Realising that humans are not cattle : Branding out, tokens in
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: February 10, 2015 -

Formula I. If you do not want to be branded like cattle, impose a highway blockade for 8 days.

There are other accusations that have been levelled against the 24 Assam Rifles, posted on the Imphal-Moreh road, but a significant point seems to have sunk into the consciousness of the Assam Rifles authority.

The token system that has been introduced at the Khudengthabi check post is long overdue.

Something which should have been in practise years back and that it took a highway blockade lasting for 8 days to jolt the senses of the Assam Rifles authority says something disturbing.

No one is against the security personnel discharging their duties on the highway.

However common sense says that no one should be treated like animals when security personnel discharge their duties.

And this was exactly what numerous people, behind the wheels, had to face while travelling between Imphal and Moreh.

Nonsensical it was to subject drivers to the exercise of being branded with a pen or a brush on their fingers to signal that they can proceed.

From where the Assam Rifles men got this brilliant idea is something which will be hard to find, but more than sure that it was something never taught either at the National Defence Academy or Indian Military Academy.

A fruit borne out of a combination of haughtiness and a sense of impunity.

This haughtiness and sense of impunity could have come about only under the mentality that the people of Manipur can be subjected to any sort of humiliation.

Implementing such a measure in any part of the country would have kicked up a dust of protest.

This is not the first time that The Sangai Express has commented on the absurd conduct of the Assam Rifles on the Imphal-Moreh route and will not be the last either.

It is good that some sense seems to have sunk into the heads of the men in uniform but it still does not answer the question of whether the new measure has been taken up as a knee jerk reaction to a situation or not.

That human beings are not to be branded like cattle is perhaps a lesson that should be made rudimentary at all the schools where officers are trained and taught.

The move of the Assam Rifles to open two check points, one for commercial vehicles and the other for private vehicles is an admission that the hitherto practise of clubbing all the vehicles together absolutely made no sense.

The Assam Rifles authority also need to come to the point that deploying only two or three personnel to check the vehicles is not in sync with the growing number of vehicles taking the Imphal-Moreh route.

There is a battalion posted just near the check post and what is stopping the Assam Rifles authority from pressing more men into service ?

Let the security personnel do their duty but at the same time take care to see that the citizens are not insulted and branding them with a pen is certainly an insult.