Eroding democratic institutions
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: August 14, 2012 -

It was more than an attack on an individual.

It was an assault on a crucial institution in a democracy.

It was also a manifestation of the failure of the State.

The August 11 bomb attack at the residence of the president of the All Manipur Working Journalists' Union by a group which come under the name of a splinter group of a breakaway faction of an armed group was not the first time and neither will it be the last.

There are however certain things which set this attack apart from the earlier assaults.

The bomb in this case actually exploded.

It also came in the midst of the intensified security measures taken up ahead of the Independence Day celebration on August 15.

It also came despite the journalists fraternity highlighting the threats and intimidations as well as the 'targeted' names of some Editors furnished by the attackers to the Government and the police.

Bombs are not uncommon in Manipur, but it says something profound when these bombs start to rain on an institution on which the very premises of democracy and by extension the legitimacy of the elected Government rests.

This was the message that was rung out when the bomb landed and exploded at the courtyard of the president of AMWJU, but has this stuck to the consciousness of the Congress Government.

Does it really care ? Ideally this should not be the time to deal with such questions, but so dicey is the situation, that raise these questions, we must, if not for the security of journalists but to protect an edifice of democracy.

So muddied has the situation become that today it borders on the impossible to tell the chaff from the grain and to a large extent the Government and its agencies should be held responsible for creating such a situation in the first place.

When prisons, in this case Sajiwa jail, become a sort of haven for criminals to draw up their agenda and actually have them carried out outside the four walls of the jail, when groups with dubious antecedents are accorded a certain status by engaging them in political dialogue, when the unofficial talk is about the Government agencies using such groups for their clandestine operations, then the first casualties are undoubtedly going to be the very foundations on which the Government rests.

This is what has been happening in Manipur for far too long.

Not without a reason are fingers pointed at the contractor-politician-gun slingers-security forces nexus.

When journalists are not in a position to dispense with their duty in a secure environment, when each telephone call turns into threats with dire consequences, when security personnel are deployed at media houses, the tall talk of the Government that law and order has improved sounds pathetic.

It is a classic example of Imphal and Delhi refusing to broaden their vision and break free from the shackle of viewing everything through the prism of insurgency.

The force that is impacting on the functioning of the media here is removed from the classical understanding of the armed movement or insurgency.