Political Leadership Required
Heigrujam Nabashyam *
All Political Parties on ILP hand over 'Report On ILP System' to Chief Minister, Manipur on 10th Dec 2014 :: Pix - DIPR
The ongoing people's movement is a struggle for our children. The end-result of this movement could have far reaching effect in the life of our children.
But what is frightening is that the present political leadership of Manipur govt. behave like reactionary --- maybe because they lack vision and political will as well.
Whereas, what is required is vision and political will to shape our future --- to safeguard our future generation.
What the govt. could do least is just visualize the generation next after the present, and see for themselves the possibility of a paradigm shift in the demographics that could see the indigenous population reduced to a micro-minority, as feared today.
The present movement of ILPS should be taken as preamble of a social charter of the indigenous or native people, in the context of the vast Indian population that is the second largest in the world with strength of 1.25 billion; whereas the indigenous population is approximated at around 20 lakhs which is 1/625th of the Indian population.
Now what is to be understood is that the attempt of the Manipur govt. to frame an ILPS bill within the framework of the Indian Constitution could be meaningless, because it is unlikely to become a law since Indian Constitution do not allow discrimination against any Indian citizen --- indigenous or otherwise in matters of movement or residence, etc.
Therefore what is required and needed to do right now is the political leadership of Manipur must take on the Central leadership to amend the Indian Constitution to safeguard the indigenous population.
Indeed the issue is the question of the very existence of the micro-population of the native people of this land vis-à-vis the 2nd largest population on earth.
The central leaders must be made to understand that to safeguard the people and its land of this ancient land is to protect the very integrity of India.
Indeed our political leaders must be able to debate the issue with the central leaders and also with the leaders of the two major national parties i.e Congress & BJP, and if required expose their hypocrisy and anti-Manipur stand in the international community so that we can assure the future of our children though it could be a long haul.
Therefore not only ILPS but a proper land law to protect the land of the indigenous people is a must that should be taken up by the political leadership of Manipur while dealing with Delhi.
And there is no two way.
* Heigrujam Nabashyam wrote this article for e-pao.net
The writer is Ex-Vice President, MPP and can be contacted at nheikrujua(aT)gmail(doT)com
This article was posted on July 20, 2015.
* 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.