Muivah as the Chief Minister of Manipur will be the best alternative arrangement

Waikhom Damodar Singh *

Thuingaleng Muivah

If the NSCN(IM) have conscientiously given up their wild and unpragmatic idea of creating a sovereign Greater Nagaland by grabbing a large chunk of Land from the long existing lands of the neighbouring States of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal and have accepted to come under the Constitution of India as a part of it as the present Nagaland State is with special Political and Administrative facilities given, then Muivah and Company should cease posing themselves as the high dignitaries, Ato Kilonser (Prime Minister), Tartar Ho Ho (Members of Parliament) etc. as if they still belong to an independent country as, such presumptions on their part have no more the meaning worth the names, particularly after they have become the Indian citizens.

The highly "illusive presumptions" misconceived by them is of course due to the special appeasing favour and treatment that have been "unduly" extended to them by the Governnent of India, who very blindly and one-sidedly thought that by doing so there would be complete peace in the north-east region, which inspite of the great expectation so dreamt of, remains in no better situation - its entire people continue to live in great nightmares - not free from the "ceaseless extortions of money", living under great risks of being trapped in the fierce gun-battles taking place frequently amongst the insurgent groups killing each other including innocent civilians and poor villagers trapped very helplessly due to utter "inactions" of the Law Enforcing Agencies of the Government who simply remain sitting on the fence as good lot of spectators enjoying silently the great "Tamashas" of the rampant lawless and 'high-handed activities of the "unbridled" armed insurgents.

Actually, the Government of India had gone too much out of their way in their strategies adopted for dealing with or trapping the insurgents in their net by initially treating them as if they were of a sovereign country by applying the international term "cease-fire­which is a term meant to be applied only in the cases when two independent countries are involved in a hostility of war, like that had happened in between India and Pakistan and others.

One most pertinent question that may be asked is - Who is "funding" the huge amount of Money that is being spent for the "up­keep" of the big set-ups of the insurgents, the NSCN(IM), in particular? The answer will definitely say - Yes : it is from the routine collections of very large amounts by "extortions" from the general public, Tom, Dick and Harry, without sparing anyone i.e. Muivah and his party are existing or carrying on in a self-styled domain of their own on an "ill-got" perenial source of Money earned by "sinful acts and means" - Will God, if He does really exist, which Muivah and others firmly believe to be so, pardon such highly sinful acts? and the Governments have set the outfits scot-free to carry on their lawless and highly illegal activities with closed eye.

May whatever be the case, the next very pertinent question is - will the people of Nagaland accept Muivah as their top leader of the "new political echelon" that is being worked out clandestinely by the Government of India to come up? As per the recent Media publications, 95 per cent of the people of Nagaland are very much against his leadership in their State, who are also deadly against the Tangkhuls as a whole community even to the extent of saying that they are in no case Nagas.

In such a very vexed situation come up there is no way out to accomodate the great leader of the era, Muivah except to bring him in the arena of the Manipur Politics which may be possible to be done by "inducting him" as the Chief Minister of Manipur by electing him from his home constituency of Somdal, Ukhrul where he has his birth-right of being a voter as guaranteed by the Constitution of India - this political adjustment should have no barrier as had been done smoothly in the case of late Laldenga of Mizoram under the unchallengeable statutory supreme power of the Central Government, and the induction as the Chief Minister of Manipur as had been done in the case of late Rajkumar Joychandra Singh of Sagolband, Imphal constituency during the time of late Rajiv Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India in place of Shri Rishang Keishing in the year 1987 who, under the very strict dictate of the Prime Minister conveyed through the then Union Home Minister Buta Singh who personally came to Imphal, had stepped down from the Chief Ministership despite very strong pleas and resistence made by the majority of the CLP Members led by Deputy Chief Minister, Dr. L. Chandramani Singh.

This will be, actually, the best "alternative arrangement" to be introduced in the State of Manipur without affecting anything in its presently existing administrative system for the Hills and the valley under one authority instead of introducing the outdated British Pattern of "Diarchy-System" which will result only to bringing in untold complications and quite disastrous results.

As has been said earlier, since 'Muivah will have no hope of availing a democratic right from any electorate of the Nagaland State he should happily come out to accept the best possible political adjustment to be made in the fitness of things as suggested above so that he may lead the people of his dear age-old State of Manipur and do something to enhance its ethnic integration and communal harmony" that have been there amongst all the indigenous ethnic groups quite in-tact for so long since ages. His noble works with a "much broader mind" will surely make the people to live "in a new happy era of peaceful living", and in doing so the people as a whole will reward him with their good wishes and blessings forgetting whatever have happened in the past. Such good wishes and blessings from the people will make his soul to remain eternally in "peace" when it enters the spiritual world, the unseen kingdom of God, after its inevitable "exit" from the sinful worldly "ephemeral life" which lay ahead not very far off to take place, as everything in this world, except God and His components, the souls, in the forms of indestructible energy, will disappear from this temporarily worldly scene and stage on expiration of their prescribed times of the "worldly Roles".

To the people of Nagas of Nagaland the non-Kuki tribes of Manipur are regarded not as pure Nagas as they are, except far the purpose of achieving their strongly determined "lebensraum" plan i.e. expanding their mini-territory to a much wider territory at the expense of the self-styled (kutcha) Nagas of Manipur by bracketting them only "outwardly" under the borrowed "apellation, Naga".

If Mr. Muivah and all the top Political leaders and Bureaucrates of India very carefully do their "home-works of studying" thoroughly the nearly 2000 years old very unique History of Manipur they will surely find that her people descended from the deitic ancestors of the same stem constituted of several "inseparable" layers of ethnic groups - the Meiteis, the Tangkhuls, the Kukis and all other 'sub-ethnic groups who are very "tightly bound" by their blood relations having very close affinities in their indigenous languages, cultures, attirements and other living life-styles including eating and drinking habits. Particularly the Tangkhuls in the community of which Muivah, by the destiny of his fate, was born and grew up within the vicinity of the community which have very close relations with the Meiteis, in particular, against whom he, later on, very unfortunately developed a very "bitter anti-Meitei feeling" due to some unwanted incidents happened between him and some highly egoistic Meitei Brahmins and others during his college days in the 60s in Imphal.

It was much before the christian era that a large Mongoloid group of immigrants, initially known as Wung tribes under their leader called Tangkhu, came up from the southern side of Burma and they joined another very large and powerful horde of Mongoloid immigrants known as Poireis who came down from the north-west direction of Huwang-ho area of China and were "soujorning" in the Somra-Tract area of Burma bordering the eastern portion of the Manipur Hills. After living there with the Poireis together with very cordial relations, even with social intercourse taken with the Poireis the Tangkhu's group entered along with the Poireis in Manipur from the north-eastern corner through a passage known as "Nongpok-Thong"- eastern gate and settled in the eastern hills of Manipur and they came to be known as Tangkhuls, in due course of time, the name derived from their leader, Tangkhu.

The Poireis continued their immigration journey down towards the north­west and finally 'landed on the high-land area of Kangla-tombi on the north of Imphal plateau and settled there and established a powerful principality of their own covering a wide area extended upto the Iril river valley on the east of Imphal. The Poireis became the leading clan in the formation of the dominant group of people that had taken place later on who came to be known as "Meiteis" resulted from the "fusion" of seven powerful clans (salais), under the aegis of Pakhangba when he began to rule the kingdom founded by him from 33 A.D. onwards ­ the Luwangs, the Khumans, the Angoms, the Moirangs, the Khaba-Nganbas, the Sarang-Leishangthems and the Mangangs in whom ultimately absorbed the Poireis due to the great cultural impact of the former; deeply felt on the latter.

The existence of seven salai system amongst the Tangkhuls, the Kabui, the Chirus, the Chotes and other groups, which is very much still in vogue, clearly indicates the fact of being of the same originality of the Meiteis with all the indigenous ethnic people born and brought up together under the cradle of the God created heavenly hilly-land of Manipur, with the "epithet" given a little "Paradise" on Earth by the foreigners who visited and lived in the unique kingdom.

Actually, according to the findings of the learned historians the Tangkhuls belong to Gautam Budha's tribe, Moranga, a clan of the sub-Himalayan tribes, the Sakyas (Chakkhya of Tibeto-Burman origin) to which the Poireis also belong. The female names of the Tangkhuls like Lara-la. Simthar-la, Shimthang-la, Hangmi-la etc. are very similar with that of the English women's names, Angela, Pame-la etc. which very strongly suggests that they (the Tangkhuls) also belonged originally to the tribes who spread out from the great Pamir Range towtards the Asiatic region and the European region respectively during the very early period of the human- trans-migration that had taken place.

The very close relationship of the Meiteis and the Tangkhuls is because of the bindings that is there inherently in between the two communities by the elements, "Leihous", "Khumans" etc. In the Lai-haraoba festival dance of the Meiteis, their female pristess known as Maibis perform, being a must last part of it, a dance known as Leihou dance
(1) Paring Lamsang
(2) Sendrai
(3) Nongdrai and
(4) Leitrai and
a short play - Tangkhul Nurabi.

Further, in the marriage of the Meiteis, in the items of the clothes of the "dowries" for their brides, a simple cotton cloth known as "Tangkhul Leirumphi" - Tangkhul cotton cloth is a must to be given. From all these accounts it is very evidently concluded that the Tangkhuls under no circumstances can be called Nagas who are the tribes of Tai community originated from the Eastern Asiatic region whereas the former originated from the western Himalayan region as has been described above.

So Behold! the good news is that the great leader Muivah born and brought up in Manipur, is very likely to come back in his Home State Manipur and take over the "rein" of its Administration, and he, as the "god-sent saviour of the people" will make them to live in a "new era of a very peaceful living" in a more prosperous and integrated Manipur, the "heavenly hilly-land", which belongs not to a particular ethnic group but to all the indigenous ethnic groups who sprang out from the same stock of deitic ancestors and settled in it since time immemorial.