Asem Bhakta
Special Correspondent North East
Imphal: We all know what the army is . They wear uniforms and carry guns; some may not wear uniforms but perform things as they feel like in the company of their uniformed compatriots in places far-off– like Manipur – from the Cenfederating units, diverse by the demographic features of the composing population, and so on. Now, a word on federalism may be of interest. Without going longer time back, what Daniel Dujah Elajar introduced his book on Federalism (1987) would be of interest: “Human, and hence scholarly, concern with politics focuses on three general themes: the pursuit of political justice to achieve political order; the search for understanding of the empirical tre of the country. They are fundamentally meant to protect the country where they are recruited, trained, and ensured their livelihood. It is also their primary responsibility that they do not try to antagonise the people of their country and take the things to take on the people for granted as they feel like. This issue is particularly paramount in a diverse country following democratic federalism – diverse in the geographic size of the country, diverse by distance from the capital of the country, diverse by geographic features of the reality of political power and its exercise; and the creation bust component of this: “One of the major recurring principles of political import which informs and encompasses all three themes is federalisman idea that defines political justice, shapes political behaviour, and directs humans toward an appropriately civic synthesis of the two. Through its covenantal foundations, federalism is an idea whose importance is akin to natural law in defining justice and to natural rights in delineating the origins and proper constitution of political society. of an appropriate civic environment through civil society and the civil community capable of integrating the first two themes to produce a good political life. ……… In that pursuit, political scientists have uncovered or identified certain architectonic principles, seminal ideas, and plain political truths that capture the reality of political life or some significant segment of it and relate that reality to larger principles of justice and political order and to practical yet normative civic purposes.” Now the element of justice is a fundamental
Although those foundations have been somewhat eclipsed since the shift to organic and then positivistic theories of politics, which began in the mid-nineteenth century, federalism as a form of political organization has grown as a factor shaping political behaviour. Now, in the crisis of transition from the modern to the postmodern epochs, the federal idea is resurfacing as a significant political force just as it did in the transition from the late medieval to the modern epoch, which took place from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.” While it was a subject analysed mainly by the political scientists, it has now joined the transformation of the disciplines of the Social Sciences towards an integrated one with varied perspectives merging. It is under this federalism that Manipur happens to have a large population (comparatively speaking) following the religion of Hinduism. The major destinations for worship for the followers lie in West Bengal and central India. It has been a very common experience for the Hinduism-following elders in Manipur to go to these places in groups by hiring a bus on which one would generally find the name and banners indicating the origin of the team from Manipur. While there could be stories of like the experience of pick-pockets, as is common as anywhere, there would be no story like the recent case of the Indian Army manifesting the power of capability by removing the banner on Manipur; the political economy of this power can only be defined in a very adverse way. Now, what is the recent case. The Shiroi Lily of the Ukhrul is an internationally known flower – the beauty and attractiveness of a flower can never be defined completely. Since it is the time of flowering, the population of the district naturally organised a festival on the flower such that people would have the opportunity to enjoy watching of the beauty of the flower in situ and in a systematic way. An interestingly rare thing happened to the bus carrying the journalists to the place of the festival. Well, before reaching the place, the Indian Army stopped the bus and saw to it that any Manipur written on the bus should be invisible. There is a concept in economics called “public good” under which anyone should be accessible to appreciate this, and none can be excluded. But in this recent case, while going to the Vrindavan for worshipping the Hindu deities with Manipur banner in the bus of travel was never a social and administrative challenge, in the present case the travel with the banner was completely restricted. Second, the beautiful public good – the Shiroi Lily was converted into a private good by the imposition of the restrictions. The implications for public policy of the difference between the ‘public good’ and the ‘private good’ are not simple ones, which can never be settled by the army. The interesting part here is that all these were performed by none else but the Army. This makes us recall what Ivo Duchacek had said more than half a century back that Federalism had become ‘one of those good echo words that evoke a positive response but that may mean all things to all men, like democracy, socialism, progress, constitution, justice, or peace.’” But Duchacek was definitely not talking of the armed, but it is the Army which had make it look like to mean anything in Manipur case. The involvement of the Army in the manner happened, and the ‘supposed’ Democratic Federalism India follows and, in an event, acting against the agents of sharing information with the public that is most painful. In fact, this amounts to insulting nature and compromising the prestige of the precious the Shiroi Lily. The evolution of governance as a modern approach from plain government and the usual social pluralism associated with it have been hurt hard by this plain act. Besides insulting Manipur, this act has insulted humanity and humanism.
