The case for the conversion of Jiribam into a full-fledged district remains hot on the anvil. Although decentralisation is desirable, the question that comes up in this case is, to what extent can anybody push the decentralisation argument without going out of the ambit of reason? If Jiribam does become a district, it would be the smallest district in the state with barely a lakh or so population. The district conversion, we suppose, will ultimately, if not immediately, be also accompanied by most or all of the bells and whistles that a district normally has, such as sub-divisions and blocks etc. If all these are allowed, who knows every fifth village in this new district may come to have an SDO office. And since there would be very little real work for these offices, like in so many other similar cases in Manipur`™s administrative history, they too would probably become ghost offices, with officers and staff existent only on paper. Ultimately, again as in so many precedents before it, government posts created to complete the official formalities of having full-fledged district headquarters and sub-divisions probably would become redundant because they have little use. Soon enough, maybe many of these posts would come to be transferred along with those holding the posts to places where they can be put to some use at least. By necessity as well as pressures from the employees themselves, probably the destination would be again Imphal. We already know how much such transfers with posts have been used in the past as the whipping stick to lash at a supposedly Imphal-centric administration, but these moves are not always motivated.
Having said this however, the Jiribam issue remains problematic in other alternative scenarios too. At the present Jiribam is being administered as a sub-division of the Imphal East district. The drawbacks and handicaps faced by the population there because of this are obvious and beyond dispute, considering the 220 km distance between the present district headquarters and this sub-division, as well as the immense hazards of travelling on the progressively deteriorating NH-53. There were also suggestions as to why this dub-division which was adjacent to the Tousem sub-division of Tamenglong district was not affiliated to the Tamenglong district instead. On the face of it, this seems like a reasonable suggestion, but there are definitely more to the problem, and again little to do with ulterior motives of Imphal. On the other hand, the problem has precisely to do with the disparate administrative and land revenue tenureship norms followed amongst non-tribal and tribal populations. If a way was to be found whereby the two norms were made reconcilable without depriving anybody of democratic rights, such as enfranchise rights etc, there probably would not have been any tangible objection to Jiribam becoming a part of Tamenglong. But such is not the case at this point in time, and even administrative districts are not seen as administration devices of the state, but as ethnic territories.
It is also on consideration of this same irreconcilability of administrative norms and land revenue tenureship that the Hmar students have been raising a voice that no Hmar village should be clubbed to the proposed Jiribam district if it does come to be a reallity. For Jiribam district, when and if it does come into existence, obviously would come under, among others, the Maniput Land Reforms & Land Revenue Act, which till date has not been made applicable in the hill districts. Even if the proposed new Jiribam district comes closer to reality, the challenge before the state government would be to evolve a mechanism by which the two radically different outlooks to land revenue administration, discover and agree to a meeting point. For as it stands today, it would not be fair to have Jiribam continued to be administered by remote control from Imphal East, or merged with Tamenglong, but by the same principle, the apprehension of the Hmars and other tribal communities that they may end up marginalised in a non-reserved environment is understandable and deserves a concerned ear. It will not be easy, but the government must have to find a way to negotiate this sensitive issue without unduly hurting anybody`™s legitimate and rational, as opposed to unfounded and irrational interests. It success in resolving the Jiribam issue can be the cue to a future solution to the myriad ethnic frictions on the larger canvas of the entire state.
Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam