-Thangkhanlal Ngaihte
That there is a deep divide between the ‘hill people’ and the ‘plain people’ in Manipur is well understood, or is at least, undeniable. The plain people, the Meiteis, became obsessed with the state’s ‘territorial integrity’ since around the year 2000. The extension of the ceasefire between the NSCN (IM) and the Central government ‘without territorial limits’ raised the issue to fever pitch and we are familiar with whatever happened at Imphal subsequently.
Every demand and voice of dissent from the hills came to be looked upon with suspicion and with the preconceived notion that these demands are all attempts to break away from the state. The hill people, comprised of various tribal communities, on the other hand, feels neglected, suffocated and discriminated within the state in all spheres. That the state, and the predominant community, seemed intent on suppressing or suffocating all the demands, many of which are legitimate, instead of listening and accommodating them, accentuated the feeling of alienation.
Much of the reasons for this alienation are political. But, one very visible grudge the hill people always hold against the state is in regard to the ‘over-concentration’ of infrastructural projects and institutions (including those relating solely to tribal affairs) in the Imphal valley. Imphal is home to the Manipur University, Central Agriculture University (CAU), Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), JN Hospital etc apart from all key government offices while the hill districts did not have even one institution of renown. While the capital city and its suburbs are well endowed in terms of civic and health amenities and sports facilities, including a full-fledged stadium, the state’s second town, Lamka, did not even have a proper football field. All it has is a ‘public ground’, where all events ranging from republic day parades to musical concerts to football tournaments are held. A ‘peace ground’ was recently constructed at Tuibuong, but the disparity is all too palpable.
When the government first proposed to set up CAU in the state, there were demands that it be located in the hill districts. Major institutions like this are believed to bring with them collateral benefits to the area. When the state hosted the National Games in 1999, there was expectation that some of the sporting events will be hosted in district towns other than Imphal. After all, as many as 27 sports events were played during the tournament. But these expectations were never realized.
This naturally leads to disaffection. The skewed picture, development-wise, of the hills and plains may not yet have been such a polarizing factor had the inter-community relations in the state been not so bad. In a situation in which the hill tribals do not identify themselves–ethnically, socially and religiously–with the state’s dominant community and structure and felt left out in all spheres, the mismatch is all the more telling. And becomes more explosive.
Under such a circumstance, it seems fair to expect that the government would be accommodative of the hills’ demands and would bend over backwards to assuage their hurt feelings. After all, it ought to be interested, most of all, in preserving the state’s famed ‘integrity’. Demands for better representation and a more proportionate share in the development pie are integrative in nature. It is a demand to be accepted, to be part of the mainstream and integrate within it. But not all people apparent saw it that way.
Take the case of the National Institute of Technology (NIT) proposed to be set up in Manipur. This was part of the package promised by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his visit to Manipur in December 2006. As the central government okayed the project, whose construction cost was pegged at around Rs 35 cr, the state government started looking for its suitable location. Naturally, it prefers the plains over the hills, citing security reasons and administrative convenience. It somehow, comes to the conclusion that Imphal is the most peaceful part of the state. And naturally, demands came from the hills that the institution be housed, for a change, in the hill districts. Out of the 20 NITs scattered all over the country (they are earlier called RECs), 14 are not in state capital cities but regional towns. Only 6 are in state capitals. This was not an accident, but a deliberate policy because part of the aim of NITs is to bring about regional development.
Ibobi Singh and the wisemen around him must have known these simple facts. But they just cannot lift their gaze up beyond the Imphal plains. A peculiar situation arose, however, when the locals of all the 3 or 4 localities in the Imphal valley where the government want to locate the Institute vehemently opposed it, as it will encroach on fertile lands and settlements. The locals of all the proposed sites–Kyamgei, Lilong and Lamphelpat/Langol–organized strikes, set up committees and pleaded with the government to locate it somewhere else.
In the meanwhile, the proposed Institute has provoked another round of agitation in the hills, due to the opposite reason. The people of Lamka (CCpur district headquarters), the state’s second town and situated 60 kms to the south of Imphal, have organized bandhs and strikes demanding that the Institute be set up in the district. The Churachandpur District Students Union (CDSU) said that they had already identified at least two possible sites for the Institute. An online signature campaign, spearheaded by people from the district living outside the state, is also on to press the government to locate the Institute in Lamka.
But the state government, inexplicably, remained unmoved. The state cabinet, last Wednesday, approved the revenue department’s proposal on rates in which the land for the Institute will be acquired, at Langol.
So, this is what’s happening. The institute is being denied to those who welcome and demand it; and is being forced down on those who don’t want it. In the process, Ibobi Singh and his friends achieved a rare feat of antagonizing both the parties, as The Imphal Free Press put it.
The Ibobi Singh government was presented with a golden opportunity to assuage the feelings of alienation pervasive in the hills without it having to exert itself, and defanged some of the anti-state campaigns in the process. But it has already squandered that chance. Instead, it helped provide yet another powerful rallying point to all those disintegrative forces who claim all the time that ‘Manipur is Imphal’ and the hill districts, ‘outer Manipur’. For starters, it was none other than the sitting Tipaimukh MLA, Ngursanglur who cited the NIT episode in Lamka last week to highlight the step-motherly treatment of the hills by the state government. More are on the way, and the government has nothing, but itself to blame for it.
Source: www.zogam.com
That there is a deep divide between the ‘hill people’ and the ‘plain people’ in Manipur is well understood, or is at least, undeniable. The plain people, the Meiteis, became obsessed with the state’s ‘territorial integrity’ since around the year 2000. The extension of the ceasefire between the NSCN (IM) and the Central government ‘without territorial limits’ raised the issue to fever pitch and we are familiar with whatever happened at Imphal subsequently.
Every demand and voice of dissent from the hills came to be looked upon with suspicion and with the preconceived notion that these demands are all attempts to break away from the state. The hill people, comprised of various tribal communities, on the other hand, feels neglected, suffocated and discriminated within the state in all spheres. That the state, and the predominant community, seemed intent on suppressing or suffocating all the demands, many of which are legitimate, instead of listening and accommodating them, accentuated the feeling of alienation.
Much of the reasons for this alienation are political. But, one very visible grudge the hill people always hold against the state is in regard to the ‘over-concentration’ of infrastructural projects and institutions (including those relating solely to tribal affairs) in the Imphal valley. Imphal is home to the Manipur University, Central Agriculture University (CAU), Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), JN Hospital etc apart from all key government offices while the hill districts did not have even one institution of renown. While the capital city and its suburbs are well endowed in terms of civic and health amenities and sports facilities, including a full-fledged stadium, the state’s second town, Lamka, did not even have a proper football field. All it has is a ‘public ground’, where all events ranging from republic day parades to musical concerts to football tournaments are held. A ‘peace ground’ was recently constructed at Tuibuong, but the disparity is all too palpable.
When the government first proposed to set up CAU in the state, there were demands that it be located in the hill districts. Major institutions like this are believed to bring with them collateral benefits to the area. When the state hosted the National Games in 1999, there was expectation that some of the sporting events will be hosted in district towns other than Imphal. After all, as many as 27 sports events were played during the tournament. But these expectations were never realized.
This naturally leads to disaffection. The skewed picture, development-wise, of the hills and plains may not yet have been such a polarizing factor had the inter-community relations in the state been not so bad. In a situation in which the hill tribals do not identify themselves–ethnically, socially and religiously–with the state’s dominant community and structure and felt left out in all spheres, the mismatch is all the more telling. And becomes more explosive.
Under such a circumstance, it seems fair to expect that the government would be accommodative of the hills’ demands and would bend over backwards to assuage their hurt feelings. After all, it ought to be interested, most of all, in preserving the state’s famed ‘integrity’. Demands for better representation and a more proportionate share in the development pie are integrative in nature. It is a demand to be accepted, to be part of the mainstream and integrate within it. But not all people apparent saw it that way.
Take the case of the National Institute of Technology (NIT) proposed to be set up in Manipur. This was part of the package promised by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his visit to Manipur in December 2006. As the central government okayed the project, whose construction cost was pegged at around Rs 35 cr, the state government started looking for its suitable location. Naturally, it prefers the plains over the hills, citing security reasons and administrative convenience. It somehow, comes to the conclusion that Imphal is the most peaceful part of the state. And naturally, demands came from the hills that the institution be housed, for a change, in the hill districts. Out of the 20 NITs scattered all over the country (they are earlier called RECs), 14 are not in state capital cities but regional towns. Only 6 are in state capitals. This was not an accident, but a deliberate policy because part of the aim of NITs is to bring about regional development.
Ibobi Singh and the wisemen around him must have known these simple facts. But they just cannot lift their gaze up beyond the Imphal plains. A peculiar situation arose, however, when the locals of all the 3 or 4 localities in the Imphal valley where the government want to locate the Institute vehemently opposed it, as it will encroach on fertile lands and settlements. The locals of all the proposed sites–Kyamgei, Lilong and Lamphelpat/Langol–organized strikes, set up committees and pleaded with the government to locate it somewhere else.
In the meanwhile, the proposed Institute has provoked another round of agitation in the hills, due to the opposite reason. The people of Lamka (CCpur district headquarters), the state’s second town and situated 60 kms to the south of Imphal, have organized bandhs and strikes demanding that the Institute be set up in the district. The Churachandpur District Students Union (CDSU) said that they had already identified at least two possible sites for the Institute. An online signature campaign, spearheaded by people from the district living outside the state, is also on to press the government to locate the Institute in Lamka.
But the state government, inexplicably, remained unmoved. The state cabinet, last Wednesday, approved the revenue department’s proposal on rates in which the land for the Institute will be acquired, at Langol.
So, this is what’s happening. The institute is being denied to those who welcome and demand it; and is being forced down on those who don’t want it. In the process, Ibobi Singh and his friends achieved a rare feat of antagonizing both the parties, as The Imphal Free Press put it.
The Ibobi Singh government was presented with a golden opportunity to assuage the feelings of alienation pervasive in the hills without it having to exert itself, and defanged some of the anti-state campaigns in the process. But it has already squandered that chance. Instead, it helped provide yet another powerful rallying point to all those disintegrative forces who claim all the time that ‘Manipur is Imphal’ and the hill districts, ‘outer Manipur’. For starters, it was none other than the sitting Tipaimukh MLA, Ngursanglur who cited the NIT episode in Lamka last week to highlight the step-motherly treatment of the hills by the state government. More are on the way, and the government has nothing, but itself to blame for it.
Source: www.zogam.com
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