Two simultaneous bandhs : Reducing Livingstone to a footnote
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 27, 2012 -
Giving a local touch to Newton's 'for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction' or Hammurabi's code 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth'.
This should sum up the decision of the United Naga Council to impose the 72 hour bandh in Naga areas from midnight of December 26.
While the Film Forum, Manipur and Manipur State Shumang Lila Council have laid down their demand in clear cut terms-pull up Livingstone Anal for molesting, assaulting and abusing film actress Momoko on December 18 during a musical concert at Chandel-the UNC has no specific demand as such.
The 72 hour bandh, starting from midnight of December 26, has come more as a reaction to the manner in which the bandh has been enforced as well as the scant disregard shown to preparations for the Christmas festival.
The ugliness of the unfolding situation cannot get clearer than this.
Take the assault and molestation of a young girl at Napetpalli under Lamlai Assembly Constituency in Imphal East by three hooligans on December 24 into consideration and gradually it is becoming more and more clear that Livingstone Anal may just be reduced to a footnote in the entire episode that is being played out on the turf of Manipur.
An issue which should have strictly been seen and understood within the context of crimes against women and the punishment of the perpetrator has spilled over into the domain of ethnicity and nothing can get more farcical than this.
With the Film Forum, Manipur and Manipur State Shuman Lila Council also deciding to reimpose the suspended bandh from midnight of December 26 till 6 pm of December 27, Manipur is set to witness two simultaneous bandhs.
Though the sponsors of the two bandhs seem to agree on the basic point of punishment of the guilty in the December 18 incident, for all practical purposes both appear to be on a collision course and the biggest tragedy is the fact that both are ‘taking the people’ along with them.
An issue in which all the people should have joined hands has gradually become the dividing line and this where the disconnect between the intent and the course of action taken up at the ground becomes glaringly clear.
Throw in an inept State Government and the immediate future does not look bright at all. Instead of focusing on the issue at hand and trying to ensure the arrest of Livingstone Anal, the State Government has preferred to toe the line of ‘the matter has been brought to the notice of the Union Home Ministry.’
It is not the Home Ministry which has a stake here, but the people of Manipur, but this is something which has not registered in the mind of the State Government.
Herein lies the tragedy that has been scripted wittingly or unwittingly by different players, all purportedly working in the interest of the people they claim to represent but in the process tearing the social and political fabric of Manipur apart.
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