Placing the Right Person at the Right Position: The Need to Reflect on How We Elect Our Representatives

On 17-18 February 2024, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) organized a two-day National Convention in New Delhi aimed at strategizing its plan for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. Curiously, the Meitei chief minister, Mr. N. Biren Singh, chose to skip, rather forced to, and stayed back in Imphal, though BJP leaders from the Kuki community, including Minister Pi Nemcha Kipgen, attended the convention. The reason behind Biren’s absence was apparently due to the mounting pressure from various Meitei organizations to resolve the current crisis before initiating any process for the election.

It is also noteworthy that while virtually inaugurating the newly constructed Jawaharlal Nehru Vidyalaya (JNV) School building online, Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded Pi Nemcha, the lone woman in the state cabinet, for her contribution towards the upliftment of the people. Dr. S. Lorho Pfoze, the Hon’ble MP (Outer Manipur), and other dignitaries attending the function also lauded the Minister and the local people for the successful completion of the new building.

In this article, we will discuss the importance of having the right leaders in the right place by assessing how we elect our representatives and community leaders to fix responsibility. For God’s sake, it is time to change our mindsets as we are facing a serious threat to our very existence as a community.

To go back in time, the first-ever democratic elections for the Legislative Assembly of Manipur were held in July 1948. Out of the total 53 seats, 29 were in the valley, including 3 plural constituencies, and 18 in the hills. The 3 plural constituencies elected a Mohammedan and a General candidate each. Due to pressure from the hills, Moirang was also made a special seat where one tribal and one general get elected. Apart from this, two more seats were reserved for representatives of educational and commercial interest. The kind of  seat  distributions  and  the  representatives so elected in this election shows that the State Assembly was relatively inclusive in the beginning.

However, the Princely State of Manipur was merged with the Indian Union on 15 October 1949, to the utter dismay of the hill people, particularly the Kukis, and since then, the state outrightly  lost  its  semi-independent  status.

Before Manipur got statehood in 1972, another election for the 30-member Assembly was held in 1967. But since 1972, elections for the 60-member State Legislative Assembly  have  been  conducted  regularly.

The state elections from 1967 till the 1980s replicate the 1948 elections in a big way. However, in terms of seat-sharing between the hills and valley, it has always been at the ratio of 2:1. In 1948, it was 30:18:3 for Hindus, Hills, and Muslims. In 1967, the valley was allotted 20 seats and the hills 10 seats. And since 1972, 40 belong to the valley and 20 to the hills, including 19 reserved for ST. This has been done so that the valley people will always dominate the Assembly.

Around this time, the choice of candidates was more on the person than the community. This is evident from the fact that Kishore Thapa, a Nepali, was elected from the Kuki-dominated Kangpokpi AC thrice in 1972, 1974, and 1980, and D. Kipgen, a Kuki, won from the Zeliangrong (Naga) dominated Tamei AC in 1967. In Saikul, Mr. R. Voi, who belongs to a minority community from the AC, won in 1972. Yet, tribalism slowly crept into the psyche of  the  people  during  this  phase. As such, voting on ethnic lines occupies the center stage, and merit-based choices took the backseat.

This pattern of voting on ethnic lines was further deepened by elements of tribalism and clannism among the hill people. So it has become a common phenomenon that votes are cast on certain subjective factors rather than on objective foundations. As a result, the elected members always belong to the dominant ethnic community of the respective constituency!

One common characteristic of voting or electoral behavior in India, including Manipur, is the little importance attached to party ideologies and principles. There is also a lack of loyalty towards one’s political party. Candidates usually hop from one party to another at will without any regard for anti-defection laws, the political party which provides them election tickets, and the sentiments of the voters who elected them.

In the Imphal valley, money occupies the most important position as the price of a vote can vary anywhere from ₹500 to ₹5000, and even up to ₹20,000 in rare cases. In contrast, the voters in the hills are usually influenced by three elements: ethnicity/identity, armed groups, and village chiefs. Any candidate who neither belongs to a dominant community nor gets the support of such dominant groups, or enjoys the support of the armed groups and village authorities has simply no chance of winning, howsoever capable [s]he is. In a similar situation, as the minority communities have no chance of getting elected, they usually end up supporting candidates with the highest chance of winning. As a result, the personality of candidates often becomes secondary for the choice for them is based on winnability of the candidates.

Overall, the electoral behavior of the people is largely decided by the candidates’ ethnicity, tribe or clan, and support from armed groups and social elites. In other words, voters are more influenced by money and muscle powers than party manifestos and personality of the candidates.

Therefore, it is high time to be critical of ourselves on how we have been electing our representatives in the past, and think about changing our mindsets. The last 2022 Assembly elections has seen a drastic change among the tribals of Manipur as more educated people get elected. Among the 10 (ten) Kuki-Zo MLAs, there are high-ranking officers who took voluntary retirement,  or  left the jobs to take up social services. Some of them are also experienced social workers and senior politicians. In terms of educational qualification, most of them are graduates or post-graduates. The performance of these MLAs might not be perfect, but imagine what could have been our current situation in case we have elected the less educated candidates as we usually did in the past! Electing educated candidates, though not necessarily perfect, is always an added advantage.

Now, having said this, it is also high time to start considering electing our representatives and community leaders based on their merits. Until and unless we do away with electing our representatives based on their tribe/clan, and money and muscle powers they have, we wouldn’t be able to see much changes. Moreover, as our survival is at stake in the face of constant threats from the dominant community, we can only think of our future by taking the right decisions at the right time. In this regard, the upcoming Lok Sabha election could be a litmus test for the Kuki-Zo leaders and the general public alike.

Anyway, can we start by doing away with candidates whose strength lies in the armed groups?