Who represents people
- An acute shortage of trust in Manipur -

Amar Yumnam *

The Washington Bureau Chief of the Financial Times, Edward Luce, recently had a lunch together with the legendary Watergate exposing journalist, Bob Woodward. The conversation is reported in the June5, 2009 edition of the Financial Times. One observation of Woodward is worth quoting: Democracy dies in darkness.

The real thing to worry about is secret government the constant accumulation of power. Its actually a conservative notion that accumulations of power arent good..There is a whole apparatus set up in government institutions to keep people out from finding whats really going on.

In the background of reading this conversation with Woodward, I have recently had exposure to the talks of a moralist whose life has been devoted to the cause of humanity, Niketu Iralu. Besides the important insights into how sincerity, frankness and opening out to one another can address many of the intractable intra- and inter-community tensions and convert the hurt incidents into fond memories, another fact also came out strongly in the interactions with him, i.e., the distrust of state.

Distrust Endemic: Distrust of the state by the public and distrust of the public by the state have become endemic in this part of the country. But this atmosphere can never be the basis for a sustainable democracy. There is wise observation by Jacques Necker, who was Finance Minister to Louis XVI: Only fools, pure theorists, or apprentices fail to take public opinion into account.

In our own land the distrust of the state by the public has become so deep-rooted that even positive actions by the government go unappreciated. The recent attempts by the government to regulate and systematise the traffic in Imphal are positive moves, but these have not impressed the public to the extent it should.

Well, I do not know if this below par appreciation has anything to do with a very friendly phenomenon we keep seeing in Imphal: An autorickshaw would take wrong turns, sometimes even removing the ropes blocking traffic, and on seeing that a traffic policeman comes rushing angrily. However, the driver and the policeman touch each others hand and the anger immediately turns into a smile to signal go ahead. That is the power of touch, but a daily symbol to distrust anything government.

This distrust is at a very lower level. But it does not stop there and extends to every branch of government and affects every level of it.

The tragedy is that the distrust goes in the other direction as well. The government does not show any kind of trust of the public either. It is as if it thrives on treating every citizen a suspect.

Otherwise one cannot explain a boy who has just excelled in a recently announced examination being held overnight in a police station and make him experience what a torture is like. Such incidents mar the efforts of the present police chief to reach out to the public by holding debating competitions for the students, putting up billboards favouring people, and trying whatever little possible under the circumstances to bring the public on the side of the police.

It is also that the government thrives in the darkness by keeping the public out as suspects. Here the contemporary socio-political scenario has become handy to the government. It blames the situation for non-performance like the workman who quarrels with his tools. But it does not stop the drain of public money.

Peoples Plight: The plight of the people in this context is that the powerful parties on both sides of the state have usurped whatever little space they could use as their medium for assertion. Their power has been reduced to only the cash they can demand and receive for favourable voting at the time of elections.

It is in such circumstances that the civil society organisations should come to the rescue of the democracy and the general public. They should be the ones fostering the spirit of democracy by nurturing transparent engagements among the public. They should be the agencies working to preserve the prevailing social capital while at the same time generating new ones.

But something seems to have gone amiss here as well in Manipur. The civil society organisations in most cases have been usurped and gagged. In fact, defining a civil society organisation has become a very difficult task in Manipurs contemporary context.

But this scenario adversely affects the interest of democracy and the interest of the general public. This, however, conveniences any powerful group, state or otherwise, to get away with anything.

The worst effect of this is the demolition of all social institutions and ultimately the very character of the society itself. Well, we endeavour in right earnest to escape from this quagmire or we perish.