Of Timings And Demand For ILP, BEFR

Maisnam Bomcha *

Sit-in-protest at New Checkon, Imphal demanding implementation of ILP on 12 July 2012 :: Pix - Bunti Phurailatpam

Asking the UPA government to consider, leave alone accede to, such a serious demand under the prevailing political circumstances; to me sounds like the proverbial "hiyangtanaringeidatumbagi paisa thouba" fiasco.

August 2012 was a month of big news, a momentous period when many important events took place which will have long lasting effects in the near future of the nation and will go on to be landmarks with a message. The CAG report, the Naroda Patia verdict, confirmation of the death sentence of Ajmal Kasab and the US declaration on the 8 Lashkar terrorists were judicial verdicts and culmination of governmental processes with far reaching ramifications. These events took place in quick succession within a span of less than a week. August was also marked by the exodus of NE people from Bangalaru and Hyderabad in the aftermath of the Assam unrest.

Unwritten yet not lost in the resultant pell-mell in the in-session Parliament was the importance of the timing of these events. Timings, as the CAG report was, as a mere culmination of its own course or the verdict on Naroda Patia, possibly 'timed' on a political convenience. The events have deep implications politically; national and cross border as well.

The Indian polity and the system which regulate our lives are steeped so deep in muck and corruption that possible employment of an unfair underhand method has been ignored as routine. Indian politics and politicians are so corrupt and unscrupulous that one party or a single individual do not suffer in isolation if transparency and propriety are the focus of scrutiny of the other. Strange bed-fellows that they are, they do not agree on anything, yet their pursuits and means employed are so common to all.

The much awaited CAG report on the coal block allocation became public. The amount of alleged loss to the public exchequer is mind boggling. The proceedings of the Parliament have been stalled and the impasse is about two weeks long now. After an apparent initial hesitation the PM gave a statement in the Parliament. After having done so, he quoted an Urdu couplet while speaking to the press.

The beauty of the lines befits the erudition of Dr Manmohan Singh but the profundity of the meaning of the last line tells a story of the filth that the governance and Indian politics is, individual transparency and brilliance notwithstanding. Translated, the line says, "My silence isrespect of the question, only". In other words; what about you?

The Naroda Patia (Gujarat riot) verdict came immediately on the heels of the CAG report. It is a common knowledge that the UPA government is sailing in rough weathers and the possibility of a mid-term poll is gathering momentum. And Narendra Modi is fast emerging as a prime ministerial candidate of the BJP despite intra-party wrangling.

With the Gujarat Assembly elections lined up in December, the verdict of 28 years imprisonment of BJP legislature and former minister Maya Kodnani along with 31 others including a Bajrang Dal leader is most 'inopportune' for the BJP and couldn't have come at a worse time. Interestingly in yet another exhibition of good 'timing' Mulyam Singh Yadav has set the idea of a third front rolling immediately in the wake of a 'weakened' BJP.

The Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence of Ajmal Kasab on the day the NAM summit commenced in Tehran. With plans already afoot about the PMs of India and Pakistan meeting on the side-lines of the summit and leaders of important nations gathering at the same place, it surely sent a strong message about waging war against India and getting caught in the act. The USA also didn't let a good opportunity go waste by making its declaration on the Lashkar terrorists during the summit.

Another notable fact of the Kasab verdict is that; with Kasab himself declaring that he killed all those innocents after taking that arduous sea trip to encourage others back home in Pakistan to such roads of martyrdom, the legal conundrum of applying the dictum of "rarest of rare" has been so mercifully removed. Awarding of capital punishment has again become a matter of serious contentious consideration with a group of 14 distinguished retired judges submitting an appeal to the new President for his intervention to commute death sentences awarded to convicts.

Kasab has made a complex judicial decision easy. By uttering his motive which drove him to take up those extreme steps and his future ambitions, on record in no uncertain terms, he himself has cancelled out any mitigating factors whatsoever and thus left no room for the death sentence rendered per incuriam (out of error or ignorance).

Talking about good and perhaps politically expedient timings makes me wonder on a few 'timings' back home. Recently Hueiyen Lanpao carried news of an ultimatum FREINDS had given to the government on ILP. It had set 31 August as the last date of submitting the resolution passed by the Manipur Assembly, on implementation of the BEFR Act in Manipur, to the central government.

The body had threatened renewed agitations in the event of the government failing to do so. So far it is not known whether the government has forwarded the resolution or otherwise.

Assuming that it has done so, doesn't the question of good timing arise? Is it so imperative, so suddenly, to ignore the timing at the risk of giving the Centre an excuse of simply consigning it to the cold storage citing lack of time. Or simply brush it aside without due consideration as lacking in merit. Or was the whole process just a perfunctory eye wash? Asking the UPA government to consider, leave alone accede to, such a serious demand under the prevailing political circumstances; to me sounds like the proverbial "hiyangtanaringeidatumbagi paisa thouba" fiasco.

The ultimatum from FREINDS also would have better come earlier. With the increasing evidence of illegal migrants swarming Manipur, we face an ironic dilemma of an action long overdue and 'timing' rendered untimely due to prolonged inaction.

The Hueiyen Lanpao had, in an editorial, had informed the public, of the Manipur government sitting on the resolution, much earlier. Was there any serious appeal from any quarter of a timely submission of the resolution to New Delhi? ILP or BEFR; good timing or otherwise, Manipur, in addition to the commendable actions of the Police of identifying and stopping illegal migrants, needs an effective law to prevent a demographic asphyxia.