BY Amar Yumnam
The term development has undergone many stages of evolution since it became popular after the Second World War. In the beginning, it was perceived as consisting of only the rise in the quantum of tangible items. But now it encompasses intangible items as well reflecting the significance of social aspects in ensuring a good quality of life and in a way much more than the materialistic components of life. This is where we are eager to search for an understanding of the prevailing scenario of Manipur, and the direction in which the polity and economy of the province is moving. Is Manipur moving towards a direction of peaceful transition to a sustainable development? Is she progressing towards a shared development trajectory? Is the governance alive to the development pre-requisites and requisites of development of the land and people of the province? Is the relationship between governance and development evolving towards a direction of inclusive development here? These and other related questions need urgent and involved discussion in Manipur.
In this context, the latest two editions of the World Bank Legal Review are of immense interest. The 2014 Review (Cisse, Hassane, N. R. Madhava Menon, Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger, and Vincent O. Nmehielle, eds. 2014. The World Bank Legal Review, Volume 5: Fostering Development through Opportunity, Inclusion, and Equity, Washington DC) dwells on how to establish an atmosphere for justice for all to fruitfully share the scope and outcomes of development. The 2015 Review (Wouters, Jan, Alberto Ninio, Teresa Doherty, and Hassane Cisse, eds. 2015. The World Bank Legal Review, Volume 6. Improving Delivery in Development: The Role of Voice, Social Contract, and Accountability. Washington, DC: World Bank), which has just come out, dwells on the issues relating to reaching the effects of development the targeted groups.
On page 617 of the 2014 Report, it is asserted that `Traditional thinking has expanded to include intangible deliverables, and there is a growing demand for values such as rule of law and justice, participation and inclusion, equity, good governance, and sustainability over the long term. The current development landscape requires more attention to law and justice, such that efforts must now include or be hinged on these values.` From the development perspective of Manipur, the issues of `participation and inclusion, equity, good governance, and sustainability over the long term` are of critical relevance. While the issue of rule of law and justice is as important as it should be, it has a dependent feature on the quality and character of governance; governance is an independent component determining the characteristics of other determinants of development. There is diversity of ethnicity and geography in Manipur; this is a given datum which cannot be altered by any intervention. This given datum necessitates that development interventions in Manipur should be alive to these differentials such that the outcomes are shared by all and the opportunities are equalised. The differential food systems need differential interventions for transition to higher stages of development. But it is exactly the appreciation of these differential needs of variegated development interventions which has been put to the winds by the governance in Manipur so far. The orientation and effectiveness of governance have been confined to the delivery of tangible outcomes to the pockets of those manning the governance. This being the case, the issue of sustainable development as globally understood has not sunk into the principle of working of governance in Manipur.
In the 2015 Review, it is emphasised on page 5 thus: `In broad terms, delivery may be understood as getting goods and services to people in a way that meets their expectations`¦`¦`¦`¦`”delivery means getting goods and services such as material infrastructure, education, health care, economic development, social protections, and other beneficial social or economic support systems to targeted beneficiaries. Such targeted beneficiaries of development initiatives, whether instituted at the multilateral, national, or subnational level, through formal or informal institutions, or a combination of these entities, are ultimately recipients who require effective and efficient delivery of outcomes if they are to transcend the interlocking social, political, and economic factors that hold them in relative poverty or disadvantage. Such entrenched and interlocking factors operate to prevent beneficiaries from justly and equitably sharing in their nation`™s wider social and economic assets. By extension, if such beneficiaries continually remain unsupported by successful delivery of outcomes, they also remain continually impeded from a fair and equitable enjoyment of the various social and economic benefits wrought by globalization and economic integration in the wider international community`. In this background, what has been happening in Manipur is painful lock, stock and barrel. The delivery in terms of both tangible and intangible components of development intervention do not have the positive social spillover implications. Besides the quantitative drawbacks, there is nothing surety about the qualitative aspects either. This applies to every aspect of governance activity right from the conventional tangible infrastructure components to other non-tangible components like education, health, etc.
In fine, the time is not in favour of Manipur in so far the evolving regional, national and international changes are concerned. It is already rather late for the governance here to transit to a phase of contextualised understanding of the differential development needs of Manipur, to transform from a habit of bluffing the population in this digital age, to appreciate the vastly different development intervention needs in the highly networked world, to self-analyse the policy space of the provincial government. The race in the world today is such that if one runs forever faster and runs along, one survives. In the otherwise case, one would be just left behind and fall into oblivion if not participating in the race. In the case of Manipur, it is as if the governance has already ensured that Manipur is out of the race even before attempting to join. It is absolutely dreadful.