UNC demands separate budget for Nagas
Source: Hueiyen News Service
Imphal, October 08 2013 :
United Naga Council (UNC) has demanded the Government of India to make separate budgetary provisions for Nagas in Manipur in respect of all development and welfare programmes so that diversion, misutilisation, underutilisation and non-utilisation of the funds provided for the Nagas and tribal areas is put to a stop to ensure social and political, social and economic justice.
Submitting a memorandum to the 14th Finance Commission team, UNC asserted that if the Government of India pleaded helplessness from meeting the demand citing the technicality of centre-state relationship, then it would condemn the Nagas to continued deprivation and suppression and the Government of India would become the abettor of the injustices to which the Nagas have been subjected for decades.
Jointly signed by its President L Adani and General Secretary Gaidon Kamei, the UNC memorandum recalled that Nagas in Manipur under the aegis of UNC had declared severance of ties with the Government of Manipur(GoM) in the Naga People's Convention held on 1st July, 2010.The UNC is now engaged in a tripartite dialogue process with the GoM and the Government of India(GoI) at the initiative of the latter on its demand for an alternative arrangement outside the GoM pending settlement of the Indo-Naga issue as per the memorandum submitted to the Prime Minister of India through the Union Home Minister on the 14th of September, 2010 at Delhi.
There have already been 6 rounds of talks, the last of which took place at Delhi on the 30th August, 2013 .
"The issue on which we have based our demand is not about development deficit or bringing improvement in the existing system.
Our considered view is that development will not and cannot happen in the tribal areas unless an alternative arrangement outside the existing political system of the GoM is put in place.
The demand is for political empowerment where the life and governance of the Nagas and tribals are not subjected to the interest of the Government of Manipur which is informed and determined by the brute majority of 40 representatives from the Imphal valley in a total legislative assembly house of 60.The demand is also premised on the sharp social divide on communal lines in the present state of Manipur, which the Prime Minister of India had noted with concern in the 40th conference of DGPs on 26th August, 2010.This social divide is not a recent development but was inherent in the construction of the present state of Manipur and even prior to the merger of Manipur to the Indian Union.
It was vitiated by decades of suppression, subjugation and hegemonic domination of the Nagas and tribals by the Government of Manipur.
The impossible conditions in which Nagas and tribals exist under the Government of Manipur, unable to live with dignity and honour and have their land, traditional institutions, culture and way of life protected is the core issue.
Through use of state forces and sanctions obtained with brute majority the rights and interest of the Nagas and the tribals in Manipur are being surely and irredeemably taken away", UNC asserted in its memorandum.
"The GoM has submitted lists of projects as development initiatives taken up in the Naga and tribal areas of the state in the course of the dialogue process.
We have made visits to 19 such projects identified at random and our observation on them amply exemplifies how in the name of development of the tribal areas sanctions are obtained for projects and funds released but without any effective facility or benefits generated for the tribals.
The projects are being capitalised upon as opportunities to misappropriate funds by agents and front agencies of the GoM", the memorandum added.