Tragedy has struck again in Manipur`™s absurd theatre. This time the victim is a 16 year old school boy Sapam Robinhood who has fallen victim to disproportionate use of force by the state police. Making it even grimmer is the fact that this is a tragedy foretold, for tacitly it was being nudged on by the society at large, including the state`™s intelligentsia. Just one simple fact should highlight this contention. The boy killed today is a minor, and by international standards of democratic decision making, he would still not qualify to vote in a democratic election. In other words, he would have been considered still not of age to be in politics or political decision making. And by similar international standards of law, still too young to even hold a driving license. It is just the boy`™s bad luck that he was the one hit this time, but it could have been any of the other school boy or girl, some of them even younger than him, who became the unfortunate cannon fodder in the agitation over an issue of extreme political gravity `“ that of preventing what is seen with a measure of public hysteria, the impending upsetting of the demographic balance of the state in the face of influx of populations from outside.
The issue of demography is nothing to be trivialised. This is especially so in a democracy where power is directly proportional to and indeed determined by demographic constitution of a polity. It is therefore important for the political class to address the matter seriously in order to make democracy meaningful and trouble free. It would be worth recalling here that in many different ways, modern India is not new to demography politics. The words of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, who too had campaigned for a communal division of the Indian electorate, with a separate electorate for the Untouchables (Dalits) in the 1930s, was actually saying this. His logic for such a `communal politics` was not at all communal as Arundhati Roy argues passionately in a recent article in the EPW titled `All the World`™s a Half-Built Dam`. Ambedkar`™s concern was that the Untouchables will never be able to have a representative in the elected legislature as their population are spread out thin all over India and not concentrated into any tangible constituency, hence the need for a separate electorate for them for some time. `When British Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald accepted this proposal and announced the Communal Award granting the Untouchables a separate electorate for a period of 20 years, Gandhi went on his historic fast to death in the Yerawada prison, demanding the provision be revoked. Ambedkar was coerced into backing down and eventually, on 24 September 1932 he signed the notorious Poona Pact,` Roy points out, deriding Gandhi for not appreciating the superior vision of Ambedkar.
The agitation in Manipur for the implementation of the Inner Line Permit System, or an equivalent law, is also about demography, and in a related way as Ambedkar saw it, about enriching democracy by ensuring even the smallest population sections do not end up marginalised. It does not have to be the ILPS, for the ILPS`™ efficacy or its colonial legacies are of doubtful integrity. The important point however is, the issue needs to be addressed and tackled in a befitting manner. Preferably a legislation which takes care of this legitimate apprehension, without of course victimising any other community, is the need of the hour. For such an outcome however, an enlightened political class and the intelligentsia must step forward to shoulder the responsibility. Unfortunately, both these classes have either been abdicating their responsibilities or else are absolutely clueless. The emotionally blinded rhetorical nature of debates on the issue the state has become familiar with by now, with little or no empirical substance validating the claims made, are just one example. But the bigger proof of this abdication is the pitiable parading of school children in uniform during agitations for these political issues. From the time of Socrates to the current momentous decision of Greece to say `No` to the hegemony of European Capital, all meaningful revolutions of ideas in the world have incubated and germinated in the universities. Why have the faculties of our universities been remaining so indifferent to these issues and have virtually ceased to be similar incubators of ideas and initiators of revolutions? Can a state which leaves these matters to be taken to the streets by school children ever be considered progressive? The fatal injury of a 16 year old boy today on the street is tragic. But the bigger tragedy of Manipur is the absolute cluelessness of those who wear the mantle of intellectual elite to come up with any tangible answer, and the political leadership`™s inability to lead from the front.
Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam