Growing hill-valley divide : Addressing the ugly reality
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: February 05 2016 -
The hill-valley divide. An ugly reality and so while a rally is being planned on February 6 under the theme of a common future for Manipur, the All Naga Students’ Association, Manipur has made its stand on the proposed rally clear.
The divide is obviously over the question of the entity called Manipur and intrinsic in the two opposing view points is the demand for a Greater Lim.
Top this off with the call for a different administrative set up for the tribals of the State and clearly the picture of the forces tearing apart the idea of Manipur is clear.
The important question now is whether Manipur as a political entity should be understood only as a geographical entity sans its people to people contact or the relationship between the different communities here.
This is where the question of who is a Manipuri gains credence.
How many actually identify themselves as Manipuris once outside the State of Manipur ?
Maybe it is late in the day, but this is a question which needs to be addressed to sincerely.
As said many times in this column, it is only the Meiteis who willingly identify themselves as Manipuris while the hill people or tribals prefer to identify themselves as Kukis, Nagas or Paites or Hmars or along the sub-tribe to which they belong.
Moreover how many of the tribal students align themselves with Manipur student organisations outside the State ?
Difficult to say when and how the divide came about but it may not be entirely wrong to say that for years or decades not all the communities of Manipur have been taken along with the idea of a Manipur.
It is this divide which everyone should try to understand and accordingly take up steps to bridge this.
No longer the time for catchy slogans but to actually get down to the business of studying the people to people contact at the personal level.
As the majority community the Meiteis should first step forward and acknowledge that merely opening the door is not enough.
What is needed is to extend the fraternal hand of understanding outside the door.
The hill people too need to come to the realisation that the future of all is tied and hence the importance of acknowledging a common future for everyone.
For too long, the seeds of divide have been playing havoc with the daily existence of the people and these seeds may have been sown by the people themselves.
The hills and the valley cannot exist without each other and whatever differences there may be, these differences should help to cement the ties between the different communities.
* Comments posted by users in this discussion thread and other parts of this site are opinions of the individuals posting them (whose user ID is displayed alongside) and not the views of e-pao.net. We strongly recommend that users exercise responsibility, sensitivity and caution over language while writing your opinions which will be seen and read by other users. Please read a complete Guideline on using comments on this website.