Divide, Divide and be Divisive
- Manipur today -

Amar Yumnam *

Manipur today wears a painful scenario. I call it painful because the approach either at the societal level or at the policy level is characterized by a strong feature of divisiveness.

Every institution, every policy, every community and what not seems to be so attuned to the spirit of divisiveness slowly eating into the collective as well as individual ethos of the land that none seems to be taking notice of that.

In order to articulate how I have come to such a malign scenario, I use two ongoing events, one social and another political with lots of socio-politico-economic implications.

The social event I have in mind is the widespread Lai-Haraoba being celebrated in the plains, and the other political event is the recent killing of people having their origins in a mountain district of Manipur.

Lai Haoraoba: Lai Haoaroba in the past must have definitely played the role of social cohesion, community sharing and collective articulation of social future of people residing in the limited boundary of a village.

In those days, when there was little diversification of activities of people and little socio-economic stratification, the coltish atmosphere of Lai Haraoba must have been the perfect platform for sustaining social unity.

To use a modern term, the Lai Haraoba must have been a wonderful impetus for strengthening the microfoundations of the national polity of the land. Celebrating the festival for days or weeks in those days was both needed and justifiable.

The question to be raised, pondered over and appropriately respond to today relates to the rationale of celebrating this festival for days or weeks in this modern world without compromising on the original spirit of strengthening and sustaining the social unity of the village.

I raise this in the context of the vastly changed circumstances of today. Unlike in the past, there is wide diversification of people’s activities today. Besides there has arisen over the years a kind of socio-economic stratification unseen and unthinkable in the past.

These are realities we can forget only at our societal risk. These realities make the kind of village-wide participation of the historical period unachievable.

We now see a group of people with less macro involvement busy with the micro Lai Haraoba celebrations, and there are naturally gossips on those who do not and cannot attend the celebrations because of their involvements at the larger macro level. This scenario aggravates the socio-economic stratification already in place.

In plain words, Lai Haraoba divides people into two groups of those who are busy organizing it and those who simply cannot find much time for that. These clearly are a violation of the initial spirit of the festival for strengthening the social cohesiveness and enhance the quality of national polity.

Well having said so, it is incumbent on our part on how to restore the original spirit and capability of the festival.

One approach, I have in mind is of confining the celebration to just two or three days at the most (one day of fullest participation would be a perfect social equilibrium) and thereby ensure the participation of the maximum across socio-economic strata and activity categories of people.

Such an approach would certainly serve as a means for bridging whatever divide is there round the year due to non-interaction across people of different activities and strata.

Killing in the Neighbour: In recent weeks, reports of death of people having their origins in a mountain district of Manipur are coming from a neighbouring land. Well to begin with, loss of life anywhere is unfortunate because it can never be restored once taken.

But what really disturbs me is the absolute absence of concern by all on the ongoings. First, we do have a Council of Ministers or at least a set of sixty elected members.

We certainly would have expected them to rise when the people sharing common origins suffer a kind of tragic environment elsewhere. Who would come for them if these ministers or elected representatives from their land of origin do not?

It is absolutely immaterial if some of the persons of the suffering group might have worked against the interest of Manipur. Secondly, while the political class has been uttering so much about territorial integration, it is really unfortunate that this class is absolutely silent when people of a mountain district of the land suffer loss of lives at this juncture.

At least, we would have expected the head of the people to do two things – one of making an open appeal to ensure the safety of his people to his counterpart in the neighbour, and two, to go himself to the concerned district of origin where those who fled the scene have returned. It is his bounden duty to give them support, make them feel the citizenship of the land and strengthen their commitment to Manipur.

Thirdly, even at the Manipur-wide level the absence of any voice of support of adversely affected common people of the mountain district painfully reflects the divisive mindset prevailing in the land.

My Argument: My ultimate plea as well as argument is that we need to seriously look at our own selves, our own communities, and behaviour of our political class as to the divisive mentality we all have nurtured over the years.

The sooner we endeavour to shred this mentality, the better would be for all of us.