Motivational Emptiness
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: May 20 2015 -
The Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju on Monday advised Autonomous District Council (ADC) electorate in Chandel district that in a democracy, it is the bounden duty of the electorate to teach a lesson to the Government for its acts of commissions and omissions.
The Union Minister’s comment should be read with a pinch of salt whether or not one supports his party.
Rijiju’s statement reminds one of the notions that Karl Popper had propounded given the harsh realities that have plagued parliamentary democracy in Manipur.
Popper proposed the theory of falsification which says that a single counterexample can be logically decisive to arrive at a conclusion from a given premise or in this case the advice to the electorate based on the minister’s own experience.
The strange case of Manipur’s electoral politics in the past had belied the highly rated notion of “anti-incumbency wave” and the resultant outcome.
The electorate in the State are not only unpredictable but also are left to the mercy of circumstances and issues beyond the reach of parliamentary democracy.
This experience is distinct from phenomena elsewhere that have been considered decisive even if it defies certain logic.
It does not matter whether the Union Minister for Home was referring to the ensuing Autonomous District Council Election or the Legislative Assembly polls.
The “decisive” phenomenon that dismantles the belief in power of masses to react against the policies of the Government in Manipur can be gauged from the way how the electoral system itself has been distorted.
Moreover, the State’s electoral politics and its results have most of the time gone against anti-incumbency waves.
It was thought that massive protests registered in the aftermath of the killing of Thangjam Manorama in 2004 and the emotionally charged mass campaign against both the State and Union Government on the issue of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) would automatically dislodge the ruling regime.
However, the electorate in the State brought back the Congress in a massive victory.
And the simplified explanation to this phenomenon had been that the Congress had enough “money and power” to buy the electoral verdict as if mass emotive strength could be depleted by the spell of few thousand rupees.
It would be even stranger, if money power had actually suppressed the subjective understanding of an objective reality. This has allowed mass conscience to commit hara-kiri in a ritual which has no democratic sanctity.
Against such backdrop, Kiren Rijiju’s advice would remain entangled in motivational emptiness rather than awaken the electorate either for the ADC or Assembly polls.
* Comments posted by users in this discussion thread and other parts of this site are opinions of the individuals posting them (whose user ID is displayed alongside) and not the views of e-pao.net. We strongly recommend that users exercise responsibility, sensitivity and caution over language while writing your opinions which will be seen and read by other users. Please read a complete Guideline on using comments on this website.