Matamgi Manipur

One IRABAT AND THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL AWAKENING IN MANIPUR By Prof. Elangbam Nilakanta Singh This article is sourced from The Manipur Page ( http://themanipurpage.tripod.com/history/irabat.html ) Jananeta Irabat, was a renaissance man. He was a versatile personality: Social reformer poet, artiste, intellectual, sportsman and revolutionary - all rolled into one. But he was a much misunderstood personality neglected, abused and forshaken by the elites and the mainstream people of the freedom struggle in Manipur. The last three decades of the 20th Century has resurrected him and raised him rightly to the pedestal of Jana-Neta (Leader of the people). The people have increasingly discovered the sterling qualities of his head and heart, his vision and the spirit of dedication to his land and her people. Hemango Biswas, his one time artiste colleague called him Simanta Prahari (Sentinel of the Frontier), which means sentinel of the Eastern Frontier. He has now become almost a legend an...

AFSPA 1958 Parliamentary Debate (an excerpt) by Malem Ningthouja Source:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/JusticeForLoitamRichard/permalink/448173251861706/   Annexure XXIV, Lok Sabha Debates, Second Series, Volume XVIII, 1958, (11th August to 22nd August, 1958), Fifth Session, 1958, Vol. XVIII Contains Nos. 1 to 10, Lok Sabha Secretariat, New Delhi ARMED FORCES (ASSAM AND MANIPUR) SPECIAL POWERS BILL. 18 August 1958 The Minister of Home Affairs (Pandit G. B. Pant) : I beg to move: “That the Bill to enable certain special powers to be conferred upon members of the armed forces in disturbed areas in the State of Assam and the Union Territory of Manipur, be taken into consideration.”... ... This is a very simple measure. It only seeks to protect the steps that the armed forces might have to take in the disturbed areas. It is not possible over such a vast areas to depute civil magistrates to accompany the armed forces wherever there may be trouble, because it hap...

From a Facebook post by Malem Ningthouja  ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/JusticeForLoitamRichard/permalink/436304266381938/  ) Originally published in Governance Now , December 16-31, Vol. 02 Issue 22, 2011, pp 26-27 Many in India subscribe to the idea of unity in diversity for India. Unity presupposes reciprocity among the segments. This begs a question. One may ask if the supposedly unity in the Indian context merely exhibit some semblance of institutionalised order. However, the term unity enjoys official patronage and it is particularly upheld by those who are the stakeholders of the policy of united India free from the politics of disintegration. Not surprisingly it carries forth a success story of the State in justifying and defending the existing territorial boundary. Functionally the term conceals the subjective and objective conditions of the centrifugal tendencies of the Northeast peoples.  

The economic blockade in Manipur hits 100th day today This article was published by the Kangla Online ( http://kanglaonline.com/ ) on October 5 2011 at  http://kanglaonline.com/2011/10/highway-blockade-in-manipur/ Another episode, another episodic reaction and noises; it is a déjà vu of frustratingly comical experience of a tragic life. Highway blockades (for more 100 days) again and facts of price rise and simmering communal tension and familiar feudal lords and their subjects crying wolf once again.

by Roy Laifungbam  04 October 2011 Facebook A dear friend asked me today to write a couple of random words about the present “economic blockade” situation in Manipur. But what I wrote turned out a mouthful. There is nothing new about the concept or imposition of an “economic blockade” in world history. It is a military weapon used for political ends. A blockade is an effort to cut off food, supplies, war material or communications from a particular area by force, either in part or totally. The Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip has been continuing since 2001, receiving the world’s attention as a continuing crisis. A blockade is defined by the Encyclopaedia Britannica as "an act of war”. Countries have blockaded each other during wars and during peaceful times. The US blockade of Cuba is an example of the use of economic blockade during peaceful times. Tens of thousands of Biafrans starved to death during the war of independence through the policy of the Nigerian generals suppo...

- (1819-1826) - Prof. N. Joykumar Singh Facebook, Epao.net Aug 30 2010 People always look back to the history only when they are in the midst of confusion in the changing process of their own life. After having a detail knowledge of reasons either for success or failure of every historical events they again make an attempt to judge whether their approach is right or wrong. With these corrective measures they try to assert for the promotion of their national identity.

by Bimol Akoijam on Monday, 21 March 2011 at 21:21 via Facebook Part One If fear is the justification for silence, abandonment of responsibility and a verbal gymnastics that renders ‘inaction’ as a form of ‘action’, that society is bound to be morally bankrupt insofar as the basis of morality is what, as J F Kennedy famously said, ‘a man (or woman) does what he (or she) must — in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacle and dangers, and pressures’…

by Bimol Akoijam on Wednesday, 27 April 2011 at 00:43 via Facebook There are a couple of “reasons” that have been put forward as explanations as to why Sharmila’s struggle has been ignored…these “reasons”, which seem true at the first glance, are in fact misleading ideas and must be debunked. One taken for granted reason is: AFSPA only affects a small part of the country (as compared to “corruption” which affects the entire country), and hence Sharmila’s (unlike Hazare’s) struggle has been ignored. Think again! And answer 10 questions for the truth!!!! A crime is a crime whether it happens inside the "home" or "house" or the "backyard"!!!! And an abuser is an "abuser" irrespective of the place or people against whom the abuse has been committed! The idea that AFSPA only affects a small part of the country is a “false consciousness” that allows the continuation of the atrocious ethos represented by this AFSPA. The fact is AFSPA does not a...

M.S. Prabhakara The Hindu, June 8, 2011 Every nation state, whether it formally came into being within living memory or has been a stable polity for centuries, views itself as a unique and inviolable territorial entity. The nation state and its territory are symbiotically bound together, inseparable and inviolable. The diminishment of one leads inescapably to the diminishment of the other. This, the classic (and idealised) view of what constitutes the nation state, has remained more or less unchanged since the middle of the 17th century, despite the constant internal and external challenges to the supposedly inviolable territoriality of many sovereign nations, the changes that have come about in ‘unalterable borders,' and the emergence of new nation states. As explained in political science textbooks, the series of treaties known as the Westphalia treaties, which ended the Thirty Years War (1618-48), are the basis of the modern nation states in Europe. This concept has, ove...