The concluding line of Chief Seattle in his famous reply to the government of the United States of America when the latter offered to buy the land of his tribe is striking even when read out of context. The letter sketches a clash of civilization situation in which the native man, in what must rank as one of the most touching and passionate defence of the environment, argues that the pantheistic vision of the Red man has made him always to be in harmony with nature, and in direct contrast, the materialistic world of the White man was not only failing to understand the beauty in this pantheism but also destroying nature. His warning in the last sentence was that the alienation of man from nature on account of materialism would mark the end of living and the beginning of surviving. The rhetoric is next to perfection, making it one of the most quotable quotes in the history of environmental movement and literature, but it is the wisdom in the statement that is startling. It is also extremely tempting to ask the question in other situations. We are likewise curious what the honest answers of the common man in Manipur would be to the questions: Has Manipur stopped living? Is it left with little other choice than to merely survive?
The joy of life seems to be fast disappearing in Manipur. There seems little left to celebrate and in their places, there are only protests. This culture of protest, in many ways, has come to be an end in itself, or otherwise a Pavlovian response to obstructions to interests that very often are sectarian in nature. Nobody seems to think dialogues and discourses are a way out of sticky impasses and clashes of interests. It may very well be that injustice is so widespread making the endless cycle of disruptive protests something to be expected, and hence understandable. Even if this were the case, we are still of the opinion that efforts should be made earnestly to find a way out of the entangles however complicated they may be. The dictates of nature’s “survival instinct” demands that we never give up looking for ways out of our problems instead of perpetrating them by insisting on a “do or die” approach always. As opposed to this “survive instinct” is also something in natural inclination known as the “death wish”. We sometimes wonder if the latter instinct is not outweighing the former in our society. Sometimes the “death wish” can be grand, and it is precisely this grandeur that has made “tragedy” a powerful genre in literature. But just for the sake of being remembered as grand, should we opt for tragedy? Survival matters. This is the one theme that runs beneath every story of evolution. But survival becomes an issue only if it is threatened. Otherwise, in a situation where survival can be taken for granted, the true essence of the joy of living can begin to be savoured. This is the condition that we continue to starve ourselves of with our confrontationist attitude in all our relationships.
Let us learn to do away with this negative outlook to life. Let us also learn to see the positive sides of things for indeed everything is not all that bad. The sky may not be at all set to fall on our heads even on the most vexed of issues confronting us. For all we know, there may even be solutions waiting for us to reach out to on all of these issues if we are a little more ready to be flexible in our stances. There have been enough signals in the recent past that our problems are negotiable after all. Whoever would have thought two decades ago that the Kangla would return to civilian control; whoever would have thought the government of India would show willingness to change its posture on issues like the lifting of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA to institute a probe on its propriety. It is unfortunate because of objections from the Army, the recommendations remain shelved, but at least a softening is visible; whoever would have thought even in the same period that our Eastern Door would ever open again. Let us have no doubt whatsoever that given the resilience all our problems can be solved and amicably too. Statesmanship, as they say is about pushing the limits of possibilities. This implies there is nothing as impossible in matters of resolving differences, even the most bitterly conflicting ones. History has been evidence, and there is no reason we should not make the effort to learn from this.