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Front Page >> Editorials > Story

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Operation Clean Up
Two things are very clear. One, the underground organization, KYKL, is intent on cleaning up the dirt that has besieged the Education Department for long and two, corruption has eaten into the vitals of the State Education Department and the system that passes off as education has been reduced to a big farce in Manipur. Ever since KYKL launched it’s now well known Operation New Kangleipak to cleanse the rot in the education system, we have seen a number of employees of the Education Department being pulled up and punished with a bullet or two in their legs.

One exam invigilator had to even pay with his life for looking the other way round while candidates merrily copied from their smuggled notes during the HSLC examination one or two years back. A number of teachers have also been ‘advised’ by the outfit to take voluntary retirements for not dispensing with their duties diligently while on exam duty and some functionaries of Manipur University have also been pulled up by the outfit and punished with bullets in their legs. Not too long ago, sometime at the fag end of 2002 and at the beginning part of this year, we saw how some employees of the Education Department were taken captive by the KYKL and put on trial.

That the lives of the employees were spared following the large scale appeal from the public is a different story but it clearly demonstrated that the outfit today means business. And of course it also goes without saying that corruption has become synonymous with the State machinery and if we may add corruption is synonymous not only with the Education Department but also with all other Government Departments and this malaise can be removed only when the people as a whole wake up to the need to root out or contain this social disease.

A high ranking Government officer, IS Laishram, is currently in the custody of the KYKL and the outfit has already come to the people to give their verdict on the mode of punishment that should be awarded to the senior officer. We cannot write off the overwhelming sense of tragedy over the whole issue for here we are not only talking about the life of a man but about the system in which the people have been forced to live all these years. Is Mr Laishram a victim of the system from which he could not extricate himself or did he willingly become a part of the system where greasing palms and changing money under the table has become the accepted norms?

We really do not have the answer at this moment but it is a telling commentary that it has taken an underground outfit, which has been dubbed unlawful by the Government, to try and cleanse the system. More than anything else, the current scenario is damning proof that the Government has failed to put a mechanism in place to check corruption in high places and it is to fill up this vacuum that an underground organization like the KYKL has come forward to assume the role of the watch dog of society and fight corruption.

More than the particular officer who is presently in the custody of the outfit, we think the Manipuri society as a whole should hang its head in shame for remember, the very officer who is being put on trial is a product of this society and in one way or the other we all have contributed in our own way to condemn our society to this damning situation. Corruption happens not only in the higher echelons of the Government Department but even at places as mundane as the fish market where our Imas do not cringe about using faulty weights to cheat the customers. This however should not mean that we should wring our hands in despair and accept everything as fait accompli. No efforts should be spared to right the society and education is the best field to start the cleansing process.

(Courtesy: The Sangai Express)

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