In any society, every organ of the government is expected to play its own role in governance and complement each other’s good work. This requirement is all the more fundamental in the case of Manipur, given her record of non-governance for a pretty long time and a chaotic social situation.

Police Administration: We have been attacking the police administration of the State for the last two decades or so for her incompetence-turned-arrogance, flamboyance rather than performance, and an overall lack of application of mind to handling crises. But of late, there are signs of shredding these images and application of mind to handling crises.

Instead of the earlier fire-brigade approach, there now appears to be prophylactic application of mind. This new image is visible at least in the State capital and her nearby areas. The State now seems to be moving towards a thinking police rather than incoherent brute force. In fact, this is exactly what would serve the people and land in good stead.

Civil Counterpart: What we should, however, remember is that any society is not sustained by police alone. The police are fundamentally there to smoothen the flow of social dynamics by taking care of the occasional irritants and disturbing efforts. There is a larger role of the civil administration towards ensuring that conditions requiring police intervention are minimized.

This is all the more so in the present context of Manipur where the police force is already overstretched. It is exactly at this juncture that we need to critically examine the current behaviour of civil administration in Manipur.

While doing so, we have two historical experiences in mind. First, there are many instances when the civil administration acted in a very time-inconsistent way. It would withdraw even a seemingly right decision taken in public interest in the face of protests at a time when the police started to take control of the situation.

This has had a demoralising lesson for both police and general public. Secondly, there is hardly any example of the civil administration having executed its role satisfactorily in recent memory. In contemporary execution of projects even in the vocal and articulated Imphal area, there are ample signs of lethargy, incompetence and absolute delay.

With this background, I would like to evaluate one policy move and the development works in Imphal.

First, the policy move. It has been reported that the State administration is contemplating legal action against the protagonists for general strikes and bandhs. Well, given the general hatred for such disturbances now, there indeed is a need for action on this front.

But the question is, given the lack of political will and the command of administration, I am afraid if the contemplated approach would ever be enabled to serve the purpose.

I would not be surprised if it ultimately results only in a further round of law and order problem to be tackled by the police. While this is the most likely possibility, nothing can be more unfortunate than this for reasons more than one. The fundamental question to be addressed relates rather to the quality of governance.

Can we really have a meaningful legislation without first improving governance? There is still the core issue of quality of governance to be addressed. Any legislation unaccompanied and preceded by an improved governance would only result in further stretching the already overstretched police.

The other aspect I would like to dwell on is the various digging ups in all directions around Imphal. In general, there are two strategies for executing such tasks – one is like the present approach of simultaneously executing all at a time, and the other is piece by piece approach.

The first approach causes massive related disturbance, but for a limited period if completed on schedule. The second approach, on the other hand, causes very little project related disturbance but the completion is lengthened. Both approaches are right according to the context.

In the case of the project in Imphal, the State government has gone for the first option as evident from all the digging up all around Imphal. This would be alright if the government sees to it that the project is completed on time, but this is exactly what we are doubtful.

There has been no recent example of the State administration completing anything in time. If the present project goes the same way, about a week’s delay would have the same impact on the economy as a one day general strike. We are not ready for more general strikes from the government by default.

In fine: We now see the police applying brain to tackling problems. We would closely watch how the civil administration rises to the occasion. We would not like the good effort of the police being collapsed by a poor civil administration.