Time to ban bandh
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: April 20, 2013 -

Referring to an earlier judgment delivered by a full bench of Kerala High Court in 1997 in the Bharat Kumar vs State of Kerala, the Supreme Court of India passed another judgment on November 12, 1997 declaring calling of bandh, which interferes in the exercise of fundamental freedoms of other citizens in addition to causing National loss in many ways as illegal and unconstitutional.

Back home, we have written and talked much against the culture of calling bandh and blockade at the drop of a hat in Manipur by various organizations, social as well as political, to press their demands.

And considering the negative impact of such agitations, even a House Committee had proposed passing of a legislation to prevent the culture of bandh and blockade during the Assembly session sometime in last week of December, 2011.

But there has been no end to calling of bandh and blockade by every sundry organization in the State and the proposed Manipur Bandh, Blockade and Economic Blockade (Prevention) Bill, 2011 is not to be heard any more.

Even as one crippling bandh over mob lynching of Md Sana had just been suspended following an agreement with the Chief Minister, a twin bandh over incident of killing a Tata truck driver and torching of two other goods laden trucks by suspected armed militants along the National Highway 37 (Imphal-Jiribam road) on the night of April 17 is currently underway throwing the normal life out of gear in the State.

Prior to these two incidents, protest over the murder of Ningombam Satyabhama, a woman who was working as a Junior Research Fellow in Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), had put normal life in Manipur to a grinding halt for at least five days and there is no guarantee that calling of bandh and blockade would come to an end after these incidents.

In fact, some organizations have already announced imposition of economic blockade and district bandh in pursuance of their demands, and they are only waiting in the line.

If there is anything most hated by the people of Manipur today, we are sure that it must be bandh and blockade. Yet, this has not deterred the organizations or groups of people seeking 'justice' from going ahead with bandh or blockade.

Why this is so? In a democracy country, every citizen may have the rights to protest against injustices meted out to them. But still then, is bandh or blockade the only means to seek justice?

For the success of any social cause, the support of the people is essential.

But when the same people who should come out to support the cause voluntarily have become fed up with the crippling impact of frequent bandh or blockade, then the success of such causes would be surely out of the picture.

This is exactly what has been witnessed in the recent spate of bandhs and general strikes called in the State.

Even if normal life in the State may have been affected with inter-State or intra-State vehicular movement staying off the roads and market places shutting down fearing vandalism of mindless bandh or strike supporters, the real impact of these agitations have remained by and large localized to areas closely related to the issue in hand.

This should be a warning sign to the people or organizations which have come to think of bandh and blockade as the only means to seek justice to look for alternative ways.

On the other hand, it would be lot more wiser on the part of the State administration to give up its habit of waiting until all possible damages have been done to 'arrive at an agreement' with the agitators.

As long as this habit remains, no amount of legislation enacted would be able to prevent the protestors from hitting the roads and the culture of bandh and blockade would become a way of life in Manipur.