Looking at the all round failure Wanted : Governance

Imphal will have to demonstrate that there is a Government in place and that no one can do as one likes and walk away with it. This is the need of the hour and it is when the Government is seen to be shirking its primary responsibility of ensuring the safety and security of the people that questions are bound to be raised on whether there is a Government in place or not. It was as recent as October 12 that the State police announced the setting up of a dedicated cell to curb extortion and only two days later, that is on October 14, Imphal West SP Ksh Shivakanta was constrained to announce before the media that all those held for extortions will be tried under the stringent National Security Act. A sure sign that the Government has taken a tough stand against extortion, but whether this has had any impact continues to remain a question. This question is all that more pertinent in the face of the fact that the Thoubal District  Transporters’ Union (TDTU) suspended service on October 20 against what they call unbearable monetary demands. This is about the developments between October 10 and October 20 and go back a little longer and one can still remember shops closing down and roads being blocked in protest against this menace. Look beyond the open protests and a number of entrepreneurs have reportedly closed shop with many others entertaining the idea of shifting base. There are also reports of people in Government service being asked to donate a part of their salary every month and one is left wondering whether any police complaint has been lodged against such extortions which have come to define the Manipur of today. Not a good sign for a place which has been wracked by the ethnic clash for over 17 months and the sense of insecurity felt by the people directly raises the question, ‘What is the Government doing ?’ How many complaints have been lodged with the police or more importantly how many have felt safe and secure enough to take their complaint to the police ? The very fact that this question has been raised should reflect on the level of trust that the people have in the Government and this is the last thing that Manipur needs right now. In other words there is not much to show that there is a Government in place and this is what is deeply disturbing. See Manipur beyond the rising cases of extortion and look at the manner in which the Hill Areas Committee (HAC) has been lampooned for passing an order that temporary committees of the Autonomous District Councils would be formed to look after the functioning of the ADCs. The Committees are to compromise of 20 members out of which 18 of them would be selected from former ADC members, local governance experts and prominent intellectuals while the other two would be nominated by the Government. This after keeping in limbo the election to the ADCs for over four years.
And four years means the State Government has been sleeping over such an important issue well before the present ethnic clash erupted in 2023. If democracy at the grassroot level has been tossed for a big six in the hill areas by way of keeping the ADCs under a state of comatose for over 4 years, it is the same in the valley areas where elections to the Municipalities and urban local bodies such as the Panchayats have been kept in limbo. Move away from grassroot democracy and it has taken a student body, the Imphal unit of the Tangkhul Katamnao Long, Imphal (TKLI) to raise the need for a regular Vice Chancellor at Manipur Technical University. No regular VC at the technical university since the first month of 2023 and one wonders what merit the Government sees in appointing a bureaucrat as the VC. This is not all, for as the TKLI has pointed out, the MTU has still not opened higher course of studies such as MTech and PhD and one is left wondering whether the Government is intent of slowly snuffing out the life of the technical university. This is certainly not how Engineers should be trained or made to study. The ongoing ethnic clash cannot be the alibi for the failure of the Government to ensure that something as rudi- mentary as holding elections to the local bodies or appointing a regular VC for a university is addressed to. Power is important in politics no doubt but power without responsibility will make a joke out of the place and the people.