as essential as medical oxygen is not deemed to fit the description of negligence. Is Oxford Dictionary listening ?

Debates have been raging all over the place of whether the Nagas have a reason to oppose giving district status to Sadar Hills or whether the district demand is justified as it is along administrative conve- nience while issues like scarcity of fuel, spiralling prices of essential commodities, lack of life saving drugs at best make it to the footnotes.

Humanitarian crisis would have been the slogan inked in bold and raised all over the place, if this situation had prevailed in any other part of Planet Earth. So far this has not happened and may not happen at all.

Maybe the people of Manipur are aliens and maybe this is the reason why an archaic legislation like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act continue to decide who should be killed and when here.

So while the people try to find their way out of the maze of confusion, Chief Minister O Ibobi and his men continue to come out with incomprehensible mumblings such as “the Government is looking into the issue (Read as Sadar Hills).”

This is not the time to be looking into things. Maybe an early morning walk around the fuel outlets in Imphal would be more than enough for the Chief Minister to stop this “looking into the issue” nonsense. Or does the present crisis stand to line the pocket of anyone ?

Whatever it may be, it is clearly yet another case of the common people being robbed of their daily quota of fresh air ! So hot is the air created by these political leaders