Force and Violence Killing Accountability
- Manipur's repeated indulgence -

Amar Yumnam *

We have a saying, almost reflecting an historical anecdote, to the effect that when you cannot stop the Thingel, blame the Nashikhong. And on top of that, history did not make the swindler of public opinion ultimately account for that.

In the historical period, in most instances, it was the royalty who could afford in such indulgence and that too quite infrequently. But quite unfortunately for all of us, this approach of acting on and hitting on diverted targets has become almost like our second nature during the last two decades or so of our social existence.

A Child Dies:

A school student staying in the hostel dies because of various possible reasons. We all feel sad about it. We also feel naturally anguish, anger and the urge to hit one and all on the way. What is paramount in this is the need to make the irresponsible accountable and make him pay the price for his negligence.

This is the appropriate course of action in any civilized society following the rule of law. But force closing down of the school is no answer nor is it a treatment for addressing any manner of irresponsibility. In fact, it amounts to committing multiples of crimes for addressing the fallout of a death.

First, closing the school because a student of the school has died under dubious circumstances amounts to killing all the other remaining students because for the formative ages regularity of education provision is imperative. Secondly, it also amounts to giving a cover to whomsoever guilty to get away in the din. Well these are simply the consequences none of us would like. The deceased soul would not like it either.

But the Reality:

But the social character of Manipur, particularly during the last two decades or so, has become increasingly oriented towards using collective force and collective violence for pressing a cause which has very little to do with the means adopted. We are increasingly adopting this method of establishing crude justice.

We have however forgotten that it is crude justice after all; crude justices would not hold water for long and cannot stand a society in good stead. For our social good in the present and for a sustainable society for our own children in the future, it is incumbent on our part to see to it that we evolve and put in place an impeccable system of establishing justice.

The Question:

This naturally calls of us to enquire how we have landed ourselves into the contemporary mess. As I said earlier, the particular quality of using a wrong means for chasing wrong targets has become our almost social habit during the last two decades or so. This being so, we need to examine the plausible causes which might have made the people increasingly behave so.

It is in the process of responding to this question that I would squarely put the original blame on the state as it has manifested in Manipur in recent years. The state has shown its most violent face and acted on the people. Now this violence would have been different if it had been truthful.

The violent face and acts of the state have been founded on absolute corruption and corruptibility. This naturally has created over the years an impression and atmosphere of violence without accountability. This has been aggravated by two other manifestations of state behaviour.

First, unfortunately for nearly a decade during the late 1980s and early 1990s the province's law enforcing agency was dominated by a character with flamboyancy, crudeness and rudeness and unhampered favouritism depending upon with whom he was dealing.

This particular character adopted the methodology of using violence to see to it that those close to him could get away with everything and that too during his helm. This character had anything but respect for the rule of law. Secondly, the justice delivery system, both at judicial and quasi-judicial spheres, in this land has been very suspect during the last two decades or so simultaneously with the deterioration in the behaviour of the state. It would really sap one's energy to fight for justice here.

Well, after all this, it did not take long for the lessons of violence and force to sink into the minds of the people. But there has never been any instance in the history of civilisation where violence and force have been lasting pillars for social advancement.

The time has now come for all of us to drive home this reality and stop targeting all so that the culprit is never established. As a society, we must now rediscover our civilisational values and act accordingly with a cool mind. We should stop killing the cat out of our curiosity.