I tend to smile when I get angry, my father does the same thing, my sister also does the same thing and people tell us that it is in our genes that we tend to smile when we get angry.
Now I wonder if economic blockade is in the genes of the Nagas.
I would rather like to call it an economic warfare- a warfare where they have gained confidence and mastered during the course of the time when
their erratic doings have been ignored and pardoned as a backward tribe.
Due to the geographical advantages of being settled in and around the lifeline Highways they have been quite independent in imposing what they want,
so independent that they have started playing around with the independence.
When I was a kid being the only boy in the family I had to go to the dukan for all the pakhon coming from the 8-member family.
So, I make almost 15 trips in a day to satisfy all my elders with their pakhon in lieu I get 25 paise for each trip. And each trip I make I pay tax in the form of Achapot to a mentally handicapped person, which stays next to the dukan.
Until he gets something to eat from me he won't let me go. The situation has aggravated in the course of time, he started asking for Achapot even when I am going without a commission of my own.
I complained to my elders but they advised me that I should ignore and if insisted to give something.
They probably advised me to do so because they didn't want to be bothered by such "petty" things.
Finally I had to take a different route, which is double the distance I used to travel.
One day I took the same earlier route in order not to miss my "He-Man" serial.
What has to happen, happened that day. He was hostile and he snatched the whole Parle G biscuit, which I have been dreaming of having it for the past one week.
I don't know from where I gathered the courage to pick a stone and target right at his forehead (quite a big one), and the Man ended up getting 5/6 stitches and I got a lot of beating from my parents. But the best part is I never had to go to that dukan.
I don't know the take away of the story but sometimes I wonder if there is any difference between my story and the so-called economic blockade.
It will be too obvious to compare with a situation where a person wants to give up something, but still wants some power under his control in the name of unification. A unification- in which the people where the theme of unification is to be build knows only one thing "Economic Blockade".
I am not very sure but as far as I know blocking the economy, just because we don't agree the disintegration of Manipur sounds quite immature.
I wonder why it doesn't sound weird to those who started it. Whatever their intention is they should have come up with a sensible reason so that at least
it doesn't sounds ambiguous to the general population.
My understanding is quite simple and I believe it's a very generic common sense to have a thought of togetherness among a group of the same type.
Now the question is how independent you could go forward to get into the core of that interest. This is going to be a testing phase and if it succeeds then I am going to launch a unification process.
I belong to a place where 90% of leikai is of Soibam and we have many Soibam scattered all over Manipur.
I might try to integrate and make a greater Soibam Leikai.
What do you say?
Nongamba writes for the first time to e-pao.net
The writer can be contacted at [email protected]
This article was webcasted on June 17th, 2005.
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