It is the not only the responsibility but the duty of any citizen in a democracy to raise objections or offer observations on any steps or acts taken up by the government which he feels is not in the larger interest of the people. The government should also take such observations into consideration so that people are involved in governance. The government should welcome such comments as it will make governance more inclusive.
The tendency to disregard or abuse such interested citizens does not auger well for the state; where those who offer suggestions or comments were deemed as enemy of the state and subjected to various intimidations. It does not necessarily mean that criticising the government is anti national, but rather such action put a brake on the lopsided policies of the government. Another point to be considered by those in power is that there are many who have a set of skills not available with the government in specific areas and their suggestions or comments can steer such policies to the right direction.
Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh after announcement that he will be visiting Jiribam, the latest district to be engulfed in the ethnic crisis, suddenly cancelled his visit. No doubt he sent one of his cabinet colleagues but his visit was cancelled much to the chagrin of the people of Jiribam. There was high expectation that his visit will lead to some positive action but that was not to be. There are regular skirmishes leading even to the death of a CRPF personnel on the hands of the Kuki militants. His death, from the information available in the public domain, was a result of a targeted firing from a sniper rifle.
But no, unlike in Jammu & Kashmir where any attack was countered by large scale combing operation involving all forces available on the ground to flush out the militants, in Jiribam or elsewhere in Manipur it was not so. There is a short video clip where certain central paramilitary forces tried to stop the state police to conduct operations in the surrounding areas where the jawan laid down his life.
The particular force may have been instructed by the higher ups to ensure that attacks and counter attacks do not happen. But one of the attackers who was injured and died in the incident is not a local but from Churachandpur. This indicates that the trouble makers are not locals who pressurised the locals with the sole intent to create trouble. The locals who are battling for peace need to be protected but those non locals who had come with the sole intent of creating problem need to be neutralised.
Jiribam, which barring some small incidents, was peaceful for more than a year but suddenly trouble started and both central and state must go deeper into who were behind this and take appropriate action. The referred viral video clip does no good to the reputation of the central paramilitary force involved and visually confirms the allegations that it is biased in its handling of the crisis, not necessarily overall but at least by some units. The CM’s visit to Khongsang to receive 15 rakes of PDS rice transported through the railways while failing to visit Jiribam, to say the least is, accordingly a lopsided priority.
The people are reeling under non availability of cooking gas and in the black market had even reached Rs, 2,500 per cylinder while the official rate is about Rs. 950/-. Both the people and the press had brought out this issue repeatedly but no action was taken and the people are still in the dark as to the reason for the scarcity. Similarly, the distribution of PDS rice is selective and there were complaints from people of Kshetrigaon AC that they have not received their quota but here also there was no reaction from the government. Good governance means responding immediately to the need and the concern of the people and failure to do so indicate poor governance with little or no care for the public.
DM University has been in the news for all the wrong reasons with the students on agitation. Some had reportedly been picked up by the police. For an alumni of the DM College which was converted into a university it hurts and the hurt must be much more to the current crop of students who had the possibility of losing one year. There have been instances in the past where students lost one year due to various reasons but these were beyond the control of the management but this time it was due to mismanagement. The relevant laws to establish the university were passed with fanfare but the university was not accorded the independence such institutions of higher learning were to be accorded and was administered like a government department.
The Supreme Court had in a plethora of cases had held that the regulations of UGC have the force of law but the regulations of the UGC were reportedly given a go by. To be fair to those in the helm of the DMU, they were given additional charges and besides they were not allowed to function independently. DMU was controlled through release of fund which should have been released on a quarterly basis but in the case of DMU, without running around, no fund was released and rather than releasing the full entitlement, there were cuts here and there forcing the management to resort to ad hocism.
In fact, all the state universities such as Manipur Technical University and Manipur University of Culture are also facing similar difficulties, though at different degrees. Not only in higher education, in school education it is even worse so much so that the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan had ironically been called Sarvanash Shiksha Abhiyan as despite huge investment there is hardly any positive outcome. The three Rs continues to be very poor in government schools with no improvement and most of the constructions either do not come up at all in a few places and those that had come up are totally sub-standard. Monitoring is totally lacking and even if, reports have no impact, as told by some Head Masters.
Ad hocism can be seen also in the case of Churachandpur Medical College; with most of its students having been shifted to Imphal. This was necessitated after the crisis started as almost all the faculty are from Imphal and most of the students are also not from Churachandpur. The Kuki-Chin students have got their career spoilt as most of the classes are run at JNIMS and COVID Hospital at Kiyamgei, and they could not attend; though some local Senior Residents have taken classes for the first year that cover para-clinical subjects but from second year onwards it will be very tough to maintain the classes. Some of the students brought to Imphal were accommodated in the hostel of State Academy of Training with the understanding that alternative arrangement will be made shortly.
But no alternative arrangement have been forthcoming and the students are staying put in the hostel forcing the SAT in dire difficulties in arranging accommodations for their outstation trainees and faculties while running various programs. The tendency to try to mitigate one problem by creating problem in other sectors has become the norm, which is no example of good governance. Problems must be settled without creating problems elsewhere but such approaches are rare to find.
It has repeatedly been brought to the notice of the government the need for free access of the two National Highways though proper security. NH 37 was included for completion within 100 days when the NDA came to power in 2014. But even now the road is still in poor shape and the government then tried to extricate its commitment claiming that it was not included in the 100 days program, without cutting any ice.
In addition to the security risk, the terrain is such that maintaining it roadworthy is not easy, especially during the monsoon. With the security risk, the road is literally not open without security cover. The inability to secure this road was a major weakness of the Government, especially disregarding Jiribam district which was peaceful then but tense. If some security personnel were deployed early in a few specific locations, the problem now faced would have been minimised. For the Meitei, travel outside is costly as one have to fly and it was assessed that there is an outgo of Rs 2 crore per day on air travel. For the Kuki-Chin those in Kangpokpi can travel by road to Dimapur to catch a flight, while for those in Churachandpur, one has to travel to Lengpui for the same which is time consuming and increases the cost.
Besides handling the crisis, government must ensure delivery of services so that people do not suffer. Priorities need to be allocated with vision or else people will suffer and may rise against the government.
(The views expressed are personal)
