Unwanted impact of 1000 hour bandh : Justified angst, wrong target
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: Ocotber 29, 2014 -

Genuine angst and frustration but the same cannot be said about the 1000 hour bandh imposed at Karbi Anglong district of Assam and there are more than one or two reasons why this is so.

The Joint Action Committee for Autonomous State (JACAS) may have all the reason to feel disillusioned with Delhi and Dispur for there is no way in which a talk can be kept under suspension for nearly a year.

However a rethink is needed on the strategy they have adopted to put the pressure on the Government.

It stands that the 1000 hour bandh will not in any way affect the people of Delhi or the mandarins of Dispur.

It will affect the people of Karbi Anglong and significantly the people living to the east of the district, that is the people of Nagaland and Manipur.

Sounds so unfair that people who have nothing to do with the Statehood demand raised for Karbi Anglong have to stare at the bleak prospect of dry petrol pumps and scarcity of essential items due to the 1000 hour bandh.

Maybe this is what Dispur and Delhi want, for reasons which may be purely dictated by political factors, but there is definitely no ground to justify the sufferings to be imposed on the people of the two States.

The last round of talk was held on November 6, 2013 and it ended with the understanding that the next round of talk would be convened in the future.

So far there is nothing to suggest that Dispur and Delhi have any plan to hold the next round of talk and this is the reason why the 1000 hour bandh has been imposed.

If the demand raised by JACAS in the last round of talk was something which could not be granted then what purpose does it serve to keep the matter hanging ?

Important to keep in mind that the bandh has been imposed against the failure of the Government to announce the date for the next round of talk.

While this may be seen as a pressure to pursue the demand for Statehood, the present bandh is not against any failure to grant Statehood to Karbi Anglong district.

This is where the failure of Delhi and Dispur becomes all that more palpable.

What is stopping the Government from announcing the date for the next round of talk ?

Or if the demand is something which cannot be entertained at all, why hold the first round of talk ?

Not the time to make political statements or play politics over some issues, but to get down to the crux of the matter.

Unacceptable it is that Manipur has to pay the price for the failure of Delhi over an issue in which it has no say at all.

The same thing applies to Nagaland.

As things stand today, already long, serpentine queues have started dotting all the petrol pumps in Manipur and the same must be true in the case of Nagaland.

Needless to say the length of queues will be directly linked to the number of shops selling fuel in the black market.