The trouble with the notion of legitimacy in Manipur is, it has in the past few decades come to be seen as something quite different from the due processes of the law. This has been on account of two parallel developments, each contributing equally to a dangerous distortion of what is generally understood as the “public space”. On the one hand the established order has through its brand of political leadership, steeped in corruption and indifference to the larger public welfare as it were, surrendered all moral legitimacy to be custodian of the law. On the other are self-mandated contenders to the levers of state power, seeking and indeed successfully, to fill up the vacuum the former left. The danger of the mix is obvious, and the logic on which it rests so monstrously mutated that the very understanding of the rule of law is in a process of a frightening metamorphosis. The phenomenon is today beginning to erode the soul of the society, even as everybody watches the decaying process helplessly, transfixed by a disdainful awe that borders the absurd. Hence, it has become a reality that an agreement amongst so called civil society bodies or even a group of individuals, to break the law or any established norm of any institution of democracy, is considered a legitimate exercise of the power of the people. These pacts in the non-government spheres to redefine democratic norms have also come to be pushed as “public interest”, so much so that the very notion of “public sphere” has come to be reduced to what Jurgen Habermas called an “illusion” with the precise purpose of sanctifying decisions of those claiming a stake in the state’s power structure from outside democracy’s officially prescribed norm of selecting leaders by consensus established by periodic elections. What end up challenged are no longer just the deviations of the mechanism of evolving democratic consensus, but the very legitimacy of the mechanism itself, hence the profound nature of the danger this phenomenon poses. The understanding of democratic consensus has been divorced from the understanding of “public sphere” rendering both the understandings hollow. Agreeing to break the law seems now no longer illegitimate. Numerous arbitrary street laws, innumerable disruptive activities, and a general collapse of the various instruments of governance mechanism are the physical manifestations that have together added up to a despairing and oppressive state of affairs in Manipur.
Things are heading towards a point of no return. Open disregard of law, or else assumption of responsibility of keeping it by any self-appointed guardians of the society are the hallmarks of today’s Manipur. The government, rather than seeing these as infringements on its legitimate spheres of governance seems to be treating them as a welcome partnership in the upkeep of social responsibilities. But today it is coming to pass that its partners are poised to rubbish its claim to any legitimate stake to power. The Assembly election next year in this sense will be a litmus test to establish the extent of power still remaining with the democratic process. In the hills, especially among the Nagas, it seems elected leaders no longer hold sway. Candidates wanting to contest the election now queue up to seek permission of other leaders who claim monopoly of the “public sphere”. There are some who put up a resistance and it remains to be seen if this resistance has not been reduced to extremely feeble token gestures yet. In the valley the contest for this same “public sphere” is comparatively much more evenly poised, and formal democracy has still not been totally rendered impotent. Candidates still fight and win even while defying bans by parallel powers. But judging by the way things are being allowed to drift, can it be too far when the leadership equation transforms here too and “public sphere” comes to rest solely in the ambiguous and contested territory of what has so loosely come to be referred to by everybody as “civil society”? The question urgently beggars an answer.