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In Manipur, the negation of things which we are today, but which we are not suppose to be, will make us what we will be tomorrow. We have been the people who we are not, and it is quite essential that we take the people-less off and be the people-full what we are supposed to be. It is unfortunate that this process of resistance has its origin in the cynicism around us. We have been brought up in such a milieu where blood, violence, avarice, irrationality and other such negativism rule the roost. There has been an undercurrent, though, flowing swiftly to show we are a product of our times, that we cannot do away with it completely but that we will not be, never be bogged down by the inevitable pressures, and equally, we can always strive for a better living condition and experimentation with the stand we will have to take foursquare now.

NEGATION AS AN ACT OF RESISTANCE When the fake clothes of our society are stripped off completely, there is nothing to be lost for we are lacking the virtues already. The best part is that we will be left naked only with the essence of humanity, with nothing to be humiliated but with new ideas and events to clothe us. In the same breath, it is hard to add anything substantial in this heap of nothingness, in which social fermentation has outrage every little bit of modesty. We desperately need a new attire. We are patient to get restarted, not because discretion is the better part of valour, but there is a conceptual relativity that has hold true for as long as the history of human civilization. It does not mean either that we are laid-back; it only implies we are not extremists to go to the extent of using force and aggression or whatever means we have. We don’t need gods, governments, academe, authority and any kind of agency, but the gradual conscious actualisation that we are thinking animals capable of living in a just and equal society — with the acts of negation — is enough to make a fresh beginning. We can do it because we need it.

There are four reasons why the negation is vital, instead of delving into affirmation and weeding out the unneeded. 

Firstly, there is an all-round decay, in which we have lost ourselves in a whirlpool of problems inside problems that it will be clearer only if we start on a new slate. Secondly, we are still too primitive as showcased by our daily animal instincts and conducts and we can change this fact only when have the courage to let the primitivism go. Changing the game altogether is better than the changing the rules in the usual game we are tired of playing. Thirdly, we have a crumbling system that entails more subjugation and less organisation from different authorities which are contradictory in their farcical goals and objectives. Even the pattern of normative thought and action, which should have been there without question, is lacking miserably and this has been replaced by unbridled corruption, violence and a social image tarnished with the scum of its own decomposition. Fourthly, this negation will be an act of showing solidarity to all the right-thinking people and will be an act of resistance. 

To tweak Loius Althusser’s views in Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses, and slightly taking out from its economic basis, we can safely say, “The ultimate condition of a just society is the reproduction of the conditions of a just society.”

What do we have to negate is the main issue. This has been the problem, after we have been allowing unrestrained flow of the negation-able things that are creating all the dilemmas and unresolved multi-threading issues, though fortunately, this will be the solution as well, when we succeed in our endeavour if we are able to negate all the negation-able pieces of craps. For example, on one hand, there is the authority, which exists without a fine distinction in both legal and illegal forms, and on the other hand we are further subjugated by their repressive laws and diktats imposed on us. Our responsibility is to oppose this kind of situation, to tell them directly their freedom to wave their hands as an authority in the unknown streets ends where our nose begins.

NEGATION GUIDE The points of negation are further illustrated by two well-known quotes. The first one, by Groucho Marx, who said out of one thousand men, only one of them is the leader and the other 999 follow women. Another Marx, who needs no introduction, chipped in, perhaps earlier than the first Marx that religion is the opium of the mass. And as a simple non-believer, let me add that if there are many people right away, we only have a pop culture as if we have been controlled by an invincible, unrefutable force, controlled by our desire and lust and the economy of the rich or in plain terms, by our longing for satisfaction that most of the time in the groovy-wooby, razzle-dazzle sites, we miss the trees for the woods. The people, including everyone of us, must know that our beliefs and our mentality decide the common destiny to a great extent. So it is urgent to negate our action and beliefs at the beginning. Our action, or rather inaction and plain foolishness are the chief causes of the condition we are living in today; and our beliefs, dictated by irrational processes such as religion and primitivism, are the other cause of the wretched condition. See territorial pissing which is an annual crisis. Read about the imagined histories of the people. Take part in the spiritual celebration of so many adopted religions. In the end what we get is what we have always got: blood, bombs and bullets. But our gods did hide the boobs and booze, declaring they impaired our judgment when we are already so animalistic.

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If there was one thing we could put our faith into, we presumed it was the people at the helm. But the result is out in the open. Our disinclination to be responsible to ourselves and the greedy, power-hungry human nature act as catalysts in our time to produce this reactionary approach. Negation is a proactive stance, and it may perhaps have some flaws from the perspective of structural and pragmatic approaches, however, there are rooms for improvement. While many of us are feeling alright, waiting to respond to the situations and offer solutions, the very act of resistance serves us a special purpose of finding a way out of the great mess or any impending shitty situations that we never lack of. 

No doubt, we are already in a bloody spoiled soup, otherwise life could have been easy and comfortable, without us having to seek for various alternatives to the present living condition. And as a gradual process, which we will be using as a means, it is vital that it starts from the individual. If there are other better ways to achieve the common end of a free and just society, we can discuss them with views tolerated on both sides of the fence, and further negation or affirmation as the case may require.

If at all this kind of society is possible, we can do away from the rhetoric on repressive forces, state interference, free market and so on; and if at all the tenets were implemented voluntarily, it would have been unnecessary to deliberate on its supposedly utopian approach, for we might have achieved the ultimate condition of a free and just society. However, this is the best plan of attack; to show the ‘terrible face of an irritated Manipur’.