Distorting representative Govt : Pvt Limited Company
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: January 12 2012 -

The irony is striking. While privatisation is generally seen as a dirty word to many of the people in Manipur, either out of sheer ignorance or through the baptism by dogmatism, it has been wholeheartedly embraced and inducted into the very system of electing the people's representatives.

It is not only ironic but has also proven to be tragic and in the process has given a 'unique' spin to the understanding of people's representatives.

Universally, the understanding of people's representatives stays rooted within the realm of the elected persons representing the collective interests of the people but in Manipur it has been anything but this and not surprisingly so, as the People's Committee on Assembly Election, Manipur, 2012 has analysed.

When people's expections from the elected representatives refuse to move beyond the ambit of the strictly personal, when the people's decision at the time of election stays rooted within the cloistered world of the 'I, Me and My Family,' it is but natural for the elected representatives to pander to only the private and personal interests of the people who elected him or her.

And what are these private interests ? No need for the genius of a Hardy or a Ramanujan to deduce that the private interests here hover around the question of the lucrative contract or supply works that the elected representative can wangle for some of the people, the ability to provide Government jobs to a relative, a brother, a sister or anyone who comes within the understanding of family or extended family, attend a wedding invitation, pay a visit to a bereaved family etc.

In short, elected representatives are expected to represent the private interests of the people and give the short shrift to issues which are of public interests.

And so while the people continue to survive on a staple diet of 2 or 3 hours of power supply in a day, walk through slush during the rainy season and through dust during the dry season, survive on pond water or buy potable water by the buckets, people continue to gauge the winnability quotient of the candidates on the basis of their strictly private and personal equations.

Social norms and social behaviour do dictate that some of the private interests mentioned here be respected but in the process can we really afford to forget the larger, public interests on which the people's representatives should be gauged and accordingly elected ?

In less than three weeks Manipur would have elected her 10th Assembly and latest by March a popularly elected Government would have been in place. So far so fine.

This is the process of the largest democracy in the world at work and while election campaigning and canvassing has reached a crescendo in most of the 60 Assembly Constituencies, what stands out starkly is the near or total absence of any worthwhile debate on issues concerning the interests of the public.

Given the pace at which the world is moving and in the face of the fast changing scenario, ideally Manipur should be debating on what economic policies individual candidates and political parties have in mind.

What do the candidates have in mind when the rail line debuts in Manipur ?

What are the policies and programmes they intend to take up in the face of the frequent economic blockades on the National Highways ?

What about road connectivity within the State ?

What plans are in store to meet the rising demand for power supply ?

Why are the roads in such pitiable conditions ?

Has any worthwhile question been raised over the utter failure of the Electricity Department to collect power tariff from the consumers and why should this be used as the alibi for the pathetic power supply for over 30 years now ?

With the candidates elected on the basis of private interests of the people, it has not come as a surprise to see that none of these questions which are and should be of interest to the public have ever been discussed and debated visibly or audibly.

This culture has to be given a burial and fast. Issue based elections, issue based discussions, issue based debates etc all sound attractive and highly appealing but all these have remained catch phrases, condemned to remain caged within the seminar halls.

It is time to take these out from the seminar halls and what better time than now ?