Journal of Tribal Intellectual Collective India

ISSN 2321-5437

JTICI Vol.4, Issue 3, No.3, pp. 26 to 37, October 2017

Researching Political Economy: Perspectives from Within

Raile Rocky Ziipao

Introduction

Before I discuss my premises, processes and strategy of engagement in understanding the social reality of Manipur, it is imperative to state my locationⁱ. It is from this location that I draw my perspective and analyse my data. I belong to the Poumai Naga tribe, which is recognised as Scheduled Tribe by the post-colonial Indian state. To study infrastructure development per se was methodologically simple and one can draw conclusion by comparing with different variables and indicators of measurement. However, the purpose of my study was to draw insights based on social statistics and to capture the nuances in processes involved in building infrastructure. The impediment for theoretical advancement in my study hinges on how to engage respectfully and ethically that is in tune with the tribal societies, state functionaries, insurgent groups, and civil society. Since participants of my research were drawn from diverse background and involves multi-actors (both underground and over-ground)ⁱⁱ, I encountered a methodological problem i.e. maintaining the initial/original framework for fieldwork. To overcome all these issues and research questions, ethnography was chosen and conceptualised keeping in mind the contextual reality of Manipur. It includes historical, archival, textual analysis, social statistics, in-depth interviews, listening to the voices of discontentment etc. This chapter gives a descriptive account of my experience on researching political economy in a conflict-ridden state of Manipurⁱⁱⁱ. It unraveled how political is the notion of infrastructure development in multi-ethnic communities marked by ethnic manipulation and contestation, power dynamics within and among ethnic groups.

Theoretical Framework

As I began to engage on the research subject post my Master’s and MPhil degree, I found that social scientists other than economists hardly give any serious attention to the study of infrastructure development. Therefore, I decided to research on political economy of infrastructure development. I was trying to understand social dynamics of infrastructure building in a chronic conflict ridden state like Manipur. My study gives primacy to infrastructure within development discourse in North East India that would provide a basis to understand the issues of access, inclusion, equity, social justice etc. My interest on research subject also stems from my engagement with discourse on North East, tribal studies and my personal experiences with the social reality of Manipur. In the hill districts of Manipur, roads are generally bad especially during monsoon when it is not even motorable and electricity is very irregular. However, as one passes from the hill districts into the valley, there is an overwhelmed starkly differences in infrastructure facilities. This reality confronted me to ponder upon the pathetic condition of roads and irregular electricity in tribal areas. I discussed with my colleagues, friends, attended lectures, and review literature on how do I used political economy framework in my study since it is a broad theme and has a very long history. Therefore, I contextualised political economy framework in my study based on my discussion and on the social reality of Manipur.

In my study, the concept of political economy neither conforms in totality with the classical, or the Marxian notion, nor what economists are popularly studying. Rather political economy as a framework for social analysis was conceptualised on the lines of Milonakis and Fine^iv and Kurtz^v. For Milonakis and Fine^vi, political economy is a framework that transcends the boundaries of social sciences. This framework challenges the conventional approach by adopting the interdisciplinary perspective. It argues in the opposite direction to the economic imperialism i.e. by putting back political economy as a social science. The tendency of economic imperialism or for that matter any discipline points toward what Oommen has described as, “academic communalism, nationalism, and feudalism in India”^vii. Invariably, Kuhn promoted the idea of scientific research paradigms. These paradigms give a framework to analyse why and how a research community at any particular historical moment is committed to a particular research agenda and strategy and why these commitments change^viii. According to Kurtz^ix, the five paradigms^x are (i) structural-functional (or simply functionalism), (ii) the processual, (iii) the political economy, (iv) political evolution, and (v) the post-modernist.

In this study, I limited it to the paradigm of political economy, which in essence gives the multi-dimensional approach to comprehend the complex social reality. The political economy paradigm in this sense gives a wider perspective to explore “how political agents— leaders and others— enter and influence those processes through their acquisition and manipulation of economics and ideological instruments of power as they pursue political goals”^xi. Political economy as a framework gives a space for addressing the relationship between economics and politics in understanding policies, institutions and structures of governments. The situation in Manipur gives a scope of exploring the agent-driven politics of dominant i.e. the Meiteis and subordinate social categories i.e. the tribals in different kinds of economic and political context. Political economy in the context of Manipur can be examined on how unequal power relation of various ethnic communities led to social unrest, development disparity, deep hostility and structural inequality. It gives the dimension to examine the relationship of identity, ethnicity, land, resources, and various institutions in shaping infrastructure. Briefly it explores how power intersects in the social and political processes of building infrastructure. Thus, my study analyse social reality from the framework of political economy.

Fieldwork and Subjective Experience

Fieldwork in a chronic conflict zone like Manipur is both a challenging and an enriching experience. Dealing with three major stakeholders viz. different ethnic communities; armed forces (both state and non-state); and the state apparatus, that were constantly in conflict with each group became one of the main challenges to my entire fieldwork. The challenge also came from objective engagement with social reality, which is at the same time a subjective reality. Engaging research under the shadow of heavy militarisation and insurgent ridden-state in itself was a big challenge during my fieldwork. The total strength of police force in Manipur during the year 1992-93 was 13,061. It was increased to 25, 674 in 2013-14^xii. It is interesting to note the total police per 100 sq. km of Manipur stood at 109.73 whereas all India average is 52.45^xiii. Frisking and intense security check by armed forces was a daily experience in Manipur. With Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA)^xiv, 1958 in placed, the security forces even rule in the public space^xv. Taking any appointment especially in the evening is a bad idea. I encounter a case where I was supposed to meet one respondent at around 6:00 pm at Imphal^xvi. On my way to the venue, security personnel stopped me for frisking and questioning. Only after producing my valid identity card, letter issued by my Institute and clarification, I’m allowed to go but was too late for the meeting and I have to reschedule the appointment for another day. This reaffirmed Das experience, which entails that “doing fieldwork in politically disturbed fields means negotiating and surviving from dangers that often come without warning”^xvii. There is not even a single highway without security check post in the state. This adds another burden apart from bad roads.

All the government department headquarters and important offices are located at Imphal. As a result, I spent near about four months at Imphal, gathering secondary data and interviewing government officials. Entering the very gate of different offices such as Public Works Department (PWD), Planning Department, Manipur State Rural Roads Development Agency (MSRRDA), Secretariat offices, located in Imphal for gathering secondary data as well as meeting government servants were in itself a big challenge. All these offices are heavily guarded by security forces for different reasons. Getting a gate pass is a big break through in order to listen to the voices of bureaucrats and understand the process of planning for infrastructure development, and gathering relevant secondary sources of data which otherwise is not available in public domain. Even with valid appointment from the higher authority of concerned department, security guards at respective gates confronted me many times since I failed to bribe them before entering. In such a situation, my understanding of conventional research methods as taught and vast existing literature on it fails to comprehend the emerging realities. Therefore, I was force to devised new strategy of engaging with government officials and gather data. In the words of Das

“the need of contemporary research ethics within Anthropology is to debate and make its domain of classification flexible, malleable, and elastic that responds to unknown contingencies of fieldwork. This would also mean questioning the epistemological base of postmodernist deconstructivist approach of hermeneutics and reflectivity devoid of the political, economic, social and historical context”^xviii

Notwithstanding this problem, I managed to overcome the hurdle of entering the gate of different government offices without bribing. I did have a letter from my supervisor as well as from the institute stating that I am a bonafide Ph.D scholar and all data collected during the process of fieldwork will be use only for academic purpose. However, this did not work effectively in government offices. Hence, I devised a new strategy of taking an appointment of the Rural Development Minister and explained to him in detail about my project and its relevance in a state like Manipur. I requested him to provide a letter from his official letterhead stating that I am a Ph.D scholar and that I am doing fieldwork in Manipur. He obliged my request and with this, the accessibility to different government offices and passing through security guards became possible. The engagement with the study of infrastructure invariably led to the issue of corruption and nexus between different stakeholders. It was empirically evident during my fieldwork. In Manipur, corruption starts right at the gate of the offices: from security guards to top level officials and people’s representative.

One component of my study was to unravel budget allocation of roads and electricity development of all nine districts. The broad research questions for this were “How much financial resources have been allocated for critical infrastructure in each district? Where have these funds invested and what are the outputs?” These demanded me to interview executive engineers of each districts. The case of Executive Engineer, PWDs, Senapati district is very interesting case. I visited his office located at Senapati district headquarter three times but never met him at his office. I was told by his junior posted at the same office that he hardly discharge his official duty at the office. Rather everything functions at his residence located in Imphal and so all files are at Imphal. Therefore, I have to go to Imphal, take appointment and meet him. The reason for this often cited by government officials particularly Meiteis posted in hill districts are disturbance by insurgent groups, threats call, monetary demands by various groups, frequent blockade and bandh etc. This phenomenon of government officials posted in hill districts but functioning at their residence in Imphal is very common. At the end of the day, it is the common people from hill districts who bears the brunt of government officials absentee at their respective offices.

My strategies and processes involved in unravelling data varied from objective to objective. For instance, the first objective of the study was to examine development policy pertaining to infrastructure in the region. This was address by reviewing literatures on infrastructure development and economic growth from the beginning of planned period. This in way was not very challenging task as it was mostly through desk review. The challenge stems when I start posing questions such as why according to you infrastructure in hill districts are relatively less developed than the valley districts? What is the politics of infrastructure development in Manipur? How and in what ways are the nexus between politicians, contractors, insurgents, elites, and state machineries work in the state? etc to government officials belonging to dominant ethnic community. The emerging pattern among the government officials were distorting data and not admitting structural inequality between hills and valley districts. Factors responsible for poor road infrastructure in hill districts, as often cited by government officials and bureaucrats, are issues of insurgency, corruption and hilly terrain. Statistically, the number of active insurgency groups is more in valley districts than in the hill districts, and so has been in the case of law and order problem. No doubt, hilly terrain and topography are hurdles for good roads. However, this cannot be an excuse. After all, there is inadequate allocation of fund and execution of work in hill districts. The wide variation in road infrastructure in Manipur gives hill people a negative attitude towards the state and its development policies and strategies.

Gathering data pertaining to budget allocation for the state of Manipur was again very challenging as concerned officials were not in a position to disclose data that involved money. Officials concerned were hesitant even to speak and many times referred me to their clerks. This made data collection process more taxing. Bureaucrats in a state like Manipur are synonymous with authority and power. The common people or the citizen from the margin instilled inferiority complex and becomes subservient to the bureaucrats (the agent of the state). The common misconception is that bureaucrats are the ultimate authority when it comes to the welfare and development of the village(s). Often their voices and judgement becomes the deciding factors. Hence their voices are seen as from above. This is more so in a society marked by layer of contestation, conflicts and militarised state. The inefficiency of bureaucrats, poor governance system, layers of corruption etc. in the state conveniently blames it to the prevailing conflicts. The rigid bureaucracy on one hand and heavy securitisation on the other hand makes it volatile for researcher even to take an appointment with government officials.

This takes me to the case of seeking appointment with the Works Minister and meeting his personal assistance (PA). I make a conscious effort to interview the Works Minister, GoM. However, this could not be materialised during the course of my fieldwork due to his hectic scheduled as Minister. I first went to his office located at the Secretariat Office building^xix and took appointment with his personal secretary. His personal secretary refers me to contact the minister’s personal assistance (PA). I did contact him and met at the minister’s office. He first asked me about my identity and ethnicity. Thereafter, he asked about my research and the broad research questions which I would be asking to minister in case of getting appointment. One of my research objectives is to know the budget allocation of roads in Manipur and nature of awarding contract. The minister’s PA advised me not to ask this particular aspect saying that it is a sensitive issue. The meeting ended with assurance from him for an appointment to meet the minister. After following up for nearly two months with minister’s PA, the appointment never happens. So interview of the Works minister could not take place. This situation left me to ponder and raise many questions. Why is it so difficult to get an appointment with the minister? How would the common person get to meet minister and place their agenda for development? What kind of people does the minister entertain in his office as well as at his official residence? etc.

I had two different experience of taking appointment with ministers in Manipur. The first case where the minster even gave me a letter in his official letterhead for gathering data stored in government offices. In contrary to the first case, taking appointment with the Works minister became extremely difficult. Ministers and MLAs in Manipur have two kind of PA. The official PAs as appointed by the government and PA appointed by the minister himself or herself. Often the PA of later case dominates the former, as he/she is either a close relative or someone from the same ethnic community of the minster. In the case of Works minister, his nephew is his PA. Thus, he emerges as a powerful person since he deals and regulates visitors of minister. Moreover official PAs and secretaries in his office take the advice of minister’s nephew.

In such a highly bureaucratic set up, accessing data which otherwise should ideally be in public domain to be easily accessed by all becomes a herculean task. Gaining access to such data turns into a treacherous game of hide and seek whereby concerned officials blatantly refuses to provide information. Moreover, in order to discourage the public from further access they have adopted a cunning method of sending people from one desk to another without actually giving them the required information. For this and many other reason I had to devise a strategy of my own to counter their practices while enabling me to access the data. The response from government officials were strikingly similar with most of their excuses falling within the following answer: “come back tomorrow or by next week as we are busy; we don’t have such data; we are not the authorised person to give it; go to the next station/desk”. After getting a letter from the concerned Minister, accessibility to government offices became easier. Same government officials^xx who denied me data at the initial stage, shared data after seeing the letter from the minister.

The frequency of bandh, blockade of highways, closing down of markets, various institutions and government offices in Manipur continue at an unabated rate. This had an inverse impact during my fieldwork as many appointments with government servants and other stakeholders have to cancel and delaying the whole process of fieldwork. The culture of bandh and blockade in the state is another dimension one need to consider as a crucial factor while engaging fieldwork in such a highly charged political situation. This issue can escalate to any heights and one never knows when would be the next bandh or blockade. The possibilities of researcher being trap in a blockade as experienced by the present researcher cannot be ruled-out. This can also put the life of researcher at risk. One of the unique characteristic of Manipur being the quick formation of Joint Action Committee (popularly call as JAC) in every issues and followed by bandh and blockade. One would find JAC holding protest/dharna on a daily basis in one part or the other part at Imphal. Thus, JAC became the antidote for government and strategy to place their issue and demand before the concerned entities. Strangely, there are also cases of where people were paid to sit for protest/dhrana, schools were forced to close down and send student for the protest on the street by the organisers.

Every ethnic community in the state has insurgent group (s) operating through the support of people. The linkage between civil society and insurgent groups is very strong with the former operating in public domains while the later operates through the invisible hand. This demanded me to interview some leaders of insurgency groups operating in the state. They play a key role in infrastructure development and awarding contracts. I encounter a very interesting experience while seeking appointment and interviewing with the Kuki based insurgent leader at Churuchandpur district headquarter. With the help of a Zomi based insurgent leader, I managed to take an appointment to interview a Kuki based insurgent leader at his resident in Churachandpur. Just a day before the scheduled interview, he was reluctant to meet me after learning that I belong to Nagas^xxi and coming from Senapati district. I was in dilemma at this situation but fortunately I already interviewed one insurgent leader from another group, so I contacted him to help me out. In such a given situation, had I not conducted an interviewed earlier, I would have not had an interviewed with a Kuki based insurgent leader. Thereafter, I devise an alternative strategy to meet him. I requested a Zomi^xxii based insurgent leader to accompany me and be the witnessed that my study was purely for academic purpose and not on the line of ethnicity. He obliged to my request and even took me in his car to the residence of the Kuki leader. He introduced me to the leader and our interview went well as per the plan and got lots of insight on the role of insurgent on infrastructure development in Manipur in general and in Kuki dominated districts in particular. The leader openly admitted that the percentage^xxiii they deduct from development project is meagre as compare to the percentage deducted by ministers, bureaucrats and contractor from Imphal. Identity and ethnicity thus played an important role while doing fieldwork in Manipur. Often I encounter an identity and ethnic related questions from my respondent. At times respondent were reluctant in meeting and giving information as was the case of the Kuki based insurgent leader. In other instances, respondents were very supporting^xxiv and even went to extend of contacting some important stakeholders and introducing me.

Gathering secondary and primary source of data from government sector constitutes one strategy of data collection. The other strategy was travelling across Manipur, listening to the voices of discontentment from the margin and from the so-called mainstream society. Travelling across Manipur and listening to the voices of discontentment from the margin makes me unlearn the hardship^xxv I faced before reaching the villages. It enabled me to experience empirically the different highways in the state. For example, NH-2 was my regular route of travelling even before I embarked into higher education. This highway is the main highway and linked with other highways and neighbouring country (Myanmar). Apart from NH-2, I travelled for the first time on NH-202, NH-37, NH-102B and some state highways, major district roads and village roads in the state. I attempted to travel on NH-102 (A) but it was not motorable since the construction work had just begun. However, I made a visit to NH-102 (A). My visit to many rural villages was by walking since there was no motorable roads and electricity was nowhere to be found in these villages. Whichever highway I could not travel, I interacted and listened to local people’s experiences. Based on my experience and observation, I drew a road map and classified roads into poor, fair and good condition. This classification is base on the premises of its quality^xxvi. For instance, those portions of road that I marked as poor are roads that are not maintain but are motorable. Roads that are repaired with blacktopping on its surface constitute fair condition roads. Those highways with two or more lanes and is regularly maintained are marked as good roads. Apart from highways in valley districts, all the other national highways, state highways, district roads and village road in hill districts constitute poor to just fair. In most of the cases, road ride in hill districts are nothing more than a terrible bumpy ride due to the existence of multiple potholes and poorly maintained road. In the case of electricity, it was easier to observe and verify. Those villages that do not have electricity infrastructure such as erected electric poles and wiring constitutes villages with no electricity. Regularity of electricity supply varies from distribution lines. For example in the city of Imphal, there is one distribution line marked as ‘VIP’ line where they get uninterrupted power supply 24X7. In contrast, remote villages in hill districts hardly get two hours of electricity supply and that too on an alternate day.

Conclusion

Listening to the voices of the people from the margin invigorated me to engage more and deepen my inquiry into the phenomenon of infrastructure building processes and different stakeholders involved in it. This enriched my fieldwork and captured the nuances and nitty-gritty of issues pertaining to infrastructure planning, execution and power dynamics within the system. The most challenging aspect during my entire fieldwork was unravelling secondary data which are in store with government departments. My study examines development from the politics of building infrastructure. Infrastructure is seen as an act of power, smoothening of relationship, connecting people, and even diluting boundaries of varied ethnic groups. These are the keys to unraveling a larger development discourse. Although there are other infrastructure such as airways, waterways, railways, and telecommunication which are equally important to the communities but are yet to be developed in Manipur. Hence they had minimal impact on how power is being played around. Thus the focus of my study on infrastructure, are on roads and electricity. They are the two most politicised infrastructures in the state.

Structural domination by the dominant community continues to be the key hurdle for infrastructural development of tribal dominated districts in Manipur. The development disparity (roads and electricity), widening of social relation between state and tribes, meiteis and tribes, and among tribes goes beyond the popular concept of centre and periphery. The dynamics of articulation between the meiteis and tribes is problematic since articulation too is an act of domination. There is an articulation, assertion and resistance from the tribes but despite all these, there is a domination that is deeply rooted within the structure which led to structural inequality of various ethnic communities. This structural domination finds expression politically, economically, socially and numerically. The politics of dominance, the denial of rights and historical injustice by the dominant ethnic community over the ethnic minorities in the state has led to various forms of political articulations. This was well reflected during my fieldwork.

The key issue in the politics of infrastructure is the power dynamics that has historical roots. The main players in this politics are the key ethnic stakeholders of Meiteis, Nagas, Kukis and Zomis. These communities are marked by dissymmetrical land relationship. Every community has their own historical claim over their land system. While some pitched against each other as the case of Nagas and Kukis, some simply make historical claims over land. Infrastructure is a political activity. The power relationship determines how infrastructure is planned and executed in Manipur.

I began my research by using five indicators. They are (i) population, (ii) economic growth, (iii) per capita income, (iv) poverty and (v) economic size. In current understanding it is clear that these indicators are the most comprehensive indicators that have the capacity to allow us to comprehend the political economic reality specially in the context of Manipur. No doubt one needs these indicators to understand as to where the state stands in development indicators especially in comparison with the other states and at the national level. And yet, endorsing these indicators without contextualising and bypassing the social reality will give only a myopic view of the larger social reality. Post my data collection, one finds that there are many dimensions that these indicators are not able to capture especially in the state like Manipur where tribal forms an important reality. Data reveals that there is a need for additional indicators. These includes the issue of geopolitics, policy of the government, lived experience of tribes, power dynamics, land, identity and ethnicity. These indicators are key to the substantive understanding of political economy in Manipur.

Notes

JTICI Vol.4, Issue 3, No.3, pp. 26 to 37, October 2017

Dr.Raile Rocky Ziipao is Post Doctorate Fellow in Harvard University South Asia Institute, Cambridge

Copyright @ 2017 adivaani, kolkata

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