UNC reminds 'alternative arrangement' demand
Source: Hueiyen News Service
Imphal, January 06 2011:
The United Naga Council today reminded its demand for an alternative arrangement for Nagas in Manipur, in an email statement dispatched to the media houses.
The demand for alternative arrangement is for an emergency intervention to change the unbearable and intolerable conditions under which the Nagas in Manipur have been compelled to subsist on, so that they may live as a people with dignity, identity and fundamental rights intact, said the statement signed jointly by Sword Vashum, chairman of the Committee for Alternative Arrangement and its member L Adani.
"The intervention must be urgent and interim in nature so as to accommodate our immediate administrative needs without any prejudice to the legitimate political aspiration of the entire Naga family.
It shall not and cannot undercut and upstage the larger Naga national issue.
What the Nagas in Manipur are seeking, with the blessing and goodwill of all Nagas at large is to save and protect our future and identity and to ensure our survival with honor and dignity," it says.
In view of the war that was waged upon the innocent and unarmed Naga citizens at Mao on May 6, 2010 by the state government the Naga Hoho on May 8, 2010 issued a statement that "�henceforth, we derecognize any artificial boundary lines drawn across our ancestral lands in the so called Manipur State", the statement reminded.
It further recalled the severance of all political ties with the GoM in the Naga Peoples' Convention which was convened at Tahamzam on July 1, 2010 and said that the declaration was based upon the unmistakable fact that it was impossible to protect our right to life, land, time-honored institutions, customary practice and values under the administration Government of Manipur (GoM) .
The statement also claimed that history has confirmed the harsh reality that the GoM has never recognized and respected the identity and dignity of the Naga people.
The vacuum in governance and administration created thereby, it was further declared, must be filled with an alternative arrangement by the Government of India in consultation with the Naga people at the earliest possible time.
Although the Naga inhabited areas was arbitrarily sliced off and annexed by the British in 1891 to Manipur, which was then only the Imphal valley, the Britishers, recognizing the distinctiveness and separateness of the Nagas, administered the Nagas and their lands through the Crown's political department, the statement claimed.
Before India's independence, the Nagas were never subjected to the rule of the Maharaja of Manipur.
After India's independence, Naga areas were arbitrarily transferred to the Maharaja of Manipur without the consent of the Nagas, through acts of subterfuge and deception.
The story of the Nagas in Manipur since then has been one of complete marginalization, victimization, discrimination and Meitei domination.
The entire system of governance is conceived, designed and engineered towards systematic degradation and obliteration of Naga history, culture and identity.
The Nagas in Manipur have suffered loss of rights and privileges, loss of due share in economic development, and most materially loss of their honor, dignity and identity, it added.
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