Our Earth is a Planet, Not a World
— Assessing the character of Manipur's development interventions —

Amar Yumnam *

My memory is still fresh with the occasions when the city authorities in Bombay (it was then and I prefer this name to Mumbai) could not even complete cutting down the branch of a big tree in the city areas in the name of development or improving the city streets before someone came with an order staying the city authorities from causing any further injury to the tree. I am talking of the early 1980s while I was a student in the University of Bombay.

I also remember vividly what I saw in my first exposure and stay in Western Europe during my academic assignment in France in 1994. There was a centuries-old Greek church in Paris where a very old tree desired to have a natural death because of her age, but the authorities would just not allow the tree to fall by supporting it with steel wires on four sides.

Another common visual was digging up a big hole to accommodate a big tree during transit while a street was being improved and bringing the tree back to its original position after completion of the road work.

What I have related so far is about practice of development marking the civilized world. Now this behaviour is rooted in most countries including China, which we presumptuously consider ourselves to be competing with as a country.

October 1999: Having mentioned a few practices, let me now turn to social theory as conceived and should be conceived by both the public and the scientists. In this context, we can consider the debate of October 1999 between a leading international environmental group, Greenpeace, and a globally leading agricultural company, Monsanto.

The company was represented by its Chief Executive Officer, Bob Shapiro, and Greenpeace by its Executive Director, Peter Melchett. This debate was broadcasted by the BBC. It was a very significant debate because of its unusual publicness and the importance of the theme, the potential benefits and dangers of Genetically Modified crops.

Anybody interested in the debate can find it at here. In the debate Greenpeace asserted: "...people have learnt to make up their own minds and take responsibility for their own actions, and people scorn patronising assumptions based on the premise that they don't know what is good for them.

On the contrary, people insist that it is their society and their world and they will decide what's acceptable and what is not." The commitment of Monsanto was equally civilised: "...we continue to believe in this technology. We think it can bring important benefits to people around the world and we remain committed to developing good, safe, useful products, but we are no longer going to be engaged in a debate. We are now publicly committed to dialogue with people and groups who have a stake in this issue.

We are listening, and will seek common ground whenever it's available and to the extent that it's available, and we'll seek solutions that work for a wide range of people".

My Concern: I have given both the debate in social theory and the character of development intervention in order the highlight the fact the time is long gone when human beings had to continuously alter and exploit the God-given nature in order to reduce the uncertainties around them. Time is now when the whole world thinks of the Earth as a planet having a soul, and not a dead and dry world.

The way trees have been cut down in this land of ours during the last decade or so in the name of development and are being cut down today again in the name of development would just pain any conscious development citizen anywhere in the world. The tree in Bombay was being saved for it represents history and evolution of the great city. It also depicts the cultural evolution of the lovely metropolis. Same is the case with the trees in Paris and anywhere in the world.

Culture and preservation of it is something much more than dancing around and showcasing the martial arts. Culture is a very multi-faceted concept wherein even the trees had played their own part. It is exactly in the in situ environment that any society had formed and evolved and is being developed.

But in the case of Manipur, this basic principle has been raped repeatedly. A bottle-brush can by no stretch of imagination represent and depict the societal evolution of Manipur while a khongnang pambi would. This tree represents our environment, the character of our kings and ancestors, our culture – in fact, it is a social landmark in every sense of the term. But it is being increasingly cut down and replaced by varieties having nothing to do with our evolution and with our culture.

The Issues: The issues we are facing are two-fold. We are yet to learn any lessons in valuing our environmental assets. Secondly, the technocrats in the administration are yet to digest any social theory and practice it appropriately. By the way, haphazard and non-committal approaches do not constitute a social theory.