Matamgi Manipur

By Pradip Phanjoubam, Imphal Free Press, 16 Dec 2014 That the huge expanse of the non state sector generally termed as the civil society is not always civil is axiomatic. In Manipur this ought to be obvious. The blockades, bandhs, strikes and many other disruptive activities, often for very sectarian causes emanate from organizations assuming the mantle of civil society vigilantes. The truth is, it is not just in Manipur, but the civil society in the entire northeast is badly fractured and ethnically riven and may not be quite what the term is generally understood to be. The term civil society itself presupposed certain shared democratic values and qualities regardless of religious and community affiliations and these values are what have been relegated into the background in our context. Hence when we talk of students’ community or youth or women, in more ideal situations, there ought not to be any need for prefixing these understandings with community and religion specific qualific...

by Kishalay Bhattarcharjee and Ashish Ranjan Originally published by the Imphal Free Press on 7 Dec 2014 With frequent reports of alleged racist attacks in Delhi and the National Capital Region, Reachout Foundation perceived a lack of comprehensive data on the nature of alleged discrimination against people from Northeastern India in cities like Delhi. Our emphasis thus has been to generate comprehensive and defensible empirical data on the extent and variation of racist attitudes and experiences, in order that they could inspire or guide anti-discrimination policies. The main objective of the present survey is to understand the extent and scope of ethnic/racial discrimination perceived by people from India’s Northeast living in Delhi-NCR. The targeted population for the survey were people from all the eight north-eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura who are currently living in Delhi and the NCR (Ghaziabad, Noida and...

A collection of five editorial columns written by Pradip Phanjoubam for the Imphal Free Press in the last two months of 2014 Enterprise or Sloth It will come as no surprise that there is an exodus of young aspiring professionals away from the state. In a way this is good, for if and when they return, they will bring back new skills and outlooks. But there is also a fairly good chance that a majority of them will not return, for at this moment, job prospects befitting their skills and aspiration are virtually nil. Nor is there a climate for them to want to return and build enterprises from scratch. It is in this sense a very critical period for the state. Push matters a little farther and things can reach a point of no return, where the best talents leave permanently to find their fortunes elsewhere. If however the state does not allow the situation to drift beyond the critical point, who knows, in the years ahead, it may be time for a new renaissance, when the prodigals begin h...

By Dhanabir Laishram Source:   The People's Chronicle (thepeopleschronicle.in)  Manipur Times (www.manipurtimes.com) In India people have been disillusioned with UPA I and UPA II. Under the economists Prime Minister, Finance Minister and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission (all are famous economists) the country is facing uncertainty, fail to control price rice and confusion. Administration has collapsed. Rampant corruption is running the nation. The 2G scam, commonwealth Games scam, Adarsh housing colony scam are no bigger than the Coalgate scam where the Prime Minister is allegedly involved. The CBI is investigating the Coalgate scam under Supreme Court’s supervision. Miraculously and most unfortunately, 157 files related to Coal scam is missing. Where have the files gone? Coal ministry is not missing, office of coal ministry is not missing, Government is not missing, and then why the files are missing? Ironically the Prime Minister was the in charge of coal minist...

Manipur’s horror: When Operation Bluebird struck terror Rahul Karmakar, Hindustan Times  Senapati, November 05, 2014 Pius Varay ducks instinctively whenever a child pops an empty Tetra Pak carton or a motorcycle misfires. The sound is a traumatic reminder of soldiers firing in his village of Oinam in Manipur 27 years ago. The 36-year-old Varay may be the youngest survivor of Operation Bluebird, a brutal counter-insurgency operation launched by paramilitary soldiers in July 1987, but the scars still remain. According to an Amnesty International report, many men were maimed, tortured and women raped between July and October 1987 after the military launched the operation following an attack by National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) rebels on Assam Rifles’ Oinam outpost. The rebels killed nine soldiers and escaped with 150 guns and 125,000 rounds of ammunition.

This article by Amar Yumnam was originally published by the Imphal Free Press on 6 Oct 2014 India’s policy (read as the Central Government’s policy) towards the North Eastern Region (NER) of the country has undergone three phases. First, there was the period from the start of the Planning Era to the end of the 1980s. This was the period when the principle of not doing anything except militaristic-perspective-based interventions was honoured. The second period starts from the beginning of the 1990s when the Look East Policy (LEP) became a coin for international political announcements and the so-called border trade agreement was also signed between India and Myanmar. This second period has been the most pretentious one so far as the policies towards the NER are concerned. This period gave an overt picture of being concerned with the development concerns of the region. But this was nothing more than a bluff as the underlying principle of the first phase was adopted with no content of bo...

Yambem Laba wrote this article originally for The Sangai Express and Epao posted it on 24 September 2014 A visit to the director's office at the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal is akin to visiting an ultra high security zone. You go past unarmed guards provided by an agency and then you enter a fortified area complete with sandbagged posts manned by the CRPF wielding automatic weapons. Past that you are greeted with signs that read "Visitors not allowed beyond this point" and then you get to the ante room and find Manipur Rifles personnel armed with AK-47s — the personal security detail of the director. The aura of the institute being an advanced centre for medical sciences seems to have been lost somehow.

This article by Amar Yumnam was originally published in 1 Sep 2014 issue of the Imphal Free Press Any loss of life due to actions by any agency, whether state or non-state, is painful. No effort should be spared to avoid such kind of an outcome. Death is never a reversible event and so should never be externally imposed on any soul. This principle should be respected by both the state and the non-state entities. Otherwise, the state or the non-state agency would emerge as the Enemy of the people. Something like this keeps on happening in Manipur. In other words, Manipur has been in a cycle of fragility for the last half a century. There would be moments when things seem improving but would be back to the same turmoil situation sooner than later.

Editorial , The Sangai Express August 20, 2014  The Court of Sessions Judge, Imphal East has passed a landmark judgement today, the 19th of August 2014, and it would remain an outstanding milestone in the history of mankind’s struggle against controversial laws like the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act or AFSPA which has its genesis in the British colonial era. Irom Sharmila is one universal name which symbolizes common man’s struggle against repressive laws enacted by ruling elites even though she is known more about her crusade against the AFSPA. For 14 long years, she has been fasting. The Sessions Court verdict says that Sharmila shows no intention of committing suicide either by way of continuous fasting or other means. Thus first ingredient of the offence punishable under Section 309 IPC, i.e to commit suicide is lacking. The Court’s verdict reads, “The petitioner (Irom Sharmila) be released from custody, if not required in any other case”. This is a highly signific...

This article by Pradip Phanjoubam was originally published as an editorial in the Imphal Free Press, 21 Aug 2014 The extremely haughty manner in which the NDA government dismissed the finding of the Justice Hegde Commission which was mandated by the Supreme Court of India to look into the very serious allegations of fake encounters in Manipur is to say the least, alarming. It seems to confirm the widely held apprehension that under the new government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there is a real danger of the executive assuming too much asymmetrical power for itself, even those which should rightly belong to the judiciary and legislature. It may be recalled the Justice Santosh Hegde Commission had come out with the startling report that of the random cases of alleged fake encounters he picked up for examination during his enquiry, he discovered to his consternation all of the allegations had convincing evidences. To this the Centre simply said the procedures adopted by the J...