Time to ring in the new Year : Is Manipur ready ?
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 31 2011 -

The Sangai Express - Wishing all our readers and patrons a happy and prosperous new year

The wishes are beginning to do the rounds. It could be an extension of the festive mood which only Christmas can bring or it could be something totally removed from the Yuletide spirit or it could be a sum total of the seasonal phase which tends to agree with one's appetite, the hangover of the Christmas festival and the hope and aspirations which are usually associated with something new.

The charm in ringing in the new and ringing out the old is something which is hard to put down in ink but which is nevertheless an overwhelming sentiment. In 24 hours, we would have bade goodbye to 2011 and would have welcomed 2012. What is it that brings something special with the coming of a new year ? Come to think about it.

In many ways the dawn of a new year means adding one more year to our age, this when a good number of people dread the process of ageing and the point we are trying to make becomes that little bit more clear.

The new year, as we understand January 1, is based on the Gregorian calendar and hence has nothing much to do with the lifestyle of the people here yet no one can deny the charm of this date every year and significantly this predates the globalisation phenomena by decades.

New year celebration cuts across international boundaries, cultural divides as well as religious affiliations, making it truly the most universal date in the world. Like in the previous years, Manipur too will be joining the world in ringing in the dawn of a new year and 28 days hence it would have sealed its fate, via the electronic voting machine and in the process would have signalled the end of a Government and brought to life a fresh one.

This is perhaps the first time that Manipur will go to polls so early in the year with the last four Assembly elections in 1995, 2000, 2002 and 2007 all being held in February thus making the upcoming election the closest to the moment of the dawn of a new year.

This is interesting and in all probability the similarity in the dawn of a new year and a new Government will extend beyond this, for just like the dawn of a new year is forgotten after the day's celebration, the coming of a new Government is most likely to be forgotten once the process of inducting the Council of Ministers is finalised.

2011 will definitely go down as the year of the blockade, thanks to the record breaking or record setting 120 days of economic blockade, courtesy the Sadar Hills Districthood Demand Committee and the United Naga Council.

Apart from the blockade, the August 1 Sangakpham bomb blast that killed five persons including two school girls, the rape and murder of a school girl whose lifeless body was found abandoned at Cheiraoching, the bomb blast just outside the venue of the Sangai Tourism festival, the killing of a father-son duo after abduction, the rape and murder of a ten year old girl child and numerous other blood chilling incidents have gone on to define the year we are about the leave behind. Will 2012 be any different ?

More importantly can we hope to carry on the hope and aspiration of new year day to the polling booth and extend it to the exercise of ringing in a new Government ?

The Gregorian calendar fixed January 1 as the new year but it is up to the people of Manipur to decide whether the dawn of a new Government will mean a new life for them or not.

Should election be all about casting our votes as citizens of a democracy or should it mean something more and accordingly include a new life for the people ?

Are the people ready to ensure that the dawn of a new year should mean more than a change in the numerical figure which denotes the year or should it mean bringing in some changes to the lives of all ?

The test awaits the people.

And the first take should be on the first day of the new year itself. As things stand now, at this very moment, some plans have been spelt out, decreeing what people should or more importantly should not do while ringing in the new year.

Clearly there is no time to lose. Even before the world steps into 2012, agendum have already been spelt out. In 24 hours from now, Manipur will know whether the people will continue to be brow beaten into quiet submission or not.

Wishing all our readers and patrons a happy and prosperous new year.