Blockade : An annual affair :: Govt needs to wake up
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 23 2015 -

Manipur is used to it. Not a new thing, for it happens every year and at times more than once or twice or even thrice in a year.

Give it any prefix, highway blockade, economic blockade or just plain blockade, but the effect is the same.

The Government is obviously the target but as the past has shown, it is the people who suffer the most.

Yet another blockade is on and again it is the All Tribal Students Union, Manipur which has decided to go ahead with the blockade.

Not surprisingly the student body has come up with a list of points for imposing the blockade and while raising issues and demands for the Government to fulfil is perfectly in line with the understanding of a democracy, perhaps a second thought ought to be given on the mode of protest that has been imposed.

In the first place, any blockade is not going to hurt the moneyed and influential folks, but the common people.

The first thing that will be hit is petroleum products and before long, one can expect to see serpentine queues in front of all petrol pumps located in Imphal.

Not that petrol or diesel would have run out, but it is about some elements making hay from the shortage thus created.

So while fuel will run dry at the petrol pumps, the same will be available in plenty in the black market.

Apart from the inflated price one has to pay to get a litre of petrol or diesel, there is also a question on the purity of the fuel procured from the black market.

This is about fuel and if the blockade continues for a protracted period of time, then be sure that it will hit hard the prices of other essential goods.

Remember the blockade imposed by the Sadar Hills District Demand Committee in 2011, when the price of onion sky rocketed and cooking gas was in short supply, albeit available in plenty in the black market.

The blockade itself is unacceptable and equally unacceptable is the repeated failure of the Government to look into the demands raised by the student body.

This is not a new demand, if the earlier agitations are anything to go by.

Moreover if the Government is not going to implement its promises then why give the assurance in the first place ?

Seemed more like a ploy to play for time, buy temporary peace and then forget all about it. This is not how a place should be governed.

Remember the demands of ATSUM are not something new. The list of demands is no doubt long and some of the key points include, establishment of a Scheduled Tribe Commission, service regularisation of 268 contract lecturers and 333 adhoc teachers posted in the hill districts, filling up of backlog posts under ST reservation norms in Manipur Legislative Assembly Secretariat and bifurcation of Additional Director (Hills) from Education (S) Director etc.

If these demands were untenable, what made the Government assure that these demands would be fulfilled or looked into ?

Adhoc approaches to such issues cannot be called governance by any yardstick.

Let the Government study these issues sincerely and let ATSUM also review its decision of imposing the blockade.

The people should not be held to ransom for the failure and indifference of the Government.