The institutional characteristics of a society – economy, social and polity – are not only reinforcing on themselves, but equally interrelated.

We cannot think of a society without the economic characteristics, the economic characteristics devoid of the polity and so on. Any intervention causing mismatch would lead to tension.

This is equally true in the case of technology as well. To give an example: the institutional character of the Green Revolution technology is the absolute inter-dependence and package nature of high-yielding variety seeds, water and fertiliser. Enhancing benefits needs coordination on all areas.

Similarly enhancement of social returns calls for intervention keeping in mind the interrelated nature of social, economic and political institutions. Ipso facto, development intervention in a highly socially pluralistic and geographically vast country like India's necessarily calls for appreciating the regional realities.

The Indian Characteristics:

I would like to take up two reinforcing features of the larger Indian social institutions. This becomes important because the policy making of the Government of India (GOI) towards Manipur and the North East seems to reflect certain features of this.

One fundamental character of the mainstream Indian society is the caste based approach to outlook, behaviour and actions. In this society marriages are mostly arranged. These arranged marriages are again mostly within the same community.

The moment we get out of the bounds of caste, the marriages are mostly based on love relationships between the boy and the girl. Otherwise, it would be a Thakur having his way with an Adivasi girl.

Now the Policies:

Now given these basic institutional characteristics of the Indian mainland society, let us come to the policies of the GOI towards the region. It is now history how the good 1969 reports of Wanchoo Committee and Pande Committee for addressing the problems of regional disparities in India were amazingly hijacked, I feel on hindsight, by this caste based outlook and completely sabotaged the spirit of the two reports.

This was an early institutional manifestation of caste-based character in the sphere of regional development policy making.

After this we have had many rounds of so-called policies for addressing the lack of development in the North-East, like tax holidays, transport subsidy, etc. All these, need we tell, have failed to have any intended effect.

Anyway, any intended effect, if there were any, was not a sincere one. Development does not and will not happen in a vacuum. Any development intervention has to have an institutional character of completeness so that the social, political and economic reinforcing elements are released.

This is exactly what has been lacking in all the policies of the GOI towards the region. Whereas the region has never been used to have a limited casteist perspective on interventions, this is exactly what has coloured the national approaches to the region. No holistic development intervention has ever been attempted in the region.

Development intervention cannot be approached like first allowing the lower caste have access to the water, then to the temple and the like. Development cannot by any means be brought by relaxation based approaches; it has to be self-reinforcing and spontaneity-enhancing. This is exactly what has not happened.

In this Context:

It is exactly in this context that the casteist outlook comes out very glaringly in the recent policy adoptions of the GOI. For quite some time, the regional intelligentsia have been pressing upon the GOI that the regional economic problems needs to be addressed in a holistic manner and proper perspective.

To give an example, there have been consistent demands to free the Moreh trade from the security perspective and allow it to happen like an economic phenomenon. Here again the GOI seems to realise the necessity of such an approach, forced as it is by global compulsions.

The Prime Minister's recent visit also dwelled on addressing some of the economic issues of the region. There have been many demands in the past for addressing the economic issues, but were largely ignored. Now when the economic issues have acquired other dimensions, efforts are being displayed for addressing them.

Well, what Manipur needs right now is addressing the social tensions. Given the strong movement against the 1958 legislation, any policy intervention would not bear any fruit without addressing this issue.

Needed:

Let us accept one reality at this juncture. The people of the region generally have lost their faith on both the central and the State governments. The utmost necessity now is to regain this faith.

But how to regain this faith? It can only be done by the government behaving not in the Thakur-like fashion, but going for a love relationship. The relationship is necessarily an inter-caste one, and as such has to be based on love.

An inter-caste relationship can yield dividends only when the goodwill for each other is manifest. So remove the 1958 legislation and reap the goodwill dividend first. In the absence of this removal, any other intervention would only invite frowns.

As regards the State government, it has so far failed to deliver even in the traditional activities of a government.

Given this reality, coupled with the caste character of Indian policy, it would be hard to carry the people along in an uncertain and risky promise like the Tipaimukh Dam.

The call of the hour is the generation of a sincere goodwill dividend, and definitely not casteist approaches. "If you love a bird, set it free; if it does not come back, it was never yours".

This is what an ex-girl friend told me.