In diplomacy and politics there are only interests and no friends or enemies they day. This time worn dictum of statecraft is what deserves a closer look in the present day Manipur. This is particularly so because the place continues pathetically unable to get itself out of the time warp of seeing only in terms of primeval allies and adversaries. Catch phrases like “indigenous peoples” and “outsiders”, and the presumptions all indigenous peoples are natural allies and that all outsiders are not to be trusted, today dominate discussions and concerns at every level.
First in the elite circles, and then these vocabularies and jargons percolate and come to be flaunted with a sense of mission in Manipur’s familiar brand of street politics. Every now and then jolts come to shake up these presumptions. The “indigenous peoples” often discover they have no goodwill at all for each other, and sometimes even nurture mutual ill will, yet the illusion persists.
The same drama plays out in the reverse when it is discovered that the so-called outsiders can be good friends and allies. One is reminded of Albert Camus’ “The Guest”, where the divide between the “outsider” and the “insider” in the ultimate analysis is never bridged, even when every condition and quality needed to cement human bondages are present. The guest remains a guest till the end, never to be part of the host community. Wonder if it is the English translation from French which preferred the word “guest”, and if the original French did not mean what we in the Northeast, and in particular Manipur, understand by the term “outsider”, for the story fits our situation perfectly.
It is time to leave this bubble behind before there are more disappointments and souring of relations. The way to go is to identify these “interests” realpolitik prescribes and then from a close consideration of them, renew and rebuild the avenues for friendships. But as a believer that a zero-sum game is imminently avoidable, and to differ from the old dictum quoted above, this friendship building exercise does not have to necessarily create enemies.
What should have come across long ago is the realisation that the primacy in politics is on “interests” and not imagined traditional friendships or enmities. Indeed, with the inevitable process of the shifts of “interests” in keeping with the ebbs and flows of the tides of time, the latter will change too. Fostering and preserving communal harmony then should be about ensuring these “interests” remain real and shared. This can only be done by building institutional structures of power sharing through consensus. This project unfortunately has never been taken up in earnest or else remained mired in platitudes and homilies.
As we have often argued in these columns, there are certain externalities beyond anybody’s volition or power to change, making it necessary for everybody to think in terms of peaceful co-existence, for there is no other way. This will be the most fundamental and given “interest” spanning everybody in the state. Even at the height of spiting each other, people in the same boat cannot wish the boat to sink. Manipur’s geography is a case in point.
However, good fences are necessary and they should be designed to make good neighbours, lest the communities step on each other’s toes. These fences already exist in the state between different communities, but goodwill is not always their objective. Instead, they have often been the harbinger of dangerous antagonisms. The hill-valley divide based on perceived developmental differences between the two regions is one of these. Land ownership rights accorded to different communities, by modern land laws as well as by differing customary laws are some more. Without flattening the unique differences in outlook altogether, there must have to be some parity brought to all these matters.
From all that has happened so far, there probably will have to a new autonomy model worked out for the different regions and communities. All these while the talk has been for giving more autonomy for the hills, a presumption that the valley districts will remain as shared spaces, while the hills are made more exclusive. For obvious reasons, this will not be taken well by the valley districts, unless there is something for these districts too, to give justice parity.
There obviously have been many ways the valley by its arrogance and insensitivities hurt the hills, and amends must be made for this, but cornering and pushing the valley against the wall relentlessly cannot be in the interest of peace either. The hill communities must also be ready to grow out of the time warped legal ghettos they have enclosed themselves in so that some degrees of equitability in land laws is also brought about between the hills and valley.
Editor, Imphal Review of Arts and Politics and author
