Attacking the 'Idea of Manipur' becomes the last nail for the GoI-NSCN (IM) peace talk hammering
- Part 1 -

Puyam Nongdrei *

Manipur Maps showing the different districts :: Pix - TSE

Manipur has a corrupt system run by corrupt leaders and supported by the corrupt people with or without their knowledge that they are simply making sacrifices for few individuals who claim to represent their interests. The long service of the corrupt leaders to the people has achieved nothing but the culture of corruption in every sphere of life at different layers.

In fact, the leaders use the public sphere for furthering their private aims and interests. This small section of people in our society has appropriated the state for themselves when the common people were used as pawns to secure the seats through elections. How elections are conducted in Manipur need no further explanation.

Many NGOs in Manipur were established with the aims and objectives of furthering the welfare of the certain section of the people or to serve the common interests. When these organisations are appropriated by the functionaries for their vested interests, the organisations and institutions of all colours become means for serving private interests. A corrupt individual can attack the corrupt system only to bargain for a bigger slice for his own but not to check corruption.

In the words of Niccolo Machiavelli, a corrupt people could not achieve nor maintain free politics, for they would be unable to distinguish between subjective private interests and the public domain. The corrupt people are also lacked in inner strength to prevent those in power from advancing their private interests, as they themselves, if given the opportunity, would use the political sphere for the pursuit of their private interests.

In fact, many of those who are shouting against corruption will become like those corrupt officials once they are given the opportunity to hold the posts or are elected as our representatives to voice our genuine concerns. This change of colour after joining the corrupt system has been going on for quite a long time. The throne/chair has the temptation of abusing power and furthering private interests. Therefore, we don't have people with the Machiavellian 'inner strength' to do away with corruption.

Many individuals from poor background, who cried for getting a government job without money to bribe the higher authority, have turned themselves into bribe-takers forgetting their yesterday and justifying what they do on the ground that it is the fashion of the time. Giving bribe and taking bribe is nothing but fashion at present. One can conclude that the people living in Manipur are as corrupt as the corrupt leaders and officials.

A distorted effect of corruption in our multi-ethnic society is nothing but a corrupt section of the society blaming a community for whatever grievances they might be facing. The baseless allegations that the majority community is thriving in the valley by diverting development funds meant for the hill people need a death blow at the earliest. A connection between corruption, ethnic political aspirations, divisive politics and underdevelopment is visible here.

For many, it is jocular in the sense that 'blame Meetei' campaign is bracketing the corrupt officials and politicians from the hills as holy gods and goddesses of the hills. If corrupt people have elected corrupt leaders, the evil designs of those who blame Meeteis for anything hold no ground. Interestingly, it is not the hill politicians who blame the Meetei leaders even if there is any such fraudulent use of fund. Or, maybe they got their slices in the grand feast of corruption whenever New Delhi released some funds.

What about insurgent groups operating in the hill districts? What are the contributions of Naga and Kuki insurgent groups to hill areas under-development? Without strong administrative presence, these insurgent groups could have forced corrupt leaders to implement development projects and stopped misuse of funds released under many central schemes.

Did they play an important role in creating the developmental gap to turn the hill dwellers against the idea of Manipur? In other words, they are saying that they never took money from corrupt politicians or take percentage from the development projects and schemes in the state. Even an old dog in Manipur will turn his back to this.

As the GoI and the NSCN (IM) are holding negotiation to find a political settlement, attacking the 'idea of Manipur' and 'blaming Meeteis for anything' are the means at their disposal for finding a solution. As lies have a limit of their own, the facts have to be told and retold for public consumption in order to safeguard the idea of Manipur against the divisive politics of some section of the hill people.

When the system is corrupt, singling out valley dwellers as the only wrong doers for achieving some political goals is the sign of a dying political movement. A corrupt system survives because those running the system are exploiting the situation in Manipur and conditions of the people thereby keeping the system as it is. Those who stand for Manipur can contribute in terms of exposing the nexus which is depriving the hill dwellers from getting benefits thereby keeping them impoverished.

There has to be hard proof of any such fund diversion by the valley politicians which is meant for the hill dwellers. Without it, blaming a community as a whole for the deprivation of the hill dwellers is nothing but childishness nearing foolishness. Or, is this just a tactics to provoke the Meeteis?

In addition, the government of Manipur must tell the truth behind their repeated rhetoric that insurgency is the cause of underdevelopment in Manipur. If we cannot see administrative presence in the hill districts, where had the state government gone for the last many decades? The records of funds released for development projects in the hill districts will be there for cross-examination.

Basic infrastructures such as village roads, district hospitals, schools and colleges must be the signs of development projects undertaken by the state in these districts with the funds released for these projects. As there are loopholes in the infrastructure projects undertaken in the hill districts, the government of Manipur, the insurgent groups operating in the state and the contractors would know the actual fund sanctioned and the implementation of the projects.

I think they knew well how long a public building is going to last based on their percentage cuts. We can hear something called nexus between the politicians and the insurgent groups in Manipur leading to percentage sharing from the funds sanctioned for development works. If a particular metalled road is not visible in Tamenglong although the fund has been released for the work, either the insurgents have taken the money or the politicians have shared the money with the concerned insurgent groups.

If the poorly done work is visible, the fund has been released but the percentage cuts by the politicians, insurgent groups, contractors and other middlemen have led to cosmetic work at the ground level. This is the reason why many newly metalled roads crack after few days or do not last a month.

How about the hill politicians who cannot have a clean sheet record? Many such veteran politicians are keeping silent because of certain threat to their lives and well-being. Exposing the lies is the need of the hour as the parties to the negotiation are finalising a political settlement. In the long run, social boycott of hill politicians or blaming them as pro-Meetei will not serve those fighting for justice and equality in the hills.

The strongest argument that those attacking the 'idea of Manipur' can hold is "Meeteis have more number of Ministers, MLAs and contractors than the hill communities and therefore they get more money out of the corrupt system". Then the issue is about population size not discrimination by the Meeteis. Corruption knows no ethnic or geographical boundaries.

In this connection, one can remember why an insurgent group fighting for dismembering Manipur imposed ban on giving contract works to valley-dwellers. Was there remarkable development in infrastructure development in Naga areas after banning Meetei contractors from getting the projects? We can understand that all these policies were about getting money and making their henchmen earn money with favour from the particular insurgent group.

Even if it is only the Meetei politicians and contractors who are corrupt, the target should be corruption in the system and the corrupt leaders not the whole community. At least, one should not blame the whole community as many poor Meeteis lead a hand to mouth life struggling day and night. Politicians, insurgent groups and contractors will not sacrifice their heads for exposing the lies. Their mutual interdependence is an open secret in Manipur.

What is the difference between one corrupt Naga Minister and three corrupt Meetei Ministers? Firstly, it is the number. Secondly, you can think about the portfolios they hold and the amount of fund released during their tenure. Thirdly, the question of how much percentage he gets is important. Are you saying that there are different percentage cuts for tribal and non-tribal Minister in the system? Are you saying that Meeteis reserve the profitable portfolios in the Ministry expansion and deny the same to tribal leaders?

Coming back to population size, we can say there are problems with the geography and demographic pattern in Manipur. The five hill districts constituting about 90 percent of Manipur's territory have about 30 percent of the total state population. If the hill districts which are geographically bigger than the valley districts have to have more representatives, they must have population size bigger than the valley districts. However, this is not a making of the Meeteis to serve their interests.

When the Meeteis want to scrap the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act (MLR &LR) so that Meeteis can also buy land and live in the hill districts, the hill-based organisation say nay. Scrapping this act could have helped in opening greater avenues for development in the hill districts with population balancing between the hill and valley areas. Instead, there was abnormal population increase leading to contestation over census report coming from the hill districts of Manipur and subsequent problem regarding delimitation of constituencies and re-adjustment of assembly seats few years ago.

As lies have a limit of their own, only through higher child birth, the hill dwellers can win more assembly seats in Manipur. Another means could be through kin ethnic migration from other country and states. Nagas are a settled community with strong attachment to their ancestral villages and there will be no large scale migration like the Kukis. Also Myanmar is undergoing political transition with better future prospects and now even Kuki-Chin migration will dwindle in the coming years.

For the Naga population inhabiting the hill districts, Kuki migration from Myanmar is affecting the demographic composition of Manipur hill areas and the Naga political project. This was worsened by the ethnic clash in the early 1990s affecting the relationship between the so-called Naga group and the Kuki group in the hill districts of Manipur.

This hill versus hill politics is one of the most crucial problems Manipur has to resolve to bring peace and harmony among all the communities. Human migration in Asia and Manipur's geopolitical location should be studied properly to stop this hill-hill enmity. A certain group of people living in Manipur should not ask another group to leave just because they are late migrants. If it is so, Meeteis too can ask many groups to leave Manipur.

An important development towards ethnic peace and harmony in Manipur will be visible when Nagas and Kukis learn to live as brothers and good neighbours in the hills areas of Manipur. There has to be mutual respect and accommodation which will stop unwanted revival of historical animosity and feuds affecting the socio-economic and political advancement of the hill dwellers.

The politics of subordinating a smaller group to make them second class citizens because of late migration will not work in twenty-first century. Nagas must learn the lessons well so that they don't criticise the Meetei community for whatever that happened during the kingship period and practice ill-feelings against the Kukis in the hill areas. Kukis also need to take into account the concerns expressed by the Naga tribes with whom they co-habitate the hill areas.

The moment Naga leaders can think beyond the Naga cocoon, their political strategy must accommodate other ethnic groups living in the northeast too. But this strategy should not be to work against certain community which the Meeteis will read as joining hands with the Kuki-Zomi groups to dismember Manipur.

Frankly speaking, after the Naga-Kuki clash, Kukis who are scattered into small villages throughout the four hill districts excluding CCpur began experiencing insecurity feeling as neighbours turned into foes. Reconciliation between the two hill groups is very fundamental to bring peace and development in Manipur.

There is a more or less reactive politics of safeguarding Kuki and cognate ethnic groups from the Naga political project with many armed groups coming up in the ensuing years. This strong political current in the hill areas which is nothing but 'demographic politics' of turning hill areas into ancestral domains of two ethnic groups in the hill areas of Manipur is affecting peace and development in the state. The historical pages of Manipur kingdom and British colonial rule are source of reference targeting each other.

On the other hand, as the valley is opened to buying land by the hill dwellers, many rich hill men have bought land and there are colonies coming up here and there. Those hill Ministers, MLAs, contractors and officers have bought lands and built palaces in the two Imphal districts. Actually, they should be sent back to their native villages so that the rich and educated hill dwellers can be the eyes, ears, brains and mouths of the impoverished hill folks.

However, it is the opposite that they are doing. They are misusing the funds meant for hill dwellers in collusion with higher authorities by living in the Imphal valley. But the blame of such evil acts of the rich and powerful hill men must be faced by the Meeteis including the rickshaw pullers, peasants, fishermen and peddlers.

The hill dwellers complain about valley dwellers not coming regularly to their hill postings and attending the schools and colleges but taking regular salary. Some Meetei teachers also use some educated unemployed hill dwellers to take their place and share a small fraction of the salary with the hill dweller attending office as substitute. This wrongdoing is not practiced by the Meeteis alone.

Areeba maru khunduna ngamtaiyu II
Meerak meethumnaganu pukning ira chenba wa haakna yawa chaopharoi II
Ngamdainabasu wadouri hannagi malomna akhangbasu thupkhini aheibasu tanglagani II
Ahei ashing changduna madu khara waida,
heitana ahei saba khangdana akhang saba yambana aheiba akhangba langla machin thuptuna tashin thupchinna lenkhrani II
(source: Langdai Puya Manga)

To be continued ....