Vexatious Sadar Hills : Enticer of Bandhs and Blockades
- Part 2 -

Ceety Khongsai *

Three-day bandh for demand for a separate Kuki state at Moreh, Manipur on 13 May 2012 :: Pix - Bullu Raj

The Leadership:

In any peoples' mass movement the importance and role of the leaders in guiding the people towards its objective is crucial because the success or failure of the movement depends largely on the leadership. Indeed, the leadership qualities of commitment, intelligence, righteousness, integrity, courage and determination inevitably lead the people achieve its goal.

In the case of Sadar Hills, since the past 50 years many leaders came and go off the scene leaving the movement at its starting point. However, the movement has produced a good number of so-called public leaders who otherwise would have been hardly known to the society; and by becoming a leader in the Sadar Hills movement one has the good chances of sitting in the state assembly in future as the trust, confidence and support of the people won during one's stint as its leader certainly serves as a vote opening account in case a person contest elections.

Conversely, the hapless innocent people who risk their life as the frontline human shields during the movement are left in the lurch. Lamentably, the bruises and afflictions on the flawless bodies of the women and impaired bodies of the courageous youths inflicted senselessly by the security forces during the course of the agitation will only remain as a memorabilia throughout ones lifetime without reaping the fruits of their labour. The trauma of lathi charge, agony of hunger strikers, pangs of many sleepless nights in the roadside makeshifts and the vacuum of those precious lives lost during the movement deserves dignified honour and fitting compensation.

Sadly, during this half a century old Sadar Hills movement not a single leader with an avowed commitment and insight to win over the hearts of the state rulers to fulfil the long cherish hope of the Sadarites has emerged. Of course, leaders are aplenty but true leaders are the ones who could convince even his rivals through logical arguments in justifying ones stand.

The legitimacy, constitutionality and indispensability of making Sadar Hills into a full-fledged revenue district has widely been concurred by all and sundry but the approach to the problem is what that impedes the process of its upgradation. Frankly speaking, hardly a week will passed when under the umbrella of a Joint Action Committee (JAC) representing all sections of the society within Sadar Hills united in objective pressurises the state government for conversion of Sadar Hills into districthood, the government will ultimately be spineless to resist the peoples' mass movement.

Until and unless all ethnic communities, big or small, within the jurisdiction of Sadar Hills participated in equal measure in the movement there will always be a sense of domination and alienation among the minority groups from the majority groups, and this sense of insecurity will definitely be reflected in the form of opposition to the movement. Thus, the tug of war between the pro and anti groups will remain a fertile ground for all political parties in all future elections.

The Boundary Factor:

The seemingly vexatious question about Sadar Hills is the boundary issue. But how long can the government of Manipur befool the people by engineering flimsy and obnoxious excuses one after another just to keep the movement in abeyance? History is a testimony to the existence of a well defined, distinctively demarcated and undisputedly recognised boundaries of Sadar Hills long before the demand for a full-fledged revenue district was mooted by the people.

Had not the Sadar Hills Autonomous District Council been functioning as a separate unit of administration before? Had there been any instances of boundary dispute between Sadar Hills and other districts of Manipur? If so, why is the government so ignorant in endorsing the demand in the state assembly time and again? And, now why is it so indispensable to constitute a Boundary Committee to look into the undisputed boundary? Isn't the Government of Manipur playing with the sentiments of Sadarites?

Justice delayed is justice denied. Patience has a limit and when it is over-stretch beyond human tolerance it has the tendency to explode into a human fire. Precisely, boundary is not an issue but the dilemmatic and inconclusive policy of the government on the issue is the root of all evils. Meanwhile, there have been rumours doing the round that Ibobi's Administration has a clandestine policy of slicing off large portion of Sadar Hills and amalgamated it with Imphal East and West Districts, some other portions to the adjoining hill districts and when the remaining portions are geographically too small to constitute a district, the movement for Sadar Hills districthood will automatically die down and thence the problem will be solved permanently.

If this policy is the stratagem of the government to suppress the hope of the Sadarites it will not be easy for the government to materialise its policy because the people will definitely oppose it with a stricter form of blockade, and which in turn, will possibly be a boon tQ the small time traders and roadside petrol retailers! Ironically, it's now an open secret that Highway bandhsjblockades are indirectly sponsored by top echelon of the state's civil and police officers under the patronage of the politicians!

The seizure of large quantities of petrol inside the 2nd MR campus at a time when all petrol pumps in Imphal city ran dry due to the economic blockade reveals the unholy nexus between the civil and police officers. And now, apprehensions starts growing in the minds of the Sadarites if the Ibobi's Administration in collusion with the centre has surreptitiously entered an agreement to cedes parts of Manipur in exchange for the hotly contested CM chair thereby receiving accolades from the central leadership in one hand and also becoming the centre's most important interlocutor who could finally strike the last nail of the coffin to the decades old Indo-Naga peace deal as facilitator of Nagalim or Southern Nagaland. If this come true, our honourable chief minister will have the distinction of becoming the modern Tughlaq and his name shall be remember in the annals of Manipuri history as betrayal of Kabow Hills!

Conclusion:

In conclusion, it may be pointed out that the composite Manipuri society needs to revisit our past history and reaffirm our unity and brotherhood. In the process, the society must acknowledge the wisdom and knowledge of the educationists and scholars in guiding the society towards higher level of development. Indeed, a time has come to change our negative outlook towards politics which is now embroiled in corruptions, incompetency and falsehood.

Every individual whether one be a layman or an officer need to change one's concept with regards to politics and develop a holistic approach wherein men of virtues with political maturity must adorn the state assembly. Makers of money and flatterers with dubious characters must be given adieu. Because when the righteous are in authority there is peace in the society; when there is peace development is its fruit and when there is development the talk of integrity will become an old course subject.

Moreover,(we ).,really are optimistic in building a strong Manipuri society our foremost priority should be to build up emotional integrity amongst the people which has now been torn miles apart due to the imbalance development, lackadaisical attitudes toward hills sufferings, partisan administration, lack of infrastructure etc. And most importantly, every issues or problems affecting the society must be viewed from the rational perspectives rather than swayed away by sentiments and emotions of racial chauvinism.

The bond of emotional love and integrity will dispel fears of domination and elimination of one ethnic group by another group and there will be no room for mistr~st amongst the people. When all the entire people of Manipur have a rational look to the demand of the Sadarites for better administration nothing on earth can stop the government from denying their constitutionally justified demand of DISTRICTHOOD. Till then, Sadar Hills will remain as enticer of bandhs and blockades.

Concluded