Border row : Connecting the disconnected issues
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: September 13, 2013 -
Inspection of border fencing between India and Myanmar at Moreh by Trinamool Congress team on 08 Sep 2013 :: Pix - Som Sorokhaibam
Regardless of where one lives and belongs to or the number of maps drawn and redrawn for separate homeland demands within this tiny State, territorial integrity of Manipur has always remained an emotive issue that could boil the blood of every son and daughter true to the soil of the land.
This has only been reaffirmed once again from the strong objection being raised from all sides cutting across communal line, political affiliation and social background to the ongoing border fencing being carried out under the supervision of Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India along the yet to be demarcated Indo-Myanmar International boundary at Moreh.
Despite the repeated assurances given by the State Government and the Centre that not an inch of the land would be given to anyone or the nation, people are aware of the fact that allowing the border fencing to go on unhindered without proper demarcation would ultimately lead to loss of a large chunk of Manipur’s land to the neighbouring country and the reported intrusion of Myanmarese Army who have already set up a base army at Haolenphai, a village within the territory of Manipur and which has been paying house tax to the State Government for the last many years, seems to have confirmed this worst fear of the people.
In view of the mounting pressures from the public for putting an immediate halt on the ongoing border fencing process until settlement of the border dispute specially along the nine missing border pillars, Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh and his Deputy Gaikhangam, who is also in charge of the portfolio of Home, may have rushed to New Delhi to take up the case with other Central leaders.
But in the light of the letter reportedly written to the Chief Minister by the Ministry of External Affairs earlier discouraging the State Government to send a Ministerial team for inspection to the disputed border area in the interest of maintaining cordial relationship with the neighbouring country, with which India has been trying to act like a big brother to keep the influence of China in Myanmar at bay, one could expect nothing much from the visit of the two State leaders to the National capital at this hour.
Perhaps, all that the two State leaders may get is more assurances of protecting the territorial integrity of Manipur, and this is what the Central leaders are good at doing all these years.
So, the struggle of the people to ensure proper demarcation of the boundary with Myanmar is far from over.
Along with carrying on their struggle collectively to save the land of the State from being parted to Myanmar, the emotive Manipuri people should not lost sight over other possible implications of Myanmarese Army’s incursion into the territorial of Manipur and claiming the land as their own by showing a map of the colonial British era after all these years.
Call us skeptic or doubting Thomas, but Myanmar’s search for new market of the ever thriving drug trade and a new place for the driven out Rohingya should not be just regarded as disconnected issues.
More than the land, that would definitely be more costly to Manipur in the long run.
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