All is quiet on the border front
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: June 20, 2013 -
The irony of the situation is hard to be missed.
On a day when thousands of people from different communities across the State were renewing their pledge to safeguard the territorial integrity of Manipur in remembrance of the 18 previous lives lost in police firing during the June 18 uprising of 2011 against the extension of the ceasefire agreement signed between the Government of India and the Naga rebel group, NSCN (IM) into the territory of Manipur, the ‘explosive’ news report of Government of India, yet again, trying to hand over some portions of the land belonging to Manipur to Myanmar in a bid to settle the long standing boundary dispute with the neighbouring country has come about.
According to the news report based on the classified documents secretly maintained at the State Home Department, Myanmarese authorities have claimed major portion of the land in the border town Moreh of Manipur as their territory and the Government of India had earlier agreed to hand over the land of Tuivang-Molcham to Myanmar as part of this border dispute settlement policy.
However, as the Myanmar authorities have rejected the offer sticking to their demand for a large portion of Moreh, the Government of India is mulling over an alternative option of handing over the land of Choro Khunou along with that of Tuivang-Molcham, which is lying in between Border Pillars no. 64 and 38 to Myanmarese authorities.
Apart from the irony of the situation, the latest attempt of Government of India to dismember the shrinking territory of Manipur has come about even as the people of Manipur are still repentant at the loss of Kabow Valley to Ava (the present Myanmar) following the signing of ‘Agreement Regarding Kabow Valley’ in 1834 between the commissioners appointed by the King of Ava and the British commissioners at Sunnyachil Ghat along the bank of Ningthi River.
Under this agreement, the king of Manipur was granted a monthly compensation of ‘five hundred sicca rupees’ from the ‘ninth day of January, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-four’, the date on which the transfer of Kabow valley from Manipur to Myanmar officially took place.
Of course, Government of India cannot be blamed for the loss of Kabow valley of Manipur to Myanmar, although some people may think otherwise, but the position of Manipur, an erstwhile independent kingdom, on the issue of its own boundary, has definitely become weaken and more vulnerable after it became a part of Indian Union in 1949 with no say in it at all.
The change in the political status of Manipur from that of an independent country to a unit of India means that the Government of India is duty bound to resolve the lingering boundary dispute between Manipur and Myanmar, but surely not by dismembering more parts of Manipur.
On the other hand, the stoic silence of the people and their anointed leaders, who have made it a habit to wait for June 18 every year to renew their pledge for protecting the territorial integrity of Manipur, over the border issue, is simply incomprehensible.
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