Our new life-style
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: April 06 2015 -

One of the "democratic forms of protest" we had borrowed from the mainland is general strike inclusive of blockades and other forms of disruptions.

It had never been in our society that we had expressed our dissatisfaction and disagreement in this manner.

People recall how the then Nagaland Chief Minister S.C. Jamir had said that when a Naga is angry or feels cheated and exploited he does not go to the streets but whips out his gun.

It will be no exaggeration to say that there are general strikes and blockades for over 250 days in 365 days that make a year.

Oil pump owners, traders of all hues, businessmen are always there to take advantage of the gravy train.

Prices are hiked and hoarded consumer items are available only on the blackmarket while fuel is siphoned off to the ubiquitous roadside vendors who operate freely after throwing some bones here and there.

Whenever there is something objectionable like alleged police excesses or execution of a notorious criminal or rape of a woman a Joint Action Committee is formed immediately to champion the cause of the victims or their families in case the rape victims and others are murdered.

There are opportunists everywhere waiting for such chances and they are likened to human vultures.

In most cases the victims or their families are given financial solatiums by the government or the accused persons in out of the court settlements.

It is a little concealed fact that the JAC activists take the lion's share of the compensation for services rendered.

In some cases there had been face-offs between the victims' families and the JAC activists over sharing the booty.

Since there is no dearth of untoward incidents and JACs Manipur has been under siege.

The government has never come forth notwithstanding the fact that the apex court had ruled that these are illegal and unconstitutional activities.

The JACs have changed their strategy in the sense that general strikes are nowadays imposed without any prior notification and the people in general and drivers in particular who were unaware of the agitations were at the firing line.

The government remains impervious to the all round general strikes since there is no impact and people ignore the same with the contempt they deserve.

Besides the JACs which have lost all bargaining chips and sheen eventually come to a tacit understanding with authority to call off the strike.

The situation has come to such a sad pass that people had started ignoring even the strikes called by armed groups.

Taking the irrelevance, futility and fatuity of the various forms of anti-people obstructions the JAC culture should be done away with.