Sanajaoba memorial lecture : Human rights as prerequisites of real development stressed
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, December 30 2015 : The 5th Naorem Sanajaoba memorial lecture was delivered by Prof Felix Padel, the great grandson of Charles Darwin at the Court Room of Manipur University today.

Prof Padel is an anthropologist and social activist and the visiting Professor of Centre for North East Studies, Prof Padel delivering a lecture Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

He spoke on the topic, 'Human Rights and Self-Determination as Prerequisites for Real Development' .

Prof W Viswanath, Registrar, Manipur University, Suvojit Bagchi, Chief of Bureau, The Hindu, Kolkota and Prof N Rajmuhan, President, Ojha Sanajaoba Memorial Trust graced the occasion as the chief guest, guest of honour and president respectively.

After the dignitaries took the chair, Prof Felix belted out Bob Dylan's 'Blowing in the Wind', which created an ambience of revolutionary fervour before he delivered his lecture.

Later, popular protest singer Tapta presented his song 'Khongthang -The Final Step', dedicated to Ojha Sanajaoba.

In his lecture, Prof Felix stated that the challenges being faced by the people of Manipur and other similar places is the question -' what is the real development' .

He said that in the name of development, one witnesses building of mega dams, launching of extractive industries and infrastructure projects that certainly attract huge money as investment but do not necessarily raise most of the local people's standard of living.

In the end, he said, people are displaced and the funding agencies monopolise their natural resources in the name of development.

Prof Padel observed that if one looks at the needs of the communities, 'the right to development' boils down to food security, water security, security at work and security of livelihoods, right to sensi tively managed education and health-care, and every aspect of security to life and dignity.

On the other hand, displacement by a dam or negative impacts of a mining project destroy water and food security as well as highly developed systems of symbiosis between communities and ecosystem.

As for security of life, it is abundantly clear that security forces are brought in to forcibly implement large development projects that do not have local consent and commit human rights violations with impunity.

Security forces are not trained to safeguard ordinary citizens' security but the security of investors, corporations and the vested interests behind such projects.

Prof Padel observed that Manipur has a long history of abuses by security forces.

He highlighted well-documented cases of rape, torture, violent harassment and killings of innocent people by security forces in Manipur.

He also stressed that the situation in Manipur is different from that of Canada.

As different from India's take on the case of Manipur, in Canada.

Justin Trudeau, the newly elected Prime Minister of Canada, ordered an inquiry into 1200 cases of murder and disappearance of indigenous Canadian women.

This has not happened in India, he said.

He said that security and respect for human life should be the foundation on which development should take place.

Only then one can start talking about people's relationship with the environment and the natural resources which form the basis of life, he observed.

Speaking on the issues of dam he said that what is needed is an open debate about the real costs and benefits of big dams.

Having followed debates on big dams for several decades, he said it seems that people who oppose dams win the debate on every front but money often speaks louder than words and added that the money coming to Governments and politicians from construction and electricity companies has motivated the 'MoU virus' of new deals for big dams. This is relevant in the case of Mapithel dam, Tipaimukh dam and other dams in Manipur, he said.

In short, the North East's surplus electricity is intended to fond a new level of India's industrialisation, which is also based on mining and metal production.

Many people think that industrialization is central to development process.

But this idea is not folly correct, he said.

One facet of industrialisation in Manipur is oil exploration and extraction.

He cited the example of India Government's promotion of sale of Manipur's oil deposits.

He said that the Government of India has signed an agreement with Netherlands-based Jubilant Oil and Gas Company regarding the matter.

The 30 planned wells are spread over 4,000 sq kms in Jiribam (Imphal East), Tamenglong and Churachandpur districts, and each oil well would be over 2 kms deep, he said.

Activists and villagers are well aware of the catastrophic history of oil wells in the regions populated by indigenous people, especially in Ecuador (also Columbia and Peru), Nigeria .

and Sudan, where there has been horrendous pollution of water sources and fields, and terrible civil conflicts, which could easily get out of hand in Manipur as well, Prof Padel said.

Prof Padel observed that from dams to steel, aluminium and nuclear energy, the m'ain-stream development scheme promoted by the World Bank and other financial institutions is oriented to making money from war and conflict.

He remarked that Late Prof Sanajaoba frequently drew attention to what is happening in other countries, to shed light on events in North East India.

It is becoming increasingly urgent to discover alternative paradigms of development.

Scotland's bid for independence is watched with interest from the North East India, and the rising strength of the Scottish National Party.

He said, �At present we're witnessing the forging of a new model of multi-ethnic democratic federalism of the Kurds in North Syria.

This is one of the lessons people in the North East can learn� .

Real development depends on improvements in people's well-being, which has to be based on food, water and livelihood security and security of life.

Suvojit Bagchi observed that journalists need to be respected, only then they can perform their duties in a democratic manner.

Unless one strengthens the press and provide security, there cannot be democracy so to speak of.

Prof N Rajmuhan said that the Ojha Sanajaoba Memorial Trust was formed on September 10, 2011 keeping in mind and respecting the academic works of Prof Sanajaoba.

The programme continued with the 'Protest Rhythms' wherein Dr Alex, Dr Akhu and Prof Felix presented protest songs.

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