By Amar Yumnam
The Government of India`™s policy towards the North East has undergone a dramatic behavioural transformation on the external front. Both the Prime Minister and the External Affairs Minister of the post-UPA government (read Narendra Modi and Sushma Swaraj) are talking of the development issues, challenges and opportunities of the North East while visiting the neighbouring countries of the South East and the East Asia. This is marked contrast to the pretentions of the Congress-led governments and the bluffs under the Look East Policy. This is an issue I have dwelt on in this column quite many times post-the Tokyo Declaration of Modi and Abe of August this year.
While there are external manifestations portraying changes favourable to development instead of the purely militaristic framework and approaches, the scenario in the home front is still dark, and particularly so in the context of Manipur. First, there is no governance application of mind on how to dovetail the development responses of the province to the unfolding challenges of the Act East Policy. The administration fundamentally needs to move much beyond the Thikadar Mentality wherein one looks only for the schemes which would come from without and scope for the contract work possibilities therein. Well, it is a general feature in regions of poor regulations and weak governance that the people in the decision-making positions look at governance predominantly from this perspective. For the public it is as if what Rousseau wrote in The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality: `All ran headlong to their chains, in hopes of securing their liberty; for they had just wit enough to perceive the advantages of political institutions, without experience enough to enable them to foresee the dangers`¦ Such was, or may well have been, the origin of society and law, which bound new fetters on the poor, and gave new powers to the rich; which irretrievably destroyed natural liberty, eternally fixed the law of property and inequality, converted clever usurpation into unalterable right, and, for the advantage of a few ambitious individuals, subjected all mankind to perpetual labour, slavery, and wretchedness.` No we cannot allow such a situation to prevail and sustain in Manipur. There is a fundamental contract between the people and the government for attending to the needs for general welfare. As James Buchanan writes in his celebrated Calculus of Consent the collective choice responsibility is given to the government because: `The attainment of consent is a costly process, however, and a recognition of this simple fact points directly toward an “economic” theory of constitutions. The individual will find it advantageous to agree in advance to certain rules (which he knows may work occasionally to his own disadvantage) when the benefits are expected to exceed the costs. The “economic” theory that may be constructed out of an analysis of individual choice provides an explanation for the emergence of a political constitution from the discussion process conducted by free individuals attempting to formulate generally acceptable rules in their own long-term interest. It is to be emphasized that, in this constitutional discussion, the prospective utility of the individual participant must be more broadly conceived than in the collective-choice process that takes place within defined rules`¦`¦. The areas of human activity that the reasonably intelligent individual will choose to place in the realm of collective choice will depend to a large extent on how he expects the choice processes to operate`. The government of any day is supposed to work within this framework and keeping the expectations of the people in mind. I would like the prevailing provincial government to remember what Jon Rawls has said in his classic A theory of Justice that `each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others` and inequality is to be accepted only in so far as it means to promote the `greatest benefit of the least advantaged,`
Second, the security forces (particularly the Assam Rifles) need to be taught how to perform their functions in the context of the changing scenario wherein the border trade would be transformed into larger relationships across neighbouring countries. I say in particular because of the continuous presence of this force and my own experience with the. Only this week I was in Moreh and Tamu. Just before reaching Moreh, there is a check-post at Khudengthabi of the AR 24. Here I came across a young officer in civil dress who is completely illiterate about the changes under way, and absolutely poor about the organisational skills in public domain. But his poverty of organisational skill and knowledge was coupled by his arrogance in full bloom. This has been a continuing character of the Assam Rifles all along in this route.
Third, we need to be fully aware of the functional capabilities of the road linking Imphal with Moreh. The section from Pallel to Moreh could be good tourist roads. But it can in no way perform the role of attending to the economic functions of highways with hugely heavy vehicles with supersized manufactured products.
Fourth, the very quality of Moreh needs improvement. It is a dirty place with no urban characteristics. There is no point waiting for the demand to create supply in this context. Rather it should be a case where supply precedes demand.
Fifth, just across the border, the overall quality of a urban centre is richer. But there is a hitch here. The auto-services on the Tamu side indulge in collective cheating and extortion. It would be in the long-run interest of Myanmar herself to attend to this issue.
In the end, we would appeal to the government of land by quoting to what Hobbes has said: `A commonwealth is said to be instituted, when a multitude of men do agree, and covenant, every one, with every one,`¦`¦ the right to present the person of them all (that is to say, to be their representative)