I used to believe that government is godlike in serving and looking into the problems and sufferings of its citizens. That was a naive thought and a wrong belief; an uncontaminated and uncorrupted thinking of a being who is yet to grasp reality and the meaning of life itself. It was of the mind of a dreamer, whose hope surge high above all, despite reading and witnessing that it is often the other way round.

But then, all that have changed now to hopelessness. I, with many others to name, learnt the hard way that Government is nothing but a farce. And this is the only conviction we have today for the Government of Manipur.

Since long we have been crying for protection against the abuser of our rights and dignity. We plead for the development of our areas for decades. We wail for food and our daily necessities every other day. We appeal for providing education and protection of our basic rights as citizens of Manipur.

But to no avail, they were all kicked right on the ass and out of the doors. And then, as foresighted, they came "the daredevils" of the UNLF and KCP. They invade our vulnerable and insecure villages and lands. They exploited our areas with vicious booby-traps and landmines.

They robbed the shops and take what little there is, beat the innocent villagers with their collected firewood, making them lie on burning charcoals, used them as human shields, hand-pick the beautiful minors, molested and gang-raped them in front of their helpless parents and villagers, took them to secluded places' taking turns for their wild lusty desires.

How many more victims need to be killed and maimed by landmines for the government to hear them? How many more are needed to be mercilessly tortured for the government to come to the rescue? How many young virgin bodies need to be sacrificed at the altar of the government for it to make a move?

How many valuable lives do the government need more? How many hills and mountains do the cries of these hapless people needs to echo for the government to hear them? How many more ordeals do the people of the area need to endure to open the eyes and conscience of their government? Is there even a possibility that they will be given justice for the injustice done to them?

Past experience and events has shown it otherwise. The Manipur government is void of such thing as justice. And I am tempted to quote what Chief Justice W.A. Shishak, Chairman of the Manipur Human Rights Commission (MHRC), had said in an exclusive interview with the North East Sun (April 30, 2006) when asked to comment on the setting up of the Rajkhowa Judicial Enquiry Commission to probe the mass rape of Hmar women.

He replied, "Enquiries are set up only to cool down people's anger." How very right! Now that has been done to a large extend, one speculates whether the Commission?s report would ever be submitted to the concerned authorities and the injustice done be addressed at all. Not only is the government of Manipur untrustworthy, it is a disgusting government. God! Whose government is this anyway? Shame, shame! Down to such government!

Where was the government before all these? Where was the government then? Where is it now even after all these? Can I call such government as my government? No. Can I call myself as a citizen of such government? Absolutely no. I do not want to be under such irresponsible and blas? government, whose only interest is in power and money.

And this, I have to admit, is just the sentiment of one who had not fortunately live through the sufferings that the people in the Tipaimukh were made to go through. If I had been on my holidays at home, I would have been amongst the unfortunate.

What of those unfortunate who were forced to undergo the avoidable but unthinkable and unimaginable agonies, shame and dejections? What will their sentiments be? What will be their perception on their government today? How will they look up to such a government anymore? Will they ever trust their government again?

Will they ever want to live together with the untouched majority community who spit on their miseries? I am very doubtful of all these now. Do not ask me the reasons; ask those who were traumatized and were forced to live like lowly animals. They will, with unmovable convictions, tell you what they want ? ?a complete separate administration?, ?freedom from Manipur?.

They will ask for nothing more. They paid a big price for their belief in their illusive government. And I don?t blame them. And you will also not be able to blame them. This is without doubt the direct product of their government?s apathy towards them. The one and only body to be blamed, other than the perpetrators of the crime against humanity, is the government of Manipur.

The government does not give a damn for the immeasurably deprived conditions of the Tipaimukh people. What it only cares is how it can extract and exploit the natural resources in the areas. This is the only way it open its eyelids and flips its big ears and lick its lips for the area.

It doesn't care whether its people in the area suffers or get displaced as long as it 'vision' gets fulfilled fill up the pockets of the so-called 'swadeshis' and stay in the hot seats. Can we call such establishment a government? Can such government truly serve its citizens?

Let's retreat to the year 2004. In June 2004, the Tipaimukh Area Development Front (TADF) led by Rev. H. Varte submitted a memorandum to the Government of Manipur lamenting the plights of the underprivileged and marginalized villagers of the area and requesting the government to immediately redress their problems. One can imagine where the submitted representation will be?thrown right out of the window after it had been submitted without as much of a glance to their serious prayers.

Again on May 2005 (The Sangai Express, May 14, 2005), the same organisation TADF submitted a rejoinder to its earlier demands to the Chief Minister of Manipur, Mr. I. Ibobi Singh.

The TADF in their rejoinder threatened that, "if the state government does not look into their demands before the end of June 2005, it would be compelled to launch a non-co-operation movement by boycotting all elections, stop-payment of hill house tax, declaration of Tipaimukh area as not a part of the state and launching a movement to join either Nagaland or Mizoram, whichever suits the people".

The TADF, in their memorandum also stated that, "In the event of any untoward incidents happening during the course of agitation, the state government should be held responsible and TADF should not be blamed under any circumstances."

The demands of the Front were?immediate construction of NH-150, provision of security protection to BRTF, reactivation of all developmental projects in Tipaimukh area, resumption of Jiribam-Tipaimukh road construction, deployment of security forces at Thanlon, Bukpi, Pherzawl, Parbung, Patpuihmun and Kangreng, to ensure safe journey and transportation of essential commodities in the Barak river and to ensure Government employees to station at their respective place of posting. And as usual, the government of Manipur remained unmoved and maintained a stony silence.

Early this year 2006, the chiefs and village authorities in three remote sub-divisions of Churachandpur district namely?Parbung, Thanlon and Henglep submitted a lengthy representation to the Chief Minister of Mizoram, begging to come to the rescue of the helpless villagers from the exploits of militants since the month of July 1998 and to extend security protection and law and order maintenance in these areas, which had been virtually annexed by insurgents who imposed a reign of terror and rendered the entire administrative system defunct for all practical purposes.

They said that despite persistent prayers to the Manipur government, the state authorities failed to hear their woes (The Imphal Free Press, January 13, 2006). Whose people are these people anyway? Under whose government are these people anyway? Are they the citizens of Mizoram to beg for help from the government of Mizoram? Whose government is the Manipur government anyway?

Let me tip you Mr. Chief Minister of Manipur, never ever set foot in Churachandpur again. Learn the people's outlook of you as shown by the under-reported slipper thrown to you when you visited Parbung on April 3, 2006. Give us reasons for the postponing of your planned visit to the affected areas on March 28, 2006.

Why did the people call for boycotting your planned tour? Did they boycott your proposed helicopter flight visit again? They should have. The Central government should put an embargo on helicopter flights in the Tipaimukh so that visiting officials and authorities travel and see the pathetic conditions of NH-150.

Do we need another of those 6 weeks long economic blockade of the NH-39 to fasten the process of developing the NH-150? It is understood that the common people are the indisputed sufferers while you bigwigs enjoys. This seems to be the only language that you understand.

Your irresponsible actions clearly show that the areas are not part of your state government. We are not part of Manipur. True we will rule our hills and take our own course of actions. And we will not apprise you again of our sufferings. We will never approach you again of our plights. We learnt our lesson well now.

We will now approach the Centre directly. You are not our emissary. Why should we consider you as such? Whose government are we under anyway? We now understand your silence on our every call for distress. We did not know that all this while you had already given us complete autonomy to govern ourselves. We now do.

How many rupees have your actually sanctioned for the forcefully displaced Hmar villagers who had taken refuge in Mizoram? Have you even discuss on how to rehabilitate them back to their rightful lands? Why do they flee to Mizoram rather than inside Manipur?

Have you airdrop food, clothes, medicines, etc to the people in these remote areas who have nothing even now and which are the immediate need of the hour? What about medical attention for the tortured, landmines and rape victims? Till today we see no steps taken by the state government. Whose government is this anyway? Can this be the government of the people of the Tipaimukh?

The volatile situation today in these remote areas is borne out of the government?s apathy towards the people. Its biasness. We fear for the disintegration of Manipur today because the government itself does not care less.

Today, the people in the hills sing the song of complete autonomy from Manipur because successive Manipur government deliberately marginalized them and abused their rights as rightful citizens. And I do not blame them for it, because it is what the government desires for itself.

It is what it designed and created. The manifestations are obvious.

So the question is, whose government is this anyway?