All about Dzukou wrangle

Thoudam Imomacha Singh *

Trekking to Dzuko Valley in Manipur in Second Week June 2014 :: Pix - Deepak Oinam

Since there has been a call for the integration of Naga-inhabited areas in the North East by some disgruntled forces, Nagaland Government’s design to inroad into the Manipur territory of Dzükou Valley and Kojri in Senapati District, signifies the inordinate ambition of some Nagas who are already persona non grata to the Manipur Polity.

Now, sources reveal that the concerned District Administration (Senapati District) had already initiated appropriate official action well in time and the action taken report had already reached the Imphal Headquarters, rather the seat of governance of the state.

Further revelation is that the top bureaucrats and the current political dispensation in Manipur seem to have been sleeping on that political reportage from the district functionaries for reasons known to them alone.

Under the Constitution of the Indian Union, Nagaland, no doubt, is a sister state to Manipur, sharing long ranges of border and since ancient times also, the people of Manipur and Nagaland have been intermingling with each other off and on, when it was a small part of the big sister state of Assam.

As such, Nagaland’s affinity to the people of Manipur stands like a mythology. With a view to the close relationship of the people of Manipur and Nagaland there has always been a wide scope for sorting out the complexities and settle the border hitch amicably.

In another revelation by the jovial NCP law maker of the Manipur legislature, L. Ibomcha Singh, the apprehension of Nagaland’s ambition to unsurp the Dzükou land of Manipur was precisely discussed in a calling attention motion moved by himself, (L. Ibomcha Singh) in the 3rd Session of the then Manipur Legislature in the month of July 2002.

This indication of L. Ibomcha Singh vindicates Nagaland’s design to usurp Dzükou land and also to hood wink both the people and government of Manipur. So, this may be taken for granted that L. Ibomcha Singh had created a public awareness campaign well ahead of today’s imbroglio. In view of Manipur’s poor economy and limited resource Dzükou land is, indeed, a tourist mint.

Now, what is most enigmatic is that the Congress dispensation in the state under the stewardship of Okram Ibobi Singh seems to be prepared to disparage the Himalayan boundary issue, on the pretext of contemplating a solution to the awful hitch. Over and above this, there are no takers of the prolonged silence maintained by the petulant state government.

A Government or a leader, who does not bother about the motherland to be snatched away by the enemy, he may also not bother about his womenfolk to be trapped by the same enemy. At the time of the infamous Chinese aggression in 1962 a daring Congress MP by the name of Mahavir Tygi confronted Prime Minister Nehru on the floor of the House.

He said, “You have already given our precious land to the Chinese. Are you, now, also going to hand over our women also?” Tyagi’s acrimonious verbal onslaught still remains a sordid episode in the history Indian politics.

O. Ibobi Singh’s degenerative silence on this focal point speaks volumes in terms of his style of governance, his association and dealings with his peers (the law-makers) and other knowledgeable civil servants.

Another quagmire in the way to settle the boundary face-off is that the incumbent Nagaland government has a comparatively better rapport with the present NDA dispensation, at the centre.

However, at such a critical juncture, when the mind of the millions in Manipur is burning with remorse, O. Ibobi Singh is very much supposed to discard his tendency of staying in power on borrowed time.

In this regard, protest rallies in Imphal may not be of much usefulness. Let us all move to our Dzükou land and harangue our brethren there.