Today, the Union Home Ministry, the Chief Ministers of Manipur and Nagaland and a handful of Naga and Meitei nationalists are celebrating the 61st day of their successful enforcement of an indefinite economic blockade organised against the ordinary people living in Manipur state. In tribute to the strenuous effort of the All Naga Students Association Manipur (ANSAM) that later found support from the United Naga Council (UNC) in organising the blockade, the Chief Minister of Manipur has authorised the issue of an arrest warrant against Mr. David Choro, the acting president of ANSAM and Mr. Samson Remei, the acting president of UNC on 7 June 2010, an administrative act also received support from the High Court.
For an earlier statement about the economic blockade please see: INDIA: Manipur crisis is the result of brokering with factional interests
As expected, the ANSAM and UNC immediately responded by threatening that unless the arrest warrant is immediately withdrawn they will intensify the blockade, as if the conditions are not bad enough. The Union Home Secretary, Mr. G. K. Pillai, has declared that the current impasse in Manipur will be immediately over since he expects that the blockade of National Highway 39 will be over within two days. How this will be possible is a question that he failed to answer.
The Secretary added that ‘it would have been better’ if Mr. Muivah, the leader of National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), who is visiting India on invitation from the government “had gone there (to Manipur) after the district council elections”. The Secretary’s statement is proof to the lack of professionalism in dealing with such a sensitive and serious issue of national significance.
There are several questions to be asked at this juncture. Who have benefited from this impasse that have driven two communities, Nagas and Meiteis, to such levels of mutual hatred that the members of these communities now fail to view each other as fellow humans but are eager to fight against each other based on their ethnic identities? Was this all a stage show managed by the Government of India with their accomplices in Nagaland, Manipur and abroad to find a ‘no questions asked’ solution for the greater Nagalim question?
It is reported that until the blockade, the Chief Minister of Manipur was the most hated public enemy in the state. Did he find the economic blockade a temporary relief from the public anger by letting the ordinary Manipuries suffocate under skyrocketing prices of essential commodities and directing the collective public anger towards the Naga neighbours? What was the urgency for the Manipur state administration to declare elections to the Autonomous Hill Councils while the state has larger problems in Manipur to sort out? Or was it a convenient opportunity for Muivah to boost his public support?
Certainly there are those who have suffered from the blockade and even lost their life in the past sixty days in Manipur. Mr. Nili Chokho and Mr. D. Lima Oshuo are two 19-year-old men who were shot dead in Mao Town in Manipur by the Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) on 6 May. Ms. Ariyang, Ms. Esther Kamei and Mr. K. Bobison are three other innocent civilians who were attacked, abused and insulted by the IRB and the Manipur State Police Commando Unit in an incident reported from Lu-Khambi on 28 May. Will there be an inquiry into these two cases?
Like the secrecy shrouding the discussions and settlements that the Home Secretary was referring to in his bid to end the blockade, the people of both Nagaland and Manipur will never know what led to the murder and assault or whether those responsible for these atrocities will be punished. These cases too will be added to the long list of those who have lost their life and honour in India to the state agencies that serve not the ordinary Indians but those in power.
This is what India’s democracy has reduced to, of diminishing human value to mere names in endless lists.
