By Lalkhogin Gangte
When we are having our morning tea every day with so much bad news of blood and gore, killings, maimings and what not, the news that the NIT is to be established in our State is indeed an exhilarating piece of good news. We all welcome it because technology is the buzz-word and the most “in” thing everywhere today. However, the Government seem to welcome it more for the opportunity it offers to kill two birds with one stone than for the institute itself.
We were so happy that the NIT was the subject matter of discussions everywhere, be it in office chambers or tea stalls. We prefer suggestions as to how best it can serve our long-term interests. Keeping the socio-political reality of the State in mind, a few knowledgeable gentlemen suggested as to where it may best be located. A landowner in Churachandpur was reported as ready to donate his land for its site. An educationist from Chura-chandpur in his well-calibrated article highlighted in The Sangai Express the advisability and wisdom in locating it in Tamenglong District first to obviate its known over-all backwardness and secondly to remedy the general feelings of alienation and neglect that obtained in hill areas of the State. His suggestion presupposes use of the NIT as instruments of development and state-craft.
A doctor from Imphal East district also suggested its location in that district by rightly pointing out that, of the twin capital districts, Imphal East is much neglected and lagging behind Imphal West district in all respects. He also iterated in the said same daily paper the unduly high concentration of many infrastructures in Imphal West District chock-a-block and strongly pleaded for its location on a cluster of molehills in Imphal East District which can be easily developed for the site of the Institute.
Another strong point of his proposal is that there may be no question of eviction of landowners, which is the attendant drawback of the project, be it at Kiyamgei, Lilong or Lamphelpat Lourups. Another relevant point that crops up in mind is that availability of suitable sites, as such, in hill areas may be taken for granted. As for example, my own village land in Nungba area of Tamenglong District is about 9km x 7km and there are so many such villages in each of the hill districts. If at all necessary, more than ten NIT’s can be established in each of the hill districts.
However, the Government of Manipur refused to locate it either in Imphal East district or in hill areas on the pretext of lack of security and, after dropping Kiyamgei and Lilong Lourups, decided to locate it in Lamphelpat Lourup, inclusive of Langol foothills from Games Village in the west to the boundary of Sinam Leikai, Than- gmeiband in the east, necessitating eviction of about 3000 people inclusive of foothill residents, agriculturists and those who owned residential plots but not yet reside there.
The affected people mostly consist of tribals from hill districts. For them the NIT is fast becoming a curse. This automatically means that only such projects which the Govt.. considered as to require no security can be established in hill areas. Whether there ever will be such a project or not in the future is anybody’s guess. What a sound, beautiful and wise development strategy it is! This mindset of the Government means that 92% of the total land area of the State is unfit and only 8% is fit for establishment of any infrastructure worth the name. What a bright future the Manipuri tribals have!
If security is the real impediment the Government, in consultation with the Centre can set up any security posts wherever it found necessary, on temporary or permanent basis, is known to all.
This time the excuse is lack of security, next time it may be lack of road connectivity or electrification or good water supply or anything.
Let’s digress a little. The tribal themselves particularly in Churachandpur and Chandel districts feel that there is acute lack of security for them, not for the NIT, from the depredations of valley underground elements who rap-ed their womenfolk with impunity and laid land- mines causing sudden death or loss of limbs to so many sole breadwinners of indigent families, with the State Govt remaining unconcerned to take cognizance of their crimes and to pursue the cases to logi-cal conclusions. It may be guessed as to what retri-butive actions the Government must have taken and what sort of mass reaction may be there in case hill underground elements happen to commit these crimes against the women and men of valley area. If someone alleges that the State Govt is hand in glove with valley underground elements in their crimes against humanity, it may require too many Meira-paibis to hold too many Wakatmiphams to refute the allegation. In utter fear and helplessness, they fled for their chastity and lives in Mizorarn, Moreh or wherever they think they may be safe from their fellow Manipuris who have done to them what the Japanese had done to the Chinese during their war.
To say that the Institute is located in valley area as there is more security is the lamest of excuses, if it can be so worded, a total humbug and travesty of truth. As for example, was it because of good security that the only Central Library of the State got reduced to ashes? If the building located next to the compound of the State Governor could be so free-ly devastated by miscreants will it be realistic to say that there is good security in valley area? or, what is happening to the fly-over which passes through the very heart of Imphal? or, is it due to good security that Minister/MLAs were ambushed in Wangoi area in broad daylight and the weapons of security guards snat-ched so easily by whom we all know? or so many hand grenades and le-thode bombs were so frequently hurled into the compounds of so many re-sidential bungalows in Im-phal and its suburbs? or, so many UG elements were detected and captured by the police from the official residences of so many (dis)honourable MLAs at Babupara? If I am not wrong, the chain of these happenings may be poor manifestations of genuine peace in valley area. The fact is not due to want of security but because of the anti-hill mindset of the Govt. It may surely be because of disappointments and heart-breaks such as this, which have accumulated layers upon layers all through the years, that in total frustration the hill areas reverberate with murmurings of being neglec-ted in all kinds of development schemes. To blame them off-handedly may be missing the whole point and beating about the thick bush of their deep despair; empty slogans, make-believe feasts and festivals and much-ado-about-nothing seminars and colour slides in the valley notwithstanding.
If the Govt was not considering the valley area alone as real Manipur and if on the contrary it was having same concern for development of the entire State as other State Govts do in the region such as, Mizoram or Meghalaya, etc. the feeling of neglect and alienation would not have arisen from any part of the State.
As for example, not far from Bungpilon Village, Thanlon area, Churachandpur District, across the Tuivai river, there is a small village of Mizoram. It is as far from Aizawl as is Tipaimukh from Imphal. It can be seen from Bungpilon village over the Tuivai Valley. When the sun sets, the entire village is fully electrified every evening. It was on a hilltop and very beautiful to look at. Bungpilon Villagers were naturally envious of that village. They said that PHC, High School, all-weather road connectivity, water supply, etc. are provided to the village by the Mizoram Government. If the Government of Manipur were providing these basic necessities to the furthest village in, say, Ukhru1 district on the border of Myanmar, it will be something like that. It is the same with one of the farthest small villages in western Mizoram on the Bangladesh border. It is Bualpui village where my relative is a teacher. However, even many of the sub-divisional headquarters of Manipur, let alone the interior villages, are still not having these basic necessities even today. It may be noted that Mizoram Government is getting less crores of rupees from the Centre than Manipur and became a full-fledged State after us. Yet their villages are so much more developed than ours. This is so because of the mindset of the Mizoram Govt. Someone may argue that so many crores of rupees have been sanctioned by Manipur Govt for development of hill areas and, if it still is not upto the mark in development, it is their fault, not the State Government’s. No, it’s not their fault, it’s the fault of the State Government. It’s the responsibility of the Government to ensure that the funds it sanctioned are properly utilised. What is meant by State Govt here is not, however, the present Govt alone; it includes all the State Govts of the past. All these are mentioned to show that the abysmal picture of under development of hill areas, including the present case of NIT location, is the direct result of the narrow and short-sighted mindset of our State Govt in neglecting the hill areas. Through its acts of omissions and commissions, the State Govt inadvertently sow the seeds of communal virus and disequilibrium in the otherwise mutually understanding society.
The State Govt’s propensity to do things whimsically is proverbial. As for example, it declares an organisation as criminal one fine morning and smugly sign an MOU with it the next day. Who knows that it may draw a line between the homes of the Meiteis and the tribals at Langol foothills leaving the former free and the latter for eviction. There was a time in the 70’s when separate provisions were made in the Budget specifically for each of the hill districts. However the heads of the departments in Imphal always diverted the funds earmarked for the districts with impunity on flimsy justifications. The officers in charge of the different departments in the districts have had threadbare discussions of such matters in their monthly district-level meetings. In appearance, the hill areas were well taken care of but in reality, it’s the opposite. This was my experience when I was posted in Churachandpur in the 70’s. It’s not a question of arguments. The ground reality of the abject backwardness of hill districts even now is proof of our wrong and lopsided development policies. This very mindset is at present influencing on where to locate the NIT.
However, it has to be noted that the mindsets of the State Govt and the common people of the valley area are poles apart in regard to the hill people. The common peoples of valley and hill areas have mutual love for each other. One day there was a fire accident at a house at the junction of Sinam Leikai and Thangmeiband Leikai. The house and all the possessions of the tribal tenants were reduced to ashes. The common people of Sinam Leikai and Thangmeiband Leikai spontaneously donated whatever the tribal fire victims needed such as pots, plates, rugs, shawls, rice, sugar, tea leaves, fire-wood, milk, dal, salt, chilly, oil, spices, spoons, vegetables, etc. They were also allowed to stay in the Ima Panthoibi Hall till they could make alternative arrangement. People to people relationship may be like this everywhere in the State. But the State Govt is, through its omissions and commissions, preventing social cohesion and emotional oneness in the State. This is more than unfortunate for all of us. The mature people who can discern the subtle innuendos in the socio-development policies of the State Govt suspect that there must be a hidden agenda in the Cabinet decision for location of the NIT at Lamphelpat Lourup ominously including Langol foothill residential areas necessitating eviction of so many patta-Iand owners. Selection of site for the NIT seems to have been manipulated in such a way that the coming into existence of more Majorkhuls, Kakhulongs, Lambulanes, Deulahlanes, etc. in valley area is prevented once for all. The turn of future events will prove whether this suspicion is unfounded and baseless or not. How good it will be for the State as a whole if this suspicion is proved groundless by future events.
It may be pertinent to mention that major States and the Centre handle similar cases with the touch of humanity by following a new development strategy known as “Development With A Human Face”. This strategy is the result of their experience in acquiring extensive areas of land at Singur, West Bengal, for the Small Car Project of the Tata Company and at Salboni for the ISW Bengal Steel Project. Most of the major political parties, powerful Trade Unions and “Morchas” support this humanitarian strategy of development and are against causing avoidable hardships and deprivations to land owners as consequence of implementation of schemes and projects. To enable better and more satisfactory application of this strategy all over India, the Centre even slackened implementation of the S.E.Z. (Special Economics Zone) Schemes.
If there really is no hidden agenda, it will be very wise on the part of the State Govt to abandon Lamphelpat Lourup and Langol foothills and locate the Institute at convenient and suitable sites in either Imphal East, Sadar Hills, Chandel, Bishnupur, Churachandpur or Tamenglong as per the said strategy of development with a human face.
On the contrary, if it evicts so many Langol foothill residents and yet reserved an extensive area of land at Lamphelpat Lourup for Pony Lovers Association or something like that, it will mean that the Govt of Manipur (1) care more for Pony than for the people and (2) is following a weird policy of “Development with A Pony Face”. God forbid!
It will be truly in the interest of the entire State if the Govt kindly review and rescind its decision as early as possible in the overall interest of the people of Sanaleibak.
When we are having our morning tea every day with so much bad news of blood and gore, killings, maimings and what not, the news that the NIT is to be established in our State is indeed an exhilarating piece of good news. We all welcome it because technology is the buzz-word and the most “in” thing everywhere today. However, the Government seem to welcome it more for the opportunity it offers to kill two birds with one stone than for the institute itself.
We were so happy that the NIT was the subject matter of discussions everywhere, be it in office chambers or tea stalls. We prefer suggestions as to how best it can serve our long-term interests. Keeping the socio-political reality of the State in mind, a few knowledgeable gentlemen suggested as to where it may best be located. A landowner in Churachandpur was reported as ready to donate his land for its site. An educationist from Chura-chandpur in his well-calibrated article highlighted in The Sangai Express the advisability and wisdom in locating it in Tamenglong District first to obviate its known over-all backwardness and secondly to remedy the general feelings of alienation and neglect that obtained in hill areas of the State. His suggestion presupposes use of the NIT as instruments of development and state-craft.
A doctor from Imphal East district also suggested its location in that district by rightly pointing out that, of the twin capital districts, Imphal East is much neglected and lagging behind Imphal West district in all respects. He also iterated in the said same daily paper the unduly high concentration of many infrastructures in Imphal West District chock-a-block and strongly pleaded for its location on a cluster of molehills in Imphal East District which can be easily developed for the site of the Institute.
Another strong point of his proposal is that there may be no question of eviction of landowners, which is the attendant drawback of the project, be it at Kiyamgei, Lilong or Lamphelpat Lourups. Another relevant point that crops up in mind is that availability of suitable sites, as such, in hill areas may be taken for granted. As for example, my own village land in Nungba area of Tamenglong District is about 9km x 7km and there are so many such villages in each of the hill districts. If at all necessary, more than ten NIT’s can be established in each of the hill districts.
However, the Government of Manipur refused to locate it either in Imphal East district or in hill areas on the pretext of lack of security and, after dropping Kiyamgei and Lilong Lourups, decided to locate it in Lamphelpat Lourup, inclusive of Langol foothills from Games Village in the west to the boundary of Sinam Leikai, Than- gmeiband in the east, necessitating eviction of about 3000 people inclusive of foothill residents, agriculturists and those who owned residential plots but not yet reside there.
The affected people mostly consist of tribals from hill districts. For them the NIT is fast becoming a curse. This automatically means that only such projects which the Govt.. considered as to require no security can be established in hill areas. Whether there ever will be such a project or not in the future is anybody’s guess. What a sound, beautiful and wise development strategy it is! This mindset of the Government means that 92% of the total land area of the State is unfit and only 8% is fit for establishment of any infrastructure worth the name. What a bright future the Manipuri tribals have!
If security is the real impediment the Government, in consultation with the Centre can set up any security posts wherever it found necessary, on temporary or permanent basis, is known to all.
This time the excuse is lack of security, next time it may be lack of road connectivity or electrification or good water supply or anything.
Let’s digress a little. The tribal themselves particularly in Churachandpur and Chandel districts feel that there is acute lack of security for them, not for the NIT, from the depredations of valley underground elements who rap-ed their womenfolk with impunity and laid land- mines causing sudden death or loss of limbs to so many sole breadwinners of indigent families, with the State Govt remaining unconcerned to take cognizance of their crimes and to pursue the cases to logi-cal conclusions. It may be guessed as to what retri-butive actions the Government must have taken and what sort of mass reaction may be there in case hill underground elements happen to commit these crimes against the women and men of valley area. If someone alleges that the State Govt is hand in glove with valley underground elements in their crimes against humanity, it may require too many Meira-paibis to hold too many Wakatmiphams to refute the allegation. In utter fear and helplessness, they fled for their chastity and lives in Mizorarn, Moreh or wherever they think they may be safe from their fellow Manipuris who have done to them what the Japanese had done to the Chinese during their war.
To say that the Institute is located in valley area as there is more security is the lamest of excuses, if it can be so worded, a total humbug and travesty of truth. As for example, was it because of good security that the only Central Library of the State got reduced to ashes? If the building located next to the compound of the State Governor could be so free-ly devastated by miscreants will it be realistic to say that there is good security in valley area? or, what is happening to the fly-over which passes through the very heart of Imphal? or, is it due to good security that Minister/MLAs were ambushed in Wangoi area in broad daylight and the weapons of security guards snat-ched so easily by whom we all know? or so many hand grenades and le-thode bombs were so frequently hurled into the compounds of so many re-sidential bungalows in Im-phal and its suburbs? or, so many UG elements were detected and captured by the police from the official residences of so many (dis)honourable MLAs at Babupara? If I am not wrong, the chain of these happenings may be poor manifestations of genuine peace in valley area. The fact is not due to want of security but because of the anti-hill mindset of the Govt. It may surely be because of disappointments and heart-breaks such as this, which have accumulated layers upon layers all through the years, that in total frustration the hill areas reverberate with murmurings of being neglec-ted in all kinds of development schemes. To blame them off-handedly may be missing the whole point and beating about the thick bush of their deep despair; empty slogans, make-believe feasts and festivals and much-ado-about-nothing seminars and colour slides in the valley notwithstanding.
If the Govt was not considering the valley area alone as real Manipur and if on the contrary it was having same concern for development of the entire State as other State Govts do in the region such as, Mizoram or Meghalaya, etc. the feeling of neglect and alienation would not have arisen from any part of the State.
As for example, not far from Bungpilon Village, Thanlon area, Churachandpur District, across the Tuivai river, there is a small village of Mizoram. It is as far from Aizawl as is Tipaimukh from Imphal. It can be seen from Bungpilon village over the Tuivai Valley. When the sun sets, the entire village is fully electrified every evening. It was on a hilltop and very beautiful to look at. Bungpilon Villagers were naturally envious of that village. They said that PHC, High School, all-weather road connectivity, water supply, etc. are provided to the village by the Mizoram Government. If the Government of Manipur were providing these basic necessities to the furthest village in, say, Ukhru1 district on the border of Myanmar, it will be something like that. It is the same with one of the farthest small villages in western Mizoram on the Bangladesh border. It is Bualpui village where my relative is a teacher. However, even many of the sub-divisional headquarters of Manipur, let alone the interior villages, are still not having these basic necessities even today. It may be noted that Mizoram Government is getting less crores of rupees from the Centre than Manipur and became a full-fledged State after us. Yet their villages are so much more developed than ours. This is so because of the mindset of the Mizoram Govt. Someone may argue that so many crores of rupees have been sanctioned by Manipur Govt for development of hill areas and, if it still is not upto the mark in development, it is their fault, not the State Government’s. No, it’s not their fault, it’s the fault of the State Government. It’s the responsibility of the Government to ensure that the funds it sanctioned are properly utilised. What is meant by State Govt here is not, however, the present Govt alone; it includes all the State Govts of the past. All these are mentioned to show that the abysmal picture of under development of hill areas, including the present case of NIT location, is the direct result of the narrow and short-sighted mindset of our State Govt in neglecting the hill areas. Through its acts of omissions and commissions, the State Govt inadvertently sow the seeds of communal virus and disequilibrium in the otherwise mutually understanding society.
The State Govt’s propensity to do things whimsically is proverbial. As for example, it declares an organisation as criminal one fine morning and smugly sign an MOU with it the next day. Who knows that it may draw a line between the homes of the Meiteis and the tribals at Langol foothills leaving the former free and the latter for eviction. There was a time in the 70’s when separate provisions were made in the Budget specifically for each of the hill districts. However the heads of the departments in Imphal always diverted the funds earmarked for the districts with impunity on flimsy justifications. The officers in charge of the different departments in the districts have had threadbare discussions of such matters in their monthly district-level meetings. In appearance, the hill areas were well taken care of but in reality, it’s the opposite. This was my experience when I was posted in Churachandpur in the 70’s. It’s not a question of arguments. The ground reality of the abject backwardness of hill districts even now is proof of our wrong and lopsided development policies. This very mindset is at present influencing on where to locate the NIT.
However, it has to be noted that the mindsets of the State Govt and the common people of the valley area are poles apart in regard to the hill people. The common peoples of valley and hill areas have mutual love for each other. One day there was a fire accident at a house at the junction of Sinam Leikai and Thangmeiband Leikai. The house and all the possessions of the tribal tenants were reduced to ashes. The common people of Sinam Leikai and Thangmeiband Leikai spontaneously donated whatever the tribal fire victims needed such as pots, plates, rugs, shawls, rice, sugar, tea leaves, fire-wood, milk, dal, salt, chilly, oil, spices, spoons, vegetables, etc. They were also allowed to stay in the Ima Panthoibi Hall till they could make alternative arrangement. People to people relationship may be like this everywhere in the State. But the State Govt is, through its omissions and commissions, preventing social cohesion and emotional oneness in the State. This is more than unfortunate for all of us. The mature people who can discern the subtle innuendos in the socio-development policies of the State Govt suspect that there must be a hidden agenda in the Cabinet decision for location of the NIT at Lamphelpat Lourup ominously including Langol foothill residential areas necessitating eviction of so many patta-Iand owners. Selection of site for the NIT seems to have been manipulated in such a way that the coming into existence of more Majorkhuls, Kakhulongs, Lambulanes, Deulahlanes, etc. in valley area is prevented once for all. The turn of future events will prove whether this suspicion is unfounded and baseless or not. How good it will be for the State as a whole if this suspicion is proved groundless by future events.
It may be pertinent to mention that major States and the Centre handle similar cases with the touch of humanity by following a new development strategy known as “Development With A Human Face”. This strategy is the result of their experience in acquiring extensive areas of land at Singur, West Bengal, for the Small Car Project of the Tata Company and at Salboni for the ISW Bengal Steel Project. Most of the major political parties, powerful Trade Unions and “Morchas” support this humanitarian strategy of development and are against causing avoidable hardships and deprivations to land owners as consequence of implementation of schemes and projects. To enable better and more satisfactory application of this strategy all over India, the Centre even slackened implementation of the S.E.Z. (Special Economics Zone) Schemes.
If there really is no hidden agenda, it will be very wise on the part of the State Govt to abandon Lamphelpat Lourup and Langol foothills and locate the Institute at convenient and suitable sites in either Imphal East, Sadar Hills, Chandel, Bishnupur, Churachandpur or Tamenglong as per the said strategy of development with a human face.
On the contrary, if it evicts so many Langol foothill residents and yet reserved an extensive area of land at Lamphelpat Lourup for Pony Lovers Association or something like that, it will mean that the Govt of Manipur (1) care more for Pony than for the people and (2) is following a weird policy of “Development with A Pony Face”. God forbid!
It will be truly in the interest of the entire State if the Govt kindly review and rescind its decision as early as possible in the overall interest of the people of Sanaleibak.
The Sangai Express
