Myxomatosis
- The disease now inflicting Manipur society -

Amar Yumnam *

Let me begin with a time saving device for majority of the readers by doing away with the need for referring to the dictionary. Well, let me reproduce the meaning of myxomatosis straightway. It is a highly infectious and usually fatal disease of rabbits that is caused by a pox virus and is characterized by many skin tumors. I am reminded of this disease by the way every event and every agent in the State are getting unfolded in the recent past.

Irresponsive Government and Press Strike: The immediate factor which has been disturbing me and worry about the disease is the recent many days long strike by the information media and the government irresponsiveness during the period. This is a very disappointing scenario given the character of the government and the various pressure groups during the last few years.

The last few years have been marked by two prominent features in so far as the relationship between the state (read government) and the various groups of people are concerned.

The state has been marked by a conspicuous case of lack of responsiveness to issues of general interest raised by a group or not; it has doggedly blinded itself to issues of common concern. Secondly, on the other hand, prolonged adoption of a strategy of blockade, bandh or general strike has been the frequently resorted to means of the various groups of people.

The social (government is also a part of this social) disease comes out very glaringly in the recent tussle between the information media and the government. The extremely horrible and unfortunate loss of an enthusiastic pressman has turned out to be the test case for the presence or otherwise of the debilitating disease.

Why We Read the Press: There are multiples of reasons signifying the importance of the news media. We read the newspapers for they give us the information. Secondly, the information is needed as fuel to our thinking process collectively as well as individually. In the absence of this fuel, we just cannot imagine technological change, societal evolution, and whatever related to developmental transformation.

The usual role of the news media as provider of information gets accentuated in the case of a democracy. Democracy entails two types of information flows, one between the government and the public, and the other among the people themselves.

The first flow is indispensable to make the government responsive to the needs of the public, and similarly to make the public responsive to the needs of effective governance.

The second flow of information supplies the public with the fuel to fire their deliberations, and make them responsible enough to put up responsive representatives for a responsive government.

The Recent Tussle: The recent brawl between the press and the government betrays the absolute lack of responsiveness by the latter to issues of major concern to the public. Well, the government has every right to differ with the charges of the press.

But this does not absolve the administration of the responsibility to see to it that there prevails a thriving flow of information between it and the public. It should have ensured one of these two conditions.

First, during the period of strike by the press, it should have pressed into service its own agents so that there at least were a minimum flow of information in the society.

Secondly, being the government, it should have been prudent enough and its coaxing capacity influential enough to see to it that the news media did not close shop for long. But, quite unfortunately, our government failed to live up to any conceivable yardstick of governance in its role towards the press.

Now let us look at the news media as well. Well, I do personally feel so sad that a young life was finished so easily and that too under dubious circumstances. But, stopping the publication of newspapers for days on end smacks of the disease I had mentioned in the beginning becoming wide spread.

News media are powerful in their presence and not in their absence. This cardinal principle was left aside for quite a few days. There could have been daily criticisms of the lack of accountability and responsiveness of the government of the land in relation to the particular issue at hand. In not doing so, many crucial public debates on the death of the young soul were missed.

In the End: In the end, we still long for a responsive government. The long years of wait have yet to make any difference. But we miss our press in our daily chore, and we do not want them to suffer from the debilitating disease of prolonged strikes.