Give our Children a Chance....
Lai Loyumba Lamphel *
It's been almost two months of Turmoil and upheaval in our motherland the so called, Jewel of India. There has been a tug of war between the state and its machineries and the various organizations representing the people along with powerful, behind the scene players.
The tussle for power and influence has seen neither side budging an inch...and seems to have reached a dead-end. This is not a question of who is right or who is wrong but just want to highlight a serious issue, that ...of our children.
In between these heightened tensions nobody seems to care for what's happening to our children...our future. They are also caught in this for no fault of theirs; most of them have not been able to attend school or colleges for more than one month...that's a pretty long time to lose in an academic year.
In this age where many things happen in a split second...are we not making our kids handicapped by such long breaks from study? How can we expect them to compete on equal terms with their peers elsewhere if things go on like this, but who cares?
Besides this boycott, curfews we also have myriad numbers of bandhs, general strikes and also our age old days of festivities. There really seems to be no time for studies, where will this lead our younger generation to?
True, life in Manipur has become a struggle to be alive and survive one more day in these telling circumstances...but shouldn't we spare our kids and shield them from all these so that they may develop as normal individuals.
Reality is just the opposite, as our kids are being used as pawns in any form of agitation whatsoever...they have become the bargaining chips for so many vested interests.
It is also well documented that early exposure so much violence in real life and even on television and papers are deleterious to the psychological development of children.
This may bring about a sea change in the young minds of our future generation and may pave the way for the development of emotionally insensitive, happy go lucky, violent, abusive and even antisocial personalities.
Studies elsewhere, have found conflict situations giving rise to an increased level of delinquency, addictions, prostitution and other violent crimes among the youth in particular, but our society seem to be stifled into a guarded silence and inactivity.
This is worse than the opium war of history for, we all seemed to be drugged into a state of apathy without any drugs unable to see reason, we all seem to be caught in a vice like grip...slowly but surely, choking the air out of our lungs.
Our society response to many things have also become so stereotyped these days, either it's one of more violence or of extreme apathy. Don't you think it's high time we do something so that our kids can go about their studies free from fear and frequent disturbances and bloom like flowers on lofty heights?
The question is, where do we go from here? Decidedly, the government here or at the centre, or the powerful, behind the scene players and even the international community at large have dealt the present situation in Manipur with a measured silence.
They all have their own personal agendas and anyway, who'll come out of the way to help us? The time has come for us to introspect and act, we...yes we, the people of Manipur should come forward and shout...enough is enough and shatter this shackles that have bound us for long. Let's come forward and act...at least for the sake of our future generations...
I end with a poem from Rabindranath Tagore, which I find very apt in our situation.
Where the mind is without fear- Rabindranath Tagore
WHERE the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
* Lai Loyumba Lamphel (a Pseudonym) contributes regularly to e-pao.net. The writer can be contacted at lai_loyumba(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)in
This article was webcasted on October 12th, 2009.
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