How to bring a Social Awareness Campaign using Networking Sites and Online Communities ?

By:- Aeroshil Nameirakpam *

Just log into one of the social networking sites like Orkut and Facebook and see the number of people enrolled as members in Manipur Community. Take for example Orkut Manipur Community . What will catch your eyes is the number of members in the community ,which is about 10700 !!!! and still growing .

I am pretty sure if all the members in the community decides to vote for the owner of the community he/she is guaranteed an MLA seat in the assembly just to add a little bit humor. But what we are not realizing is that this number includes almost all the students community, professionals community living and studying both in Manipur and outside and even abroad.

Its like a database of information regarding all the members including their educational background, emotional background, their likes and dislikes and even pictures and videos of the members. I am not talking about invading the privacy of people but the platform we have in order to reach all these people is immense.

I know for sure inside their heart and mind of all the Manipuri students and professional living outside manipur there is a feeling to do something for the present crisis and nuisance that is happening in Manipur . Due the frequency of horrible incidents happening people seems to have just started accepting every injustice and mishaps that happens and this is very alarming.

But I wonder how long are we going to keep quiet, how long are we going to just stay back and watch until and unless it affects us directly. We may not be directly affected by what is happening in Manipur coz we are outside but does it mean its not affecting our dear and loved ones at home.

And what about our young generation who is growing up seeing all these injustice and violence , will they ever be able to understand the importance of being righteous and truthful.

What is happening now is going to haunt us for a very long time and i am sure most of us who are outside manipur clearly understands this and in a big dilemma on what to do. Are we just going to wait and watch and do nothing about it and accept and turn a blind eye to whatever that is happening and just hope that somehow things will work out which is definitely not going to happen coz nothing happens by itself. But even if we really want to do some , what can we do ?

We cant just leave whatever we are doing right now and become a social activist or something,we can't go back and join the sit-in protest and dharna which are never heard or set up another JAC.We have worked so hard to reach where we are and we cant just leave so i feel that is not an option.

Someone rightly said that the best way to fight injustice is to involved oursleves in it physically and put our heart and soul fighting against it, if we cant do that atleast speak against it , stand up and say that is wrong and still if we cant do that either, feel bad in our heart that injustice is done.

We as younger generation from Manipur who are living outside cant go for the first option but we still can atleast do the second and third option. Infact we have moral obligation of doing it as sons and daughters of our homeland. And these social networking sites , twitters, blogs etc are a very good medium to do so.

So speak up !!! let the whole world know that injustice is being done. Let us use the power of internet , social networking and blogs. Let us question the authority , ask them questions on their policy .

As citizens of a democratic country we have the right to freedom of speech, right to information and the right to question our so called leaders of our society.Send mails and letters to proper authority. Force them to answer our questions. Send mails and letters to International organizations like UN, Human rights commission. I feel we can all do these just by sitting in front of our computer , without jeopardizing what we are doing right now i mean our jobs and studies.

It may be surprising to most of us but Barack Obama started off his campaign throught speeches on Youtube !!! Loading videos on social issues.

Why cant we do the same ? Instead of uploading Manipuri movies and songs on youtube , why cant we make videos on social justice. We have a community of Manipur in Orkut and facebook with over 10 000 members and the only topic of discussion is what song i am listening to now !!!!!!

We already have a platform where we can start an online social campaign and network with fellow students everywhere around the world. Why dont we use all these resources and have more activity on streamlining and focused basis.

So lets come up with some ideas. You guys are my near and dear meitei ichin-inou, lets discuss about it and come up with something. I know most other people might be doing it on bigger scale but we can do a bit of our contribution. A single bright idea is all we need to bring about some change.

Instead of just surfing around Social networking sites which we do almost everyday and discuss about all lame issues. Let us leverage on the huge resource that we have in our Manipur Community and also use the power of internet to do something on our part and help bring some chance.

The future of our society lies in our hands, the youth of Manipur.