Matamgi Manipur

by C.Doungel The Imphal Free Press March 9 2010 The appeal by Senior citizens for Society Manipur to the Government of India to initiate unconditional talk with Valley insurgents is a welcome move as it appears to be an expression of actual concern about the turmoil in the state. Further efforts however will have to be made if mere appeal does not bring any progress. A first step may be to confidentially find out one or more persons trusted by them to contact and try to convince them that talk proposed is purely in the interest of the people of the state. There is no need to have a committee which will not only be redundant but may only prove to be an added burden. Unconditional talk means that the agenda for discussion can include anything such as sovereignty, plebiscites etc. as the entire historical reality of the past and present would be taken into account. In fact, a clarification made by RPF in response to the call a few days later is an indication that they are listening an...

The Sangai Express Feb 20, 2010 Apart from the confusion generated over the identity of the State Police or any other security forces involved in the arrest of any individual, controversies have always dogged the manner of such arrests in this tiny conflict-ridden Manipur. There have been frequent instances of individuals who have been either picked up from home or some other places by those suspected to be security personnel but later handed over to the custody of the police after two or three days, claiming that the individuals in question were arrested from elsewhere and have nexus with some UG groups. In the latest incident, a young man who had been allegedly picked up by some unidentified armed persons from his house on February 13 was reportedly handed over to the police by the Assam Rifles on February 16, claiming that the young man is a PREPAK cadre. This is not an isolated case. Whether or not the Assam Rifles or the State Police or any other units of the Army were involved...

The Imphal Free Press Feb 18 2010   It is a show of a pathetic lack of imagination that the government has been able to think of no other counter insurgency strategy than to on a perpetually incremental scale, militarise the state. This is a strategy which all of us know have succeeded only in complicating, if not aggravating the situation. While it may be impossible for any government to not be in command militarily in an insurgency situation, hence making a certain degree of military preparedness inevitable, if the final goal is a lasting solution to the problem, it would have to explore other means of addressing the problem too. This is quite an elementary deduction and anybody sincere enough to tackle this overwhelming question should have understood it intuitively. That the Manipur government still has not come to this conclusion is an indication it is not giving the matter the policy attention necessary. As the time-tested wisdom says, if there seems to be no answer to a p...

The Imphal Free Press Feb 16 2010 When the Senior Citizens’ Society, Manipur recently announced they would be attempting to broker a negotiated settlement of the insurgency issue in the state, many observers quite by instinct presumed that the organization had already done the necessary legwork, in particular, made initial contacts with various underground organizations operating in the state, and that it was coming open because they were given the indication by these organizations that there can be a way forward. This however proved not to be, and on the very next day of their press conference announcing their decision, the Revolutionary People’s Front, RPF, in a press release, unceremoniously and rudely shot down their proposal warning them to back off. With this we suppose the proposed peace initiative by the SCS and the optimism with which the people were watching the move has seen a premature obituary. The SCS having to eat its words in humiliati...

The Imphal Free Press April 3 2011 By Amar Yumnam We have been very critical of the nature of the state as it manifests in Manipur. This critical attitude had at times shown to have been a prevailing view among the masses as well. But very unfortunately for all of us, from both temporal and posterity perspectives, the quality of the state not only continues to speedily decline, but the people of the land have as well started performing the functions which would otherwise be the only domain of the state. We can no longer afford to wait and watch for the reforms and changes to occur, but have to exercise our mind collectively in order to stop the deceleration. We have to stop this deceleration not only for the collective interests but also for the benefits of individual safety and welfare. A Recall and The Issues: In order to meaningfully discuss the issues as prevailing in Manipur, we can briefly recall as to what we mean by state. In this the definition of Yoram Barzel, a contemp...

Sanatomba Kangujam The Sangai Express 16 Oct 2007 Constant efforts of the Indian Government to quell the insurgency movements in the North East in general and Manipur in particular seems to have shown results with sections of our society beginning to exhibit a gradual propensity towards holding a peace dialogue since recently. It’s really going to be a sad development if things are to take shape as per their plan given the supreme sacrifices made by our brothers and sisters and the sufferings that we have endured for so long. Gazing at the wind of political changes blowing in the sky of Manipur that is clouded with the smokes emitted from the funeral pyres of our patriots, I simply can’t help pondering over the ‘cause’ for which they had laid down their lives. Today, that cause seems to have been bartered away by a few sections of the elite class as they are definitely trying to make a business out of the blood and tears that the sons and daughters of our motherland had given. ...

North by Northeast The Imphal Free Press Jan 25 2010 Does the Northeast deserve a separate time zone? This is an old question but one which has gained momentum once again in the wake of a coordinated campaign in Guwahati, the veritable capital of the Northeast, the prime mover of which is Jahnu Barua, the well known film maker from Assam. The contention is, the current uniform time used in India makes it impossible for optimal use of daylight hours in the Northeast. Longitudinally India spans across almost 30 degrees and this translate into a time difference of nearly two hours between the westernmost and easternmost points of the country. The Indian Standard Time, IST, meridian is calculated on the basis of the 82.5 degree longitude which passes by Allahabad, the city considered to be somewhat the lateral midpoint of the country. This being the case, the actual time of the Northeast would be ahead of the IST by about an hour, while the actual time of the westernmost points of Indi...

Prabhakara's parting shot by Iboyaima Laithangbam The Imphal Free Press Feb 04 2010 So M.S. Prabhakara, has eventually left the North Eastern region for good. It must have been an excruciatingly painful moment for him who had spent over 42 years of his life in the region. It was on the day of his departure from Guwahati that I read his article in The Hindu which was published three days earlier. My attention had been drawn to this article by a general discussion in a stag party. I made a point to skim read the article. I did not think it proper to read a friend's write up with mistrust, suspicion and with the objective of finding loopholes and infractions. From the general discussion and my cursory reading of the article two points struck me. What is more I had a single line discussion on it with Prabhakara himself while his taxi had revved up engine for dropping him at the airport. His article gave me the impression that the merger of Manipur to the independent India on...

By M Prabhakar The Hindu Jan 28 2010 Every time one travels to Manipur, one returns humbled. This has been the case since my first visit in the late 1960s, long before becoming a journalist. Active insurgency was not even on the horizon then though some resentment against ‘India’ was evident. Between 1983 when I joined this paper and mid-1994, I visited the State at least once every year — more than once during some years. In the last eight years I have returned four times. The feeling of inadequacy to confront and understand the complex situation in Manipur, the whys and wherefores of the insurgencies (the plural is advisedly used), the resilience of the ordinary people whose amazing creative energies thrive in the midst of all the pain and violence manifest in every walk of life, has only increased. Thirty-eight years ago, on January 21, 1972, Manipur became a full-fledged State of the Indian Union. The status was conferred belatedly and grudgingly, a most underwhelming gift. I...

The Sangai Express Jan 14, 2010 It is getting murkier and dirtier by the day. While questions were rightfully being raised in all circles on what grounds the agreement between the Apunba Lup along with the JAC of Sanjit and Jac of Rabina and the Government were arrived, there is now the serious charge by the Sanjit JAC that five members of the 30 member JAC had their hands greased to settle the issue. Moreover the JAC of Sanjit has also gone ahead and announced that they would not support or associate themselves in any future course of action taken up by the JAC in connection with the July 23 incident. If the allegations of money changing hands is true than there can be nothing more tragic and shameful than this. Adding to the murkiness of the whole thing is the fact that the agreement of MoU was signed without the Government fulfilling any of the major demands put forward by the Apunba Lup. What one should not forget is the fact that the some five month long agitation was launched ...