Everybody is a loser
- The only gain is systemic decline -

Amar Yumnam *

Be on the move does not necessarily imply getting somewhere. We may be indulging in movements, but that would not inevitably imply that we are reaching a destination. This principle applies to all, state or non state.

Time to Reassess: There has been no teaching and learning taking place in our land for well over three months now. Now has come the time for us to evaluate the outcome of this non-learning and non-teaching condition. This evaluation should apply to both state and non-state agents.

The fundamental principle of any movement or change should be such that the resultant outcome should benefit some without jeopardizing or negatively affecting that of anyone else. The change and resultant outcomes should happen within a reasonable period of time depending upon the nature of the phenomenon involved so that the fruits are meaningful and any negative outcome could be timely and adequately addressed.

Well lives are being lost, no doubt, and many under absolutely dubious circumstances. These should be stopped, and there can be no two opinions on this. But having said this, the question arises as to whether absolute sacrifice of education in order to achieve this goal is appropriate, and even if it is so, for how long. Even if we leave this question unanswered, there are many other issues yet to be debated.

Whatever the situation, the fact remains that stopping education can never be a right decision. The competition today is fundamentally knowledge-based. Further this competition is becoming fiercer and more globalised by the day. It is for this reason that education is the prime concern of every society everywhere in the planet.

Besides the undisturbed provision of education, every society endeavours that constant innovation in this sector mark the behaviour of the agencies responsible for looking after this sector.

When days and months are sacrificed without any educational input, we are just allowing our future generation to degrade by each day and each month. The losers are the children who should be accumulating human and knowledge capital today so as to prepare them for the big global competition they would be facing in their adulthood.

Well it goes without saying that the society of tomorrow would consist of the children of today as members. So non-preparation of today's children amounts to the society not preparing to face tomorrow. When we lost the present of today, we are losing the future of society.

Besides this general loss, there are costs additionally incurred by the poorer sections of the society. It is now globally accepted that education is the best means to escape from poverty. The poor families of today have only education of their offspring as the hope to escape from poverty when the latter become earning adults. It is in the interest of a stable society that the children of poor families today grow into non-poor adults tomorrow.

Still further, education has a unique character of its own. Sacrifices in agricultural or industrial production due to periodic disturbances can be thought of getting recovered once the production process gets in place and through more intensive methods. This kind of approach cannot however be adopted in the education provision. There are no short-cuts to education; we say leap-frogging is not possible in education. It is marked by gradualism and cumulativeness.

Now we have used stoppage of education in pursuit of certain objectives. As seen above, this involves losses difficult to redeem both at the individual and social level. If the objectives are achieved sooner than later, the better for otherwise the loss gets doubled, tripled, quadrupled and so on.

If the goal is going to take a long time to achieve, it is pretty bad for education cannot be sacrificed for infinity. If, on the other hand, the goal is not achieved at all, the prestige of the agents, who had utilised education as a means to achieve the end, would get terribly damaged. So in addition to the losses relating to education, we would have the injury suffered by the agencies themselves.

Thus we can have injury of the social organisations utilising education as a means for achieving certain goals in addition to losses of individuals and losses of society consequent upon stoppage of education.

State and Government: The State having been under such an imbroglio for periods longer than warranted, we should now be very critical of the behaviour of the state and the government serving the state. Any state anywhere under the sun takes education as a very serious business.

This is the reason why governments everywhere leaves no stone unturned to provide the best possible education to the children and youths of the land. They even sponsor youths for education abroad so that the citizens of the land are prepared for competition and social advancement. This is how governments should behave.

But in the case of Manipur, there has arisen a condition of absolute disconnect between the interest of the state and the interest of the government. The state is paramount and every government should only be serving the interest of the state. But in Manipur it is as if the state is subservient to the government.

Whereas it is in the irrevocable interest of the state that education should be provided under any circumstances, the government seems to be unperturbed by the stoppage of education in the land. Under any circumstances, the state is more important than the government.

The government in Manipur has neither been able to control the crisis nor resolve the problem. A government which neither controls nor resolves a social imbroglio and thus compromises the interest of the state has no moral legitimacy to continue in office. So the government must go in order that the state survives.