Lost in the Transition
- Organisations of Manipur -

Amar Yumnam *

In my last two inputs in this column, I have spoken of the way institutions and "organisations" are deteriorating in this land of ours. In particular, I have written of the diminishing acceptability of the "organisations" of the State.

I have also spoken of how the "frontal organisations" are responsible for the downfall of acceptability and deterioration of the manifested image of the "organisations" themselves. In this input as well, I shall continue the discussion of the same issue.

A Decade Back: Now this deterioration of the "organisations" has reached a stage wherein this is being openly discussed even in the interactions between the indigenous scholars and the scholars and policymakers at the wider level.

This is something unimaginable a decade back. While there have always been detractors and non-believers on the sincerity and feasibility of the cause of the "organisations" all along, people generally laboured to make the underlying driving forces leading to the emergence of these "organisations" understandable to the outside world.

This was still under a period when the masses in general were expecting that something good would definitely result from the interventions and functioning of these "organisations" even though the realisation of the ultimate goal would not be easy.

Lost in the Transition: But the situation is now completely altered. Whatever little pride and confidence the people had in the ability of the people to revolt against injustice as manifested by the "organisations" have now been fairly evaporated. In short the "organisations" seem to have lost in the transition.

Now it is incumbent on my part to explain what I mean when I say so. As I have said, there definitely was a time until about a decade back when people expected positive fallouts of the interventions and functioning of the "organisations".

In other words, there definitely was a time when these "organisations" wielded power even without the use of weapons.

This power seems to have gotten into the heads of these "organisations". Instead of managing this power for cause of the people and take the status of them to a higher plane, the very power seems to be eating into the further continuance of them.

The "organisations" have utterly failed to manage power. Power corrupts, they say, and it seems to be truer in the case of Manipur’s "organisations". The enticing capacity of power is such that people do emerge who intend on riding on this. Two phenomena happened.

First, instead of consolidating the emerging power, the "organisations" rather concentrated on fast expanding the power base without strategic assessing of situations at each stage of transition.

In this process, they increasingly started making inroads into the civil society organisations, including students’ bodies, whose functionaries definitely did not have a proper background of indoctrination and grassroots involvement in causes of the "organisations" themselves.

Secondly, without much time gap, a group of people emerged who intended and piggy-rode on the power of these "organisations" but claiming commitment to their objectives. Since these people were non-rooted, their commitment to the causes of the "organisations" naturally proved to be transitory sooner than later.

This is exactly because of the manifested functioning of this group of people that the people now see the organisations as just another manifestation of corruption. Even more damagingly, the very functioning of the frontal organisations has had two more secondary effects.

First, the sanctity and credibility of these bodies have been compromised beyond redemption.

Secondly, as said above the functionaries of these bodies do not have the kind of ideological and grassroots preparation demanded of the "organisations". This, having been seen by the public in the functioning of these bodies, naturally compromised whatever the credibility and trust the "organisations" commanded earlier.

Increasing Disconnect: People now see a rising disconnect between the functioning of these frontal bodies and the original goals of the "organisations".

Rather they seem to be increasingly trapped in the personalised goals of the functionaries of the frontal organisations. It is as if whatever little remaining of the "organisations" would be dealt a deadly blow by the very functioning of the frontal bodies close to each.

The Concern: The concern of a common man in these developments is not envy of the new found power of the frontal bodies on issues and areas they have very little if anything to do. But the worry arises because any continuation of the present trend would only result in loss of lives without fully realising the causes.

I understand that for the success of a movement, it is important to widen the space of influence or broaden the constituency of the movement. But management of this widening of the influence base is no child’s play, and a little astray would only cost common lives. A small society like ours cannot afford to lost lives on weak grounds.