We have known the epoch-making events of the long struggle for the rights of man and the long struggle for the uplift of humanity. At many stages in the advance of humanity, conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of pro-gress of mankind.

In our day, it appears as the struggle of free men to gain and hold the right of self-Government as against the special interests and privileges that were enjoyed by kings and upper castes who twisted the methods of free Government into machinery for defeating the popular will of the people.

At every stage, and under all circumstances, there is the essence of the struggle to give to life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value both to himself and to the state to which he belongs.

Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that lies in him; to reach the highest point. Second, equality of opportunity means that the state will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable.

The state’s efficiency has many factors to observe. It has to do, not only with natural resources and with men, but it is equally concerned with institutions. The state must be efficient for the work that concerns all the people.

No neutral ground should be there to serve as a refuge for lawbreakers, and especially for lawbreakers of great wealth, who can hire the legal cunning that will teach them how to avoid both jurisdictions. It is a misfortune if the state legislature fails to do its duty in providing a remedy, so that the only state activity is the purely negative activity of the judiciary.

The tribal students of Manipur are demanding more privileges, without which they cannot hope to come to the level of more advanced valley people. But the new privileges should not put the need before sectional or personal advantage. It is impatient of the utter confusion that results from legislature attempting to treat local issues as common issues.

The impotence that makes it possible for local selfishness or legal cunning, hired by wealthy people, to bring state’s activities to a deadlock is a greater misfortune. The privilege regards the exe-cutive power as the steward of the public welfare.

It demands of the judiciary that it shall be interested primarily in human welfare rather than in property, just as it demands that the representative body shall represent all the people rather than any one class or section of the people.

Since the objective of the Government is the welfare of the people, the material progress and prosperity of the State are desirable chiefly so far as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all citizens.

Just in proportion as the average man and wo-man are honest, capable of sound judgement and high ideals, active in public affairs — but, first of all, sound in their home life, and the father and mother of healthy children whom they bring up well — just so far, and no further, we may count our civilization a success.

No matter how honest and decent we are in our private lives, if we do not have the right kind of law and the right kind of administration, we cannot go forward as a united people in the State.

The most important elements in any man’s career must be the sum of those qualities that, in the aggregate, we speak of as character- character that makes a man, first of all, a good man in the home, a good father, a good husband- that makes a man a good neighbour. We have that.

And, then, in addition, we must have the kind of law and the kind of administration of the law that will give to those qualities in the private citizen the best possible chance for development. The prime problem of our state is to get the right type of good citizenship and to achieve progress, we must have good citizens.

We must look forward. We must not contemplate the possibility of our being separated, going off each way in our own direction. Integration is rather a loose word, and it is not a flattening process of assimilation but practical equality of opportunity is accompanied by cultural diversity in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance.

We may fall a little short of its full attainment. But if we are to maintain any of the reputation for civilized living and social cohesion, we must get far nearer to its achievement than is the case today. In so far as this is something that can be brought about by the State Government with the support of civil societies.

To share in the decisions of the State Government, which shape communities’ lives and everything, that makes life worthwhile - family works, education, and a place to rest one’s head - all this rests on the decisions of government.

All can be swept away by the Government that doesn’t heed the demands of its people. That is why the essential humanity of men can be protected and preserved only when Govt must answer—not just to those of a particular most favoured community, but to all its people - represented and unrepresented.

No ill-treatment of smaller communities, no arbitrary imposition of pains or penalties by officials — high or low and no restriction on the freedom of men to seek education or work or opportunity of any kind should be there so that each man may become all he is capable of becoming.

Everyone must be allowed to develop the abilities he knows he has within him, and she knows she has within her, in the way he or she chooses. The helpless weaker section of the society in the Manipuri context will include the unrepresented communities. As Booker T. Washington said, “Let no man pull you so low as to make you hate him”.

Now, nothing short of anarchy clearly is the chaotic condition of Manipur -repeated bandh calls, rampant murders, abrupt closure of pharmacies and private companies which were undreamed of. Whatever confusions may be drawn from these facts -and facts they are - this is certainly not the liberal and peaceful Manipur that was in the past.

The truth of this statement is becoming clear as we see this land-locked state losing on every front each day. One of the important reasons for the graft, the corruption in high places and dishonesty and why this continues is a lack of moral uprising on the part of every Manipuri.

In the light of history, however, it is not hard to explain. It is the result of an emotional hangover and a moral lapse that follows every chaos in which the economy of the state has greatly been ruined and the standard of living lowered. This is the ordeal we are facing at the beginning of the 21st Century - the bloodiest, the most turbulent era for the people of Manipur.

As we see countless murders, the destruction of the defenceless and innocent people, and all of the crime and lack of morals, we become numb and apathetic. It has always been thus after conflicts among ourselves. The militancy that has engulfed every community must not lead us to distrust among us.

It would be fatal for the State Government too to overlook the urgency of the moment and undermine the aspiration of the minority groups as well. When people of the creamy layer enjoy what will be the highest standard of living in the society, people in the villages live in poverty and misery.

Surely, ninety percent of the tribal people of Manipur live ‘in pathetic conditions and in many cases, famine stricken areas, where soil erosion, and overworking of the soil make it impossible for them to live properly. It is crystal clear. Many are labourers, labour tenants and live under conditions similar to those of people under the rule of hellish tyranny.

However, now-a-days, many tribal people live in district headquarters and Imphal urban area where they have developed economic and social habits that bring them closer, in many respects, to urban standards.

On the other hand, tribal people in lakhs who live in the hills do not earn enough to keep them going further than spending hopeless life. The complaint of the hill people of Manipur is not just that they are poor and valley people are educationally and economically more advanced, but that the laws, which are made by the legislature, are designed to segregate them from the mainstream.

There are two ways to break out of poverty. The first is by extending soft loan to them, and the second is by the hill people acquiring a greater skill at their work and thus higher wages. Both these avenues of advancement are not available for the poor hill people of Manipur.

Lastly, we can recall the shining living proof of Pandit Nehru’s concern with varied shortages of the tribal people of India and their upliftment, mainly of the North East Region when he introduced reservation in various spheres for STs and SCs in 1950, and it was renewed ten years later in 1960.

Since then, the reservation giving special treatment to the tribals of India has been extended for every ten years. So, one of the great glories of democracy is the right to protest for rights enshrined in the constitution of one’s country. But we must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.

Once, Martin Luther King said, “We are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong.

If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a Utopian dreamer who never came down to earth”.