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A Revolution Deferred
By Th Tarunkumar
By the time you read this, people would have exercised their franchise to elect
the 8th Manipur Legislature Assembly. Given the backdrop of the festering violent
insurgencies in which the elections have been held, it is a tribute to the
resilience of the democratic system that elections could be conducted without
the process itself being subjected to any significant challenge by the way of
either boycott calls or any concerned attempts to subvert the electoral process.
But the elections would also need to be looked at from an alternative
perspective, one that emerged and took shape from that irreducible base of
democracy: the people. In this case, the prism of the people taking over the
custodianship of the state's vital interests, which culminated in the mass
uprising of June 18. Viewed from this high ground in participative democracy,
the elections to the 8th Assembly cannot but be seen as a revolution deferred.
June 18, 2001, was truly a revolutionary watershed in the evolution of democracy
in Manipur. In retrospect, though, it would be more accurate to describe it as
an intimation of a revolutionary leap in the conception and practice of
participative democracy. Because the direction and agenda which was set during
the mass assertion of popular will- culminating in the total rejection of the
unprincipled and incompetent brand of politics, which the state has witnessed in
the last three decades of its existence (since 1972) - pointed the way to
self-renewal of the polity. Regrettably, that agenda of self-renewal of the
polity remains as it were a midsummer night's dream.
For the practitioners of realpolitik - political parties, politicians and other
members of the power elite, June 18, 2001 was more like a bad dream. For men of
this persuasion, there could not therefore be a more fitting occasion to
celebrate than the marked discontinuum between the spirit of June 18 and the
assembly elections. That discontinuum delivers them from the ignominious fate of
political irrelevances. It gives a new lease of life to their brand of politics-
presiding over a patronage and spoils system.
The only link between elections and June 18, 2001, a tenuous one at that, was
the emergence of a new political formation called the Democratic People's Party
or the DPP. Formed by individuals who as part of the body leading the June
popular uprising, United Committee, Manipur, the DPP sought to position itself
as (half) a legatee of the spirit of June 18. Apparently, that does not seem to
have cut much ice with the electorate. Rightly so, for elections are not about
promises to keep, but promises to be dishonored. At least, this is what the
collective experience of the electorate distills into.
What is more, election seasoned parties like the Congress, the Federal Party of
Manipur or the Manipur People's Party were not prepared to grant the DPP its
unique selling proposition. Fealty to the spirit of June 18 in the form of total
commitment to the territorial integrity of Manipur was bound to become an
ubiquitous claim. And the conviction behind the claim was about which party or
candidate had the resources and stamina to repeat it a thousand times, a la
Goebbels.
Little wonder, the Congress party seized courage in both hands to position
itself as the guarantor of the territorial integrity of Manipur. If the tone and
tenor of the Congress leaders' utterances and the party's manifesto were to be
believed, it would seem that the trade-off was painless. Perhaps it was. Because
in number terms - be it of people or seats - which is the deciding factor in a
democracy, the Meiteis and the other non-Naga communities constitute an
overwhelming majority of the electorate.
That would explain why the National Socialist Council of Nagalim led by Muivah
and Swu have brought the full weight of their coercive machinery to bear on the
Congress and Congress alone. The NSCN (IM) threat to life and limbs has forced
two Congress candidates contesting from Naga inhabited areas to withdraw from
the electoral race prematurely.
By the same token, the BJP seems to have been taken into the embrace of the NSCN
(IM). As a result, the BJP's hopes of registering a decent showing in the
elections lie in the Naga inhabited hill areas of Manipur. And naturally this
has become grist to the campaign mill. Of opportunities spawning not so holy
alliances between a party, which swears by the Constitution, and another
organization whose raison d'etre is breaking free to the Constitution.
Qualitatively, there is little to choose between the Congress cynically
exploiting the fears and concerns of the majority Meiteis and the BJP making
common cause with the NSCN (IM) for whatever electoral or political dividends it
yields. But the more critical issue is that the people or the civil society -
call it what you will- that made its presence felt in no uncertain terms in
June, 2001 has now vacated the space it had carved for itself as a hard, and
perhaps even a harsh taskmaster to the errant political class.
The elections would have been a natural ground for civil society to evolve.Perhaps it is absurd to expect the people or civil society to be so vigilant,
proactive as well as defiant custodian of the people's and state's interest as
in June, 2001. But it needs to find its appropriate level of being and
consciousness if health and sanity in the polity is to be restored.
The rejuvenation of the polity needs an alternative form of political
consciousness to acts as the ballasts to the distortions, which have crept into
the democratic system spanning from election to governance. It is also equally
important for the distortions in the non-democratic challenges emerging from the
insurgencies to be resisted. The meaningless acts of violence, coercion and
invasions into the private spaces of communities and individuals. But this is
like putting the cart before the horse. Like the characters of Pirandello
searching for an author.
(Courtesy: the Manipur Research Foundation, Delhi and the Imphal Free Press)
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