Journey Through Conflict: Richest And Choices

A perpetual concern at the heart of the ongoing conflict, among various issues, is the oxymoron that the constitution provides hill people the right to settle anywhere while Meiteis aren’t accorded such a right. This debate has been demystified by asserting our precarious indigenous rights and highlighting the uneven distribution of endowments and other rights. A related discernible concern is the growing population in the valley—an issue apparently problematic for the valley only. However, a contrarian question can also be raised wherein the debate must begin among ourselves as to why we let our economy slip into the valley. While the valley’s economic gain germinated due to the addition of skilled workers from the hills, the hill areas, in places like Kanggui, Chandel, Kamjong, and Tengnoupal, suffered economic downturns as economic transactions gyrate within the valley. So, why did the wealthy individuals leave their ‘ancestral’ country to seek better options elsewhere? Because as a consequence of such actions, resources that can trickle down to common persons are no longer abundantly available to us. As the drain theory argues, here, locals do not benefit from resources earned by the locals themselves. It relocates elsewhere (to Imphal and other metropolitan cities). But this is at best an ominous take on our society since casting aspersions on an external force suggests that we are somehow coerced into such migration, which is ludicrous. Rather, our resources are transferred not because external forces demand us to, but because of the system that our society produces.

What is such a system, and how do we get our act right as a consequence of this conflict? Unfortunately, confronting the ‘system’ is outside the remit of this space, but the topic of resources demands immediate intervention. One immediate result of the ongoing ethnic conflict has been the advancement of the ‘people-centric’ policy initiated under Kuki Inpi Manipur (KIM), which, if it succeeds, will, for the first time, devolve power directly to the people. KIM’s R&R department has, among various initiatives, taken the role of creating a ‘Mipi Khopi’, a settlement for and by the people. This pivotal task and its policy formulation have to be scrutinized fairly, but surely it has provoked us to think. Here, the hope is that conflicts, such as the present one, as cataclysmic as it can be, shall give us the prospect of reconstructing broad-based institutions that will facilitate collective gain for our society. Conventional wisdom suggests it does. But does it, really?

The French Economist Frédéric Bastiat introduced the parable of the broken window fallacy, which goes: the son of a shopkeeper broke their window pane. The shopkeeper is miffed but was convinced by bystanders that, because of his son’s act, another person would be able to sell a window pane. So, his misfortune, in essence, becomes a fortune for another person. The whole point is that ‘misfortunes’ such as the broken window, or in our case, conflict can have a silver lining. Because the reconstruction of smouldering ruins will lead to a rise in post-conflict activities. This analogy, according to Bastiat, is just a fallacy. The resource that is spent on buying a new window pane could have been used for another purpose had the son not committed such an act in the first place. Comparatively, it can be argued that the ruined assets left in Imphal could have been used instead to kick-start our decadent economy in the first place.

However, the ‘opportunity cost’ of Bastiat isn’t the end. His conceptual argument has been criticized by Keynesian economists after the Second World War. In defense, they argued that the ‘reconstruction’ purpose will indubitably strengthen Europe again. And evidently, it did. So, focusing their wealth and skills in villages and communities can yield substantial dividends for both the rich and the poor. As the KIM initiative progresses, we must bring out our collective conscience so that we can rebuild our society better than it used to be. The substitute for living spaces for Imphal must not be Guwahati, Shillong, or Delhi again. This time around, it has to be in our own land, in our own country. One hopes that as a People’s Town, KIM will stay committed to eliminating or thwarting any undemocratic agendas that previously justified elites migrating to a more lenient system.