It is always an established fact that Manipur today faces an innumerable number of repressive forces and measures both from state as well as non state actors. While it is also true that liberty becomes licence when it goes unchecked, today we are standing ourselves on a time bomb of anarchy waiting to be exploded any moment.

While the term "General Strike" is often used and resorted to for mobilising the people to unite and act again certain repressive acts such as AFSPA, the frequency of such strikes called by an innumerable number of organisations, sometimes, do produce the opposite effects what they are meant to serve.

The term itself is meaningless when the popular psyche seems to accept the dictates out of fear or other irrational factors. This is not to say that general strike as a potent weapon for the masses to act against the unwanted but seemingly democratic laws of the establihment has lost much of its credibility and effectiveness concerning Manipur. History has produced a plethora of evidence that has proved successfully that these peoples movements have won and will always win in future too.

However, the frequency of calling general strikes in manipur has also resulted in many disadvantages concerning the lives of thousands of people who live from hand to mouth every single day. This is a reality we need to accept at this moment when Manipur is passing through through a chaotic transition in world history with it vanishing borders among nations. The need that lies ahead of us is to search for alternatives for achieving the ends we seek for they are genuine and we know they are true.

The goals we have placed before us to achieve is not to see a paralysed Manipur but rather its opposite. In this age of globalisation and complex interdependance among nations and groups we can't evade the fact that the changes the world has seen can elude and has eluded us. There is a need for free debate and discussion among our academia and people from all walks of life to work out and seek alternatives than strikes. The strategy must be to adapt and adopt other ways and means rather than clinging to old methods in a rapidly changing world. In Manipur even a school going kid knows how repressive and severe the ways (laws) of the armed forces are.

Our young people are growing up in a malfunctioning society where "Might is right". This is in total contradiction to the soaps and operas that everyday invade our homes through cable T.V. And isn't it better our kids go to school every day rather than spend much of their academic lives watching HBO,Bandhs and Strikes? The contradiction that we find in our psyche while working in the fields after watching a Hollywood movie will only grow when our kids grow up as young men and women .

The point of the argument is that there is a need in the change of our work culture and the way we protest against what we don't like. Ever since the day Manipur became a part of India the land has always been in a turmoil what we can aptly term the "Long Anarchy". The need of the hour is to identify some of the factors that will affect the future expansion or contraction of the civil unrest in Manipur and to pose questions that seem most relevant for the largest self-proclaimed democratic country in the world to react and act against the ways we protest.

But it is mostly to ourselves to walk the way we ought to without letting bloodshed ruin our future. It may be too idealistic to think that India is likely to give up its policy of "Decide and Rule" in some near future. But the only way for our development in the future is to emulate the work cultures of the most developed nations of the world. As the saying goes, "In Japan only the left shoes made on strikes".