The ruling of Maharaja Bodhchandra Singh as the last king of Pakhangba’s dynasty came to the end parting away the “age-old” sovereignty after he had handed over the political power to an elected people’s own Government formed under her own constitution, known as the Manipur State Constitution, 1947 framed under its own Act passed which began its operation from October, 1948 with a Legislative Assembly of 50 duly elected members both from the valley and the Hills.

On the august occasion of the inauguration of the historic First Assembly Session on the aforesaid day Maharaja Bodhchandra Singh addressed the August House as the Nominal Head of the independent Monarchical State with very sincere and sentimental proclamation clearly stressed on the great need of maintaining the ‘age-old’ relation and ‘unity’ that have been existing amongst the people of the Hills and the valley of Manipur as the ‘inseparable brethren’ who sprang out from the forefathers of the same blood and of the same land since time immemorial.

He very emotionally said that when Manipur was in the height of her power, the Hill and the valley were solidly united as one, and this oneness defended Manipur solidly against all outside invasions and intrusions and thus could maintain her full independence and protect the territorial integrity upto 1891 when the rest of India had already been conquered by the outsiders, particularly the British. The British conquest of Manipur in 1891 had resulted from the relaxed unity between the valley and the hills.

Then in 1949 Manipur forcefully got merged with the new independent India with the help of a few bigoted local politicians who had accelerated the process to serve only their narrow gains and short sighted policies.

The annexation or the merger of Manipur with the Dominion of India had been done after a merger agreement of it got signed under ‘duress’ by the nominal King, Bodhchandra Singh i.e under the “tinge of some threat” and not under “mutual agreements” in between the people of Manipur and the Dominion of India as strictly required to have been done under the existing International Laws in that regard.

Since Maharaja Bodhchandra Singh signed not on behalf of the People of Manipur but on his own behalf, his heirs and family members the “merger agreement” so forcibly obtained is treated by all the legal expects and learned public members that the agreement was only in between the interim Government of the Dominion of India and Maharaja Bodhchandra Singh and his family members.

Truly if one deeply and carefully examines the agreement 90 per cent of the same contains only of the very temporary personal well beings of the Maharaja and his family members perhaps only to appease the Maharaja for a very short period and not exclusively for the well beings of the future of the people of Manipur.

The “democratic right” that had been exercised by the people of Manipur and that had made them establish their own democratic Government immediately after they had attained their independent sovereignty had been a thing that had been endowed on them from the very beginning as a ‘Primogeniture right’ and not something of a right “begged from India nor from any other Power of the world”.

And as such the clear question that has come up is under what “democratic authority or right” unless it was very ‘imperialistic’ on the part of the then Government of India whose people themselves were by then (1947 to 1949) very much in the interim stage of becoming the people of a full fledged democratic Republic had ‘Usurped’ (seized power and rights of another democratically established power by Force and without any legal right and authority) the rightful and natural authority of the people of Manipur who were beyond any doubt an alien ‘Nation’ till then and forcibly abolished their popular Ministry formed ‘subverting’ their Constitution newly framed under lawfully enacted act which could be ‘amended’ ‘rescinded’ or ‘terminated’ only by another ‘decree’ or ‘voice’ i.e. verdict of the majority of the people of Manipur and not otherwise - that is why presently the question of ‘plebiscite’ of the people of Manipur has hotly come up.

In fact, the Government of India should have allowed Maharaja Bodhchandra to go back to Manipur as he had very fervently and honestly requested for it from his short captivated stay at Shillong, and obtain the views and the due approval of his Cabinet who were the “plenipotentiary of the independent and sovereign State of Manipur by then” and not the nominal king, and got signed the merger agreement by the then Chief Minister of Manipur who then had the status of a Prime Minister of an independent country of Manipur was very much in that status till then - this was not done at all and therefore came up the serious question of unconstitutionality in the process so carried out quite hurriedly, untactfully, intriguingly (dishonestly), and more importantly, forcibly.

— to be continued