Our Diaspora
- A strength made unutilized -

Amar Yumnam *

The recent news of Manipur being at the top of Google search engine users is a sharp reminder of the strength the State has. Earlier we use to say that find an academic institute in any corner of the country, there one would invariably come across at least one Manipuri student.

Now this presence of students everywhere in the country has been replaced by the presence of Manipuris at the level of employees throughout the world. This is a major transformation from the stage of student emigrants to the stage of decision-maker emigrants;

Manipuris have now upgraded themselves from knowledge receivers to equal partners in the knowledge race at the global level. But this has come with the phenomenon of heavy emigration of qualified personnel from the soil – a kind of sons and daughters not remaining attached to the soil.

Reminds Me: This reminds me of the contemporary debate as to whether emigration of skilled personnel is a case of Brain Drain or Brain Bank for the sending country. If the sending country suffers from absolute lack of innovators as a result of the emigration, she suffers heavily in terms regress in growth potential and growth rates.

This is a case of Brain Drain. On the other hand, if the sending country has the capability and utilizes the source of higher exposure to better technology due to the presence of relatives elsewhere, she enjoys a higher growth rate. This one implies Brain Bank. Well the resultant scenario depends upon what the contextual realities of the sending country are.

The Issue: Well, the issue before us now relates to which category Manipur belongs. Does she belong to a category of land which has been able to capitalize to the relatively huge Diaspora, or to another which has regressed because of the emigration of skilled youths.

We know for sure that Manipur somehow has failed to grow and the pains of it are being felt increasingly. The question to be asked is whether this failure implies Brain Drain. Well, there are many compelling reasons for not accepting this as the true case.

The very fact that the remaining youths are performing wonderfully well in areas like sports speaks of the great salient talent of the remainders in the land. To put it another way, those who remain in the soil still have the capability to bank on the potential access to better technology and greater innovativeness offered by the Diaspora.

The Tragedy: The tragedy lies in the reality that the growth accompanied by higher exposure to better technology has somehow not happened here; the Manipur case differs from the normal international scenario. This is where we should be applying our mind in searching for the explanations.

We do understand that certain parasitic and corrupt elements have by now emerged powerful in our land, and they are capable of stunting any new entrepreneur. Here we must ask without delay as whether we should resign ourselves to this scenario. I would hasten to respond that we should not. If we are to remain as silent spectators and made absolutely incapable of anything, what is the need of the state at all. This is exactly the situation where the state should be more conscious and conscientious.

There can be many worse situations in any land – bad socio-economic environment, bad institutions and what not. But there should always be a remedy for these. This remedy lies in policy response. The state should not only have the willingness and capability to evolve policies for addressing such diseases, but also implement such policies. This is where we find ourselves in the weakest spot. We are yet to have a kind of governance willing to live up to the challenges.

Here we now see symptoms of another tragedy coming our way. The long and continuous corruptibility of the administration of the land has now eaten into the very social fabric of the land. We now find that almost every conceivable aspect of social life of the land is now afflicted by this disease of corruption so much so that we are deceiving even ourselves.

Now the market is increasingly flooded with fishes fed with everything bad for human health. Again, the vegetables in the market are now infested, not with diseases, but insecticides and other elements detrimental to human health. The marketed chickens are now rich in steroids which can be anything but goodness to our health. Well all these are signs of the increasing density and intensity of corruption in the land.

The Future: Well, the future of our land is at great stake now. Not only is the administration corrupt, but the society also is now becoming increasingly corrupt. This is a kind of situation which should not be allowed to continue. The administration cannot remain fishing in troubled waters (waters troubled by its own deeds).

On the part of the public, let us resolve collectively that we should now allow ourselves to become partners in corruption. Every partner in corruption would ultimately become victim of corruption. We already have a rich Diaspora, and let us all collectively try to capitalize this resource for social development.