Will Bandh be our main achievement

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E-Pao! Politics / Governance Opinion - God help Manipur from bandh, blockade & general strike

Will Bandhs, Blockades be our main achievement of each year ?

By: Takhellambam Promosini Devi *

It is an immense pleasure and a proud privilege for me to share my thoughts and views on the changing trends of our society at the very onset of 2007 because we need to recall back the achievements of 2006 and mistakes that we committed and make new resolutions.

In order to deliver my message to the public through this article, I would like to confess that I took the liberty to reflect on the views of some important persons of our State which I got the opportunity to interact with at the Old Secretariat, Chief Secretary’s office and I also confess that I am using the data that I got from the CS to convince my view. I hope any mistake and any offence on my part will be pardoned by these intellectuals if they find any in my article.

As I try to exercise my memory and look back into 2006, I am filled with mixed feelings.

No doubt, we did have certain occasions and certain achievements for satisfaction, but, I think it is more essential to discuss about “what did we loss last year?”, because it will enable us to evaluate ourselves and prevent us from repeating the same mistakes in this year also.

If we ask to a very ordinary person or to a young student ;
“What was the greatest significance of 2006?”

The answer will be as usual – Bandhs/Blockades.

I am not being exaggerating because the rickshaw driver which happen to be my driver that day (4th Jan’ 06), on my way to the Old Secretariat also made the same statement.

“Today is also bandh’, he said, singing softly to himself, “Bandh, Bandh, Ngang Se Eikhoi Mani-pur Giro, Wareda Ware Sangsarse Hingbada Ware....’’

His simple remarks got penetrated into my cerebral membrane and most surprisingly the same topic revived in the CS room and I happen to go through a report on the estimation of loss to State GDP due to Bandhs and Economic Blockades (I am enclosing the details of the report given by Economics and Statistics Department of Manipur.)

The Aggregate position of Economic Blockades on National Highways 53, 39, and 150 and bandhs in some parts of the State or the other during the last 3 years are given in the report as :

Economic Blockades*	NH 39	NH 53
2004-05	176	35
2005-06	140	45
2006-07**	139	84

NB
* indicates "On National Highways Bandh in all or some part of the State"
** indicates "(till 28 Dec 2006)

The report has also given the top ten organizations who have called bandhs/economic blockades on different days during 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2006-07 upto 20th August, 2006.

For the year 2004-05

Organisation	Days
ANSAM	58
MEELAL	48
ATSUM	21
Apunba Lup	20
Paomei SU	18
Jiri College SU	7
MAO SU	7
KSO	5
AMDCTA	5
Maring Uparup Assembly	4

For the year 2005-06

Organisation	Days
MEELAL	47
KSO	40
ZSU	18
ITR Dev. Com.	18
Addl. Dist Dem. Com	17
Sadar Hills DC	10
ATSUM	6
Spt. St. Assn.	3
AMMSO	3
MSF	2

For the Year 2006 - 07

Organisation	Days
MSF	24
AMSU	23
DESAM	23
Jiri Dist. Dem. Com.	23
ATSUM	14
ACTIP	11
ANSAM	5
UNC	4
JAC against IRB	4
Jiri College SU	3

Looking at the above scientific informations, we also have reasons to be pleased without being complacent:
We are surviving with such large number of idle days!
Amazing, is it n't?

I am not condemning any of the above organizations mentioned above but rather truly feel that they are playing important roles today to bring development in our society. However I sincerely would like to point out the negative impact of their actions.

Whatever we do should be effective and whatever actions taken up should be logical and should be in the interest of the public. So, May I draw the attention of all the important organizations of Manipur to the damages and loss done by these bandhs and blockades.

This trend is against the principles of social justice and right to work enshrined in our Constitution. It is against the poor in its concept and import. Such practices will not increase our social, economical or educational opportunities.

It can replace a “surviving society” to a decivilizing society. Such method of agitation against the Government delinked us from the rest of the world and trains us to be lazy – what do we do on a bandh day ?

Sleep, Roaming, Gossip, Play Cards, Watch Movies etc.

So, we are compulsorily trained to be idle. Elsewhere in the world in a place like China people sleep less, work more but the trend is just the contrast here. So, even if we are similar in features with the Chinese we can never be like them in the true sense.

We cannot just depend on Government to solve the various social problems unless the approach and character of the people in general change. We need to be very active, very informative and try to be participant in a social issue.

No doubt we are late raiser but if we work with true spirit and real hard, the things would be the same. So, society has to be reformed by us only. So, let us think twice and thrice before we
– call bandhs, blockades.
– loss ourselves in glamorous and luxurious items.
– spent extravagantly in Shradha, Marriages, entertainment programmes, etc.

We may not feel (or in reality does not want to feel) that we are poor but to be practical we should know how critical our situation is.

No doubt we need to be comfortable but to be confined in old fashion/orthodox norms underlined by new/modern hypocritic norms will lead us nowhere. Let us not be the laughing stock of other communities. But rather let us be practical and face the reality and accept the fact that we are lagging behind other in different aspects.

Let us stop pretending ourselves and remove the masks from our face.

Let us start our life at the very beginning of this year (2007) with strong heart and bold & sharp mind.

Let us welcome the 2007 with an optimistic belief that we are not going to repeat our mistakes and failures and vow to work with true spirit.

Takhellambam Promosini Devi wrote this article for The Sangai Express. This article was webcasted on April 16th, 2007.

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