Manipur Government Doesn’t Deserve to Exist Anymore

Image: Manipur Update www.manipurupdate.com

The general election is due early February next year. It is significant on two counts: one, electoral politics is the sole factor that reminds us of our lives in a democracy; and two, it is going to decide the fate of the people for the following five years. Over the years, however, the sole consequence of this regular circus is farcical to say the least. To take an example, we can cite the ongoing hostility inside the party of the incumbent government. Two main dailies in the town used the same word to describe the matter: ‘bickering’.

It is to this decaying process of the government that the current bickering in the ruling formation of the Congress is adding, therefore destroying further the moral legitimacy of the established order. — The Imphal Free Press, 1 April 2016

The uproar raised by 23 Congress MLAs may be quelled by reshuffling the existing Ministry led by Chief Minister O Ibobi within April 10. Even though a new MPCC president has been appointed by the AICC [All India Congress Committee], the bickering within Congress party has not been settled yet. — The Sangai Express, 31 March 2016

Never mind the third-class street politics but we can safely say the only motive of the so-called representatives is to get the proverbial chair once they are elected; while others are secondary, including the responsibility to serve the people who they claim to represent. We know how the government has failed us year in and year out but we are a herd of sheep. Looking forward to February next, we are going to go as a herd and expect several free meals, free drinks, free-everything because we know we are real freeloaders. And it is no surprise how successive governments have been taking us for granted.

Around the last election days, I was chatting to a neighbourhood elder, an English professor as well, how the general election is a scam, in which the union keeps putting a puppet provincial government that has a far vision that extends from Babupura and ends at the Legislative Assembly Building at the Capitol Complex.

I wanted to know his response, because he was also a worker for one of our local election candidates. And he did not disappoint me as he replied beating around the bush because it was more important to be a worker than anything, else especially when election was just around the corner. Another worker, who was standing by, joined us and started condemning another candidate as if it was really important. Well, my point is that people are actively participating in the political process in every manner, except in the way what it is supposed to be. Else what would describe the pathetic conditions that we have been putting up with all these years?

For the lack of a better term, the best that can describe our political life is jungle, where the authority has paradoxically no power except in flexing muscles around the public exchequer; the establishment is perforated with people poking their fingers into; and any group who care a tad can take the power into its hands; while there is no sight of solution to the eternal problems of armed conflict, social decadence and underdevelopment. This is the tragedy of our times.  

Again, around the last election days, another set of people who claim to be ‘the heart of revolutionary movement in Manipur’ and work for the people, arrived on the scene; however, they are no less pathetic. In the 2012 election, under the banner of the CorCom that comprise seven rebel organisations, they boycotted only the Congress party, which was like the committee had had a sort of epiphany and started believing in the Indian Constitution. In a way, it shows clearly the contradictions that have become a way of life, as in the case of our protest against the AFSPA while we join the police force in droves. Without claiming to work for the people or the motherland or the fatherland, or whatsoever, but in the name of humanity we should endorse the destruction of the entire system that also includes the present anti-system groups.

Somehow we cannot say about the non-state actors, which are already outside the establishment but ironically inside the system, but for the Manipur government, we can say with confidence that its destruction offers us full of promises, with the clearest objective in making a fresh start to our collective life. For sure the election circus and the culture of talking shops will cease automatically too.