AMUCO, UCM join hands in paying tributes to June 18 martyrs as all roads lead to Kekrupat Collective voice raised to protect unity and integrity
IMPHAL, Jun 18 : All roads led to Kekrupat as thousands of people from different parts of the State made their way to the sacred site to pay their homage and respect to the 18 souls who laid down their lives to protect the territorial integrity of the day.....
Poison in your food ? Urea, DAP in rice ?
IMPHAL, Jun 18 : Super fine rice shipped in by Food Corporation of India and supplied to the public at subsidised rate by Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution (CAF&PD) Department is found mixed with certain substances which look like Urea or DAP.....
Dimapur bandh ends
DIMAPUR, Jun 18 : The otherwise noisy and chaotic commercial hub of Nagaland looked deserted today as all the roaring business establish-ments came to a grinding halt following the dawn to dusk bandh imposed by Action Committee Against Unabated Taxation (.....
UNC rolls up sleeves for intense stir
IMPHAL, June 18: United Naga Council (UNC) has pledged to intensify its stand with a series of agitation soon against the alleged communal policies of Manipur Government and communal forces in Manipur valley. However, the UNC did not spell out the nature .....
Mercury soars
IMPHAL, Jun 18: According to data collected from weather stations installed in different parts of the State, maximum average temperature at Imphal recorded 34 degree Celsius at Imphal valley during the past 5 days. Moreh recorded maximum temperature of.....
Jiri sizzles at 38 degree Celsius
JIRIBAM, Jun 18: with the heat wave sweeping across Jiribam sub-division for the last few days showing no signs of abetting the normally vacant Jiribam community health centre has been transformed into a crammed health facility. The sub-divisional head.....
House okays five demands
IMPHAL, Jun 18: The fifth session of the ongoing 10th Manipur Legislative Assembly today passed five demands which included Rs 64,81,07,000 for Land Revenue, stamp & Registration, and District Administration; Power - Rs 666,83,96,000; Youth Affairs and Sp.....
Question Hour At The Assembly Edn Minister concedes SSA school buildings lapses
IMPHAL, Jun 18: Education Minister M Okendro has conceded that school buildings constructed under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) were not at all satisfactory while some guardians still continue to be members of School Management Development Committees (SMDC).....
CM dismisses Oppn allegation
IMPHAL, Jun 18: Dismissing allegation of misuse of fund sanctioned for National School Safety Programme by Relief and Disaster Management Department, Chief Minister O Ibobi asserted there is no question of misuse of fund nor any meaning in ordering any en.....
Nitish faces trust vote today
PATNA, Jun 18: After the Janata Dal-United parted ways with ally the Bharatiya Janata Party, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will seek a trust vote on Wednesday at a special session of Bihar assembly to prove his majority, which he is expected to muster witho.....
AR fetes
IMPHAL, Jun 18: IG AR (South) Maj Gen Rajiv Chopra today felicitated students of Assam Rifles Senior Secondary School who scored highest marks in the CBSE Exams of class X and XII at 9 Sector Hqs, Keithelmanbi. Maj Gen Rajiv Chopra and his better half.....
Drivers helped
IMPHAL, Jun 18: Surface Transport, Eco and Environment Society, Nagaland and the All Manipur Road Transport and Motor Workers’ Union have donated edible items to drivers, transporters and passengers stranded at Khuzuma, Nagaland on account of the 48 hou.....
SSA imbroglio
IMPHAL, Jun 18: The All Manipur School Management and Development Committee Association has alleged that unwanted political interference in collusion with ‘unfit’ bureaucrats has derailed SSA programme/RTE Act in the State. “Political interferenc.....
KNF (N) rejects
IMPHAL, Jun 18: Rejecting police claim that Letginhao Haokip alias Abin alias Hegin alias Haopu, arrested recently, belongs to KNF (N) organisation as unfounded and misleading, the armed organisation branded the individual as an imposter. A KNF (N) sta.....
Stir called off
IMPHAL, Jun 18: Work Charge and Muster Roll employees of Minor Irrigation Department who have been agitating since June 10 demanding payment of their pending salaries have agreed to call off their agitation temporarily after they came to an understanding .....
The great June 18 and the great 18 souls
Law enforcers or concerned authorities cannot book anyone as an accused for any kind of unlawful act, most particularly, a criminal one until an FIR (First Investigation Report) is lodged by the police or law enforcing agency. The June 18 incident of 2001.....
Open letter to all the Hon’ble Members of the Hill Area Committee
Article 371(C) of the Indian Constitution enshrined to constitute Hill Areas Committee within the Manipur Legislative Assembly without which there can be no Manipur Legislative Assembly and that in exercise of the power conferred by Article 371(C), the t.....
From communal land ownership to private landlordism
In India and elsewhere, land as been the bone of contention particularly for groups and communities who are classified as tribes (as in the case of India) and indigenous, natives across the globe. The problem of land alienation has been one of the most se.....
Messing with Ramlal Paul HSS Modern day Tughlaqs
Quixotic and Tughlaqnesque. This should about sum up the decision of the Government to turn Ramlal Paul Higher Secondary School to an all girls institution to accommodate the students who could not secure admission at TG Higher Secondary School. Comes clo.....
Blood donated as tribute to June 18, 2001 martyrs
IMPHAL, Jun 18: In all 42 individuals from different walks of life donated blood as Voluntary Help Unit Committee (VHUC), RIMS Hospital commemorated the '13th blood donation camp - A Tribute to the Martyrs of 18th June 2001' at RIMS Hospital today. The.....
General Articles
By : Sangai Articles
The Great June Uprising of 2001 Was it a blessing in disguise?
By Kamei Samson
(contd from previous issue)
However, Media could not have risked such an ‘epoch making’ event to slip off the aura of territorial integrity.
On January 15 2012, I joined my friends who went for a picnic at Sekmai. On our way back we met with an accident. Our vehicle collided with another vehicle driven by a drunkard man. Soon we were at Sekmai police station. The officer at the station asked all the boys from both the parties to march in the office. We were asked where we all came from and if we took wine. I was asked the same question. I replied, “I did not. I do not drink wine”. I was not prepared for his reply that was communally charged. The officer said, “Ragailong dagi oiraga karamna yu thak tariba?” (Loose interpretation- how come you do not drink wine although you are from Ragailong?) For this officer wine is an integral signifier of tribal identity.
One might also critically analyse the composition of players from Manipur in the 5th National Games held in Manipur in 1999. They were more of Meitei players and lesser of Manipur players. The representation in the Games too implicitly exhibited the gravity of seemingly sustained structural discrimination against the untouchables. Was it because the tribal people were morally and physically incompetent to be trained and participate in the Games? Was it because the sports facilities were available for the valley settlers at closer proximity as compared to the hill people and thus deter the latter from active participation? Or, was it a premeditated structural communal discrimination?
The position of Jadonang and Gaidinliu too underwent an astronomical change. For the first time the Board of Secondary Education, Manipur incorporated Jadonang and Gaidinliu in history text book of Standard VIII (pp. 82-83) in the year 2005, but it took another four years to be incorporated in Standard X Social Sciences textbook (pp. 137-138) in 2009. What were their positions before these years? One is tempted to consider the Great June Uprising of 2001 as the push factor for this newly ‘incorporated’ history of Manipur. Needless to mention that the Meitei too joined the early unsophisticated Zeliangrong Christians in condemning Jadonang and Gaidinliu as worshippers of satan and consumers of human blood, and offering the same to the devils they worshipped. What prompted these two figures to be injected into the history and social science of the educational curriculum of Manipur only after 2001? Offering a pedestal of honour to personality like Jadonang has been, in fact, a dilemma for the Zeliangrong. They are now shattered between the new positions of Jadonang and consequently theirs in Naga freedom movement and Manipur freedom movement (now defending the territorial integrity). For reasons well known to the people of Manipur and Nagaland or the Nagas to be more specific, Jadonang cannot be of both in contemporary historical interpretations of Manipur freedom movement and Naga freedom movement. These magnanimous inclusive historical interpretations need serious introspection. Is there any calculated dividend exclusive for the dominant interpreters at the expense of emic position? Is it for the sake of territorial integrity of Manipur alone or the fraternal integrity of humanity which is the pinnacle of fraternity?
While some of us are ‘haothu’ (needs no translation), ‘chingthin’ (used by Rongmei in valley for Rongmei from hill), ‘jangthin’ (used by Rongmei in hill for Rongmei from valley), ‘bidang’ (Rongmei code name for Kukis) in Manipur, almost all of us are ‘chinki’, ‘ao mao chao’ and ‘nepali’ (not to be capitalised; in abusive sense) for majority of other Indians, once we move out of Guwahati. Our sisters are scanned with raping eyes and our brothers are racially and physically abused. It does not matter who we are. Unfortunately, once we all move back home we abruptly adorn the garment of differences and head for weakening the already fragile fraternity. Today, problems abound our land and people, and their future. Disunity and mistrusts pervade across different communities and even within community. This is manifested even among the hill people. The Kukis and the Nagas are still not truly reconciled. And Nagas, Kukis and Meitei employ economic blockade to fulfill their political and other demands at the cost of economic rights of the common people while the elites fish in trouble water. The whole communities in the state seem to have no absolute clean chit from act of injustice. While efforts are being made to emboss principles of religions and political aspirations by the tribal traditionalists and Christians economic blockade is still the last resort to make their voices heard. However, economic blockade seems to be no longer the last resort. This will render the aggrieved incompetent in negotiation skills and will stand defeated in the game of bargain at global market force.
While we all are still pointing our daggers at each other for territory and history, the elusive indomitable force of global market had already found a niche, to stay. The forces of global market know no integrity of territory or fraternity. They will not operate with reservation for identity or humanity. Are we prepared to live with this indomitable elusive force? Have we calculated our share in the dividends from this market force?
The Look East Policy is endorsed by the Global King, Barack Obama. The obvious modus operandi of this policy would be- Look East Through North-East. Obama will not risk his billions of dollars exchange hands among the North-East ‘freedom fighters’. China or Bangladesh will not engage in exclusive trade course. The ‘freedom fighters’ will simply be nuisance for Obama, Wen Jiabao, Raja Parvez Ashraf, Sheikh Hasina and Aung San Suu Kyi. Economic blockade will not work against these countries. The 15 year long negotiation between GOI and Nagas also reflect this. Negotiation is the only way out. The world leaders will simply label economic blockade as genocide not because Meitei or Nagas or Kukis are affected, but their business will be at stake. This will further legetimise the brutal military force of the Indian Army and consequently gain legal and moral significance of Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958.
Merely joining sit in protests with tribal traditional attires, exchanging gifts in festivals wearing traditional attires, making films and putting up banners of Rongmei girls in traditional attires in oil pumps in Imphal cities will not build integrity. These are all symbolical manifestations which all need moral assimilations. The most important question is- How long can territorial integrity withstand calculated historical interpretations sans fraternal integrity? All said one thing that the world needs to appreciate is the effort of the organizations in hill and valley, post-Great June Uprising, that succeeded in containing the wrath of the long oppressed of both the hill and the valley that could have been savage. This is the path to true fraternal integrity. —concluded
The writer is a Ph.D. Scholar at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
Sam
he world leaders will simply label economic blockade as genocide not because Meitei or Nagas or Kukis are affected, but their business will be at stake. This will further legetimise the brutal military force of the Indian Army and consequently gain legal and moral significance of Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958. I honestly agree t your points..We are such a stupid people that we consider our egos and rights more important that our basic needs - good roads, good electricity and good water supply. Until and unless we don't have these facilities we will never have these integration kind of thing. The world has move forward and change a lot but we on the other hand are moving backward and we've changed too but not positive instead to kill one another. Let us move forward for our better future.
tom
There are also other tribals in the hills like in nagaland and mizoram. They also don't do well in sports. For the meiteis sports is a way and part of life. Most importantly what I observe is that there are many meitei organizations going forward to embrace on the idea of fraternity. But sadly efforts from tribals' side is conspiciously lacking. All we can hear from their side is greedy, shameful allegations and devisive calls from unc laced with hatred I am the bible must not be teaching them. The whole idea of nagaland for chrise is also so undemocratic. That is sefish and stands against secularity and acceptance of universal brotherhood. Until and unless nscn which in itself the face behind unc we all are going to suffer. We are going to suffer because of power granted by GOI in the wrong hands of NSCN and UNC drunk with the selfish words fed in the name of christianity while the common men in a tranch follow suit.
