Relay blockade to relay bandh : Need more than a legislation
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 22 2011 -
From relay economic blockade to relay bandh now and the baton of keeping the public under siege keeps on passing with no break in between. Add the cease work strike launched by the employees of the Public Works Engineering Department and clearly the woes of the people have come a full circle.
From December 20 to December 24, Imphal and the adjoining districts have been and will be in a state of comatose and for what ?
No one can justify the killing,of the chowkidar of the PHED and his son after abduction. It was dastardly and it should be condemned in the strongest possible term.
That the Government has utterly failed to ensure the security of its citizens stands and there are more than enough instances to prove this.
However a bandh, that too a relay bandh, with the first starting from December 19 and ending on December 20 and the second taking off from December 21 and to be in force till the morning of December 24 and one is left wondering whether this is an act of extending solidarity to the bereaved family members or is in effect making a statement for reasons that may not have much to do with the killing person.
Or is it a case of making its presence felt amongst the people and register itself in the consciousness of all ?
That bandhs and blockades do nothing for the people nor for the cause in which it was taken up in the first place is old hat. Everyone knows this and everyone has been talking about it.
Yet for reasons which can only be obvious to the group calling the bandh, this culture continues and thrives thereby giving rise to the question of whether such a diktat has been imposed for reasons other than the stated ones.
A sense of deja vu is unmistakable in the current bandh, for sixty days or nearly two months back, it was the record breaking economic blockade that cast a long shadow over the Ningol Chakkouba festival.
Fast forward to the present and a similar diktat looms over the Christmas celebration. Clearly a reflection of the situation where anyone with the ability to carry out threats and intimidations can impose their writ on the people and ride rough shod over the sentiments of everyone. Civility and respect for others be damned.
The presence of a Government which knows how to make itself felt only amid the weak and the general population has only gone to make the situation that much easier for some of these power players to flex their muscle and stretch out their limbs to intrude into the innermost sanctum sanctorum of the private space of the public.
The Manipur Bandh, Blockade and Economic Blockade (Prevention) Bill 2011, which has been introduced during the ongoing Winter session of the State Assembly may be understood and appreciated in the backdrop of the growing presence of bandh and blockade mongers.
The very act of coming out with such a Bill underlines the need to tackle the growing menace of bandh and blockade culture but more than this the Government needs to show that it means business.
In 1998 the Supreme Court of India laid down a precedent in banning bandhs and Kerela became the first State in the country to ban bandhs with the State High Court decreeing it illegal.
Recently the Supreme Court has ruled that highway blockade is illegal which in effect means that any obstruction to the movement of goods carriers on the highways connecting Manipur to the rest of the country is punishable by law. The point then is, there are enough provisions already in place to crack down on bandhs and blockades.
The past however stands that far from cracking down on bandh and blockade sponsors, the Government has beeri treating sponsors, the Government has been treating them with kids glove and at times even rolling out the red carpet once a deal is struck to call off the stir, never mind if in the process of the agitation the people and the State may have suffered enormous losses.
The legislation is indeed in need, but far more than that is a total overhauling of the attitude of the Government.
The ongoing cease work strike by the PHED employees as well as the cease work strike by Government employees demanding the implementation of the 6th Pay Commission in toto are examples that stand out prominently in the face of the anti-bandh, blockade proposed legislation tabled in the Assembly.
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