| Uncertainty Always
The silence witnessed even for the past few days is almost uncanny for a state used to a daily staple of bloodshed and news of violence. Of course there have been stray cases of kidnapping and an odd dead body or two recovered from different corners of the state, but the general desensitization to blood and gore, resulting from an overdose of violence all around is that these seem too little to make for any exciting news.
Our threshold for alarm has been pushed up so high, that one or two unnatural deaths, particularly if they are not of bullet wounds, seem to deserve nothing more than brief, insignificant, one-paragraph news items. But this cannot be helped, for this is our reality at least for the moment. We are a brutalized society and our senses cannot escape the same brutalization.
When the violence recedes, and surface calm returns, life in the state is then suddenly reduced to a dreary maze of strikes, bandhs and blockades. As a matter of fact, so very often, the public is not sure when or where the next bandh or blockade is happening, or who or which organization is on a ceasework or a relay-hunger strike, if the latter makes any sense.
In the bargain, even normal, day-to-day, existence of the average citizen has been made so uncertain. We are not talking of business deals and entrepreneurial schedules, but the average man's private routine, including often his myriad social obligations, are continually upset. Even in the absence of violence, the mind is never at peace.
We understand it is a difficult proposition to bring about a solution to the insurgency problem overnight precisely because its roots lay much deeper than apparent. Its treatment will also have to be complicated. It is again understandable that government after government has pledged working for an honorable solution to insurgency and we have wished and still wish future governments success in this onerous mission. However, it is surprising that no government till date have actually thought of how much the people would be relieved if any of them was enterprising enough to consider tackling these other nagging problems.
We dare say these should not be as difficult as tackling insurgency. We dare say again that half of the government's vital job of getting a firm grip on the law and order would have been accomplished if it managed to instill public discipline on these matters. Again, it is wrong to think of a crumbling law and order situation only in terms of the government's inability to control insurgency. The issue is much wider than just it, although it undoubtedly is foremost.
How is a government that is unable to prevent crippling strikes, bandhs and blockades by any and sundry organization, in fact even by its own employees, effectively, instill any sense of authority, moral or temporal, amongst its larger subjects. It is also a real surprise that none of the election manifestos of the political parties released so far even vaguely deals with this contentious issue.
It does seem all of them see strikes, bandhs and blockades as legitimate rights of those who resort to them even when the issues are not public by any means. The silent suffering of the mute public because of these, also does not seem to constitute violation of human rights.
(The Imphal Free Press) |
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