The elusive dream
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: December 29, 2011 -

When we travel down the timeline of human history and take a look at the social and political systems, we find that all of them were designed to keep a particular family/clan or group in power.

These ruling elites cornered all the wealth and resources of a society, kingdom or empire, leaving a few crumbs for the masses to fight over.

Add to this, the masses had little say or rights in the social and political sphere. All these changed for the better as individuals gained knowledge and enlightenment, and human society and political systems evolved.

Social and political systems which talked of equality of man, of egalitarian society came to be propounded.

Concepts like universal suffrage, human rights and individual freedom gained ground and acceptance. In contemporary era, there are two major political systems in the world, both of which promise freedom and equality.

While the communist/socialist system believes that actual freedom flows from a sound economic base, the democratic/capitalist system lays more stress on political freedom.

But both the systems have failed to address the issue of inequality - social, political and economic. While on the one hand, there are groups and individuals who are interested in maintaining the status quo which has worked to their advantage, on the other, there have been acknowledgement of the fact that large sections of the population in any country, be it communist or capitalists, are left out of the benefits of that system.

This acknowledgement has led to various reforms to address this issue of equality in the true sense of the term by way of providing level playing ground. In India, many affirmative actions are in place, some recently introduced, to provide this equality of opportunities.

But the problem here is that these affirmative actions have, in most cases, only helped to create elites within the groups which enjoys the benefits of these affirmative actions. And these elites become more and more entrenched through every succeeding generation, thereby putting the other members of that particular group at a disadvantage.

Where is the level playing field when the son of a marginal farmer is pitted against the son of an IAS officer in a competitive exam, even though both of them belong to the same reserved category under the Constitution?

What has been happening is that all the facilities provided to a particular special category get cornered by those who were already in an advantageous position. This happens in other spheres also.

While devolution of power is one of the features of democracy, which envisions greater participation of people in governance, in reality, here again, we find that it is the local elites who take all the advantages of that devolution.

Even at the most basic unit of governance, the gram panchayats, or more so there, it is the village elite, by virtue of their being from a particular caste or clan, who will rule the roost.

Take the 33 per cent reservation for women in gram panchayats, we find most of the women standing as proxies of their husbands or other male members of the family who in effect runs the affairs of the village.

Now, if at all some consensus is reached between the various political parties and the Women's Reservation Bill is passed by the Parliament and the 33 percent reservation for women is extended to the Lok Sabha and the state legislative assemblies, there is every likelihood of the gram panchayats trend continuing here also.

The fact that all the four women members we have had, one of the Manipur Electoral College and three others of the Manipur State Legislative Assembly belonged to the already privileged, is a clear indication of such a possibility.

While Late MK Binodini, a highly literate and cultured person was the daughter of the then Maharaja of Manipur, Late Keisam (o) Apabi Devi, Wahengbam (o) Leima Devi happen to be wives of former ministers and Okram (o) Landhoni Devi, the lone women MLA of the 9th Manipur Legislative Assembly is the wife the present Chief Minister of Manipur.

We are not against affirmative action or reservations as a means towards facilitating equality of opportunities for a level playing field, but only arguing for a more nuanced approach to this whole concept of affirmative action.

Or else, equal opportunities for all the citizens of the country across class, caste, religion and region will ever remain an elusive dream.