From Conflict Situation to Absolute Chaos
- Manipur's recent trajectory -

Amar Yumnam *

International history is replete with examples of conflicts between sovereign forces and also state and secessionist forces. Conflicts are a rule rather than an exception in this world. But all the conflicts are marked by certain morality dominating and directing the conflicting parties. This gives a sense of direction and a glimpse of hope to the citizenry of an improved way of life in the long run.

Conflict and Chaos: As Hazlitt wrote in his The Foundations of Morality: "All human action is undertaken in order to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory state." Though any conflict would naturally create a certain amount of chaotic situation, people do not lose hope if they feel that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

But the conflict just becomes absolute chaos if the conflicting parties, state or otherwise, just indulge in actions without any force of morality, and the inter and intra characteristics all become dubious. If the scenario becomes one where each individual and each group, state or otherwise, tries to fish in troubled waters, then it is absolute chaos with no sign of light at the end of the tunnel and only conflict (or pretending conflict) for the sake of it. Such a society definitely is not liveable.

Well, I am afraid if Manipur has reached such a stage as every parent preparing to send her child outside for education, maturity and livelihood. If Bob Hope, the great American comedian, humorously said that he left England at the age of four when he realized that he could not be King, our children would proclaim on adulthood that they left Manipur for they value survival. We have now come to a stage where the non-state forces fighting a war against the state forces indulge in disturbing private initiatives and private agents as well.

State Character: While the non-state forces can have ups and downs in their quality of manifest behaviour, the role and responsibility of the state are quite different. It has long been understood, long before Milton Friedman, in Political Economy that human beings are basically self-interested.

The government too ultimately boils down to a bunch of self-interested persons. But we must hasten to recall David Hume who wrote in his 1742 classic Essays: Moral, Political and Literary thus: "[I]n contriving any system of government ... every man ought to be supposed to be a knave and to have no other end, in all his actions, than private interest. By this interest we must govern him, and, by means of it, make him, notwithstanding his insatiable avarice and ambition, cooperate to public good."

The implication of Hume's dictum is that, when it comes to the state, self interest should be dovetailed to the cause of public welfare, if not immediately but definitely in the long run, and incentive-driven policies should enhance social milieu for the citizens. This foundation naturally implies the presence of an omnipresent moral code dictating the lines of action for incentive driven public policies.

Since we have the raising of public welfare as the invariable objective of the state, it becomes fundamental for the state to see to it that good policies and programmes are evolved to make good any lapses the society might have collectively as well as ameliorate any weaknesses of individual-based dynamics. While any non-state force can evade the accountability blade, the state cannot and should not ever think of evading this blade. If it ever does, the society would sink forever deeper into a quagmire.

Manipur Today: This is exactly what has been happening in Manipur with increasing velocity in recent period. The weaknesses of federal polity are getting superimposed on the predicament local of Manipur. The state in Manipur is so marked by lack of social commitment and absence of social objectives that the hierarchy of administration is marked by absolute misinformation.

The head of any sectional head of the governmental organisation would not be fed with correct information by the subordinates but with only one moulded for convenience. This is particularly true in the case of law enforcing agencies. In other words, the whole machinery of governance in Manipur is marked by the absence of a moral or civil code binding the self interest of the people in the government with public welfare.

This local predicament is coupled by the presence of non-feeling state at the Centre or rather the absence of government at the Centre which cares for genuine nation building. The same process of misinformation for convenience from below and the above solely relying on this information for governance as this reduces responsibility gets repeated in the federal relationship as well.

The Centre finds the government in the federating unit more important than the people in the federating unit. This gives a convenient and powerful tool to continue misgovernance at the level of the federating unit while at the same time the Centre evades the blade of accountability in the name of federalism. Well this is a sure road to destruction.