Make No Mistake
Govt, transporters, drivers and people should not repeat 2005 error
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: June 17, 2010 -

Men are bound to make error in judgment and action. Everyone makes error. No one is perfect. No individual's actions and behaviours are error-free. The old adage "to err is human" is absolutely true and proven, yet its accompanying clause "to forgive is God" remains abstract, and only for the purpose of spiritual discourses.

But making the same error again and again is worse than being merely foolish and committing a crime or a great sin even God wouldn't agree to forgive.

The Government of Manipur, the transporters, drivers and owners of trucks and tankers and the people of Manipur had way back in 2005 learned a bitter lesson of which taste should have remained etched on everyone's memory forever, but unfortunately chose to forget it after the 52 days' ordeal was over.

ANSAM and UNC, of which full forms need not be given any more since the two have become perfectly synonymous with "economic blockade" and too well familiar with even a three-year-old child of any community in Manipur, had taught the Government of Manipur and all sections of the people that chokingly painful and bitter lesson.

But, may be because of the state government's habit of looking at the present only, not bothering about the future and also the Manipuri people's good nature of “forget-and-forgive” all suddenly forgot the hardships the people faced during the 52 days of economic blockade called by ANSAM with the support of its brother organization UNC.

During those 52 days of blockade which, though did not leave anyone in Manipur dead due to starvation as a result of food scarcity, caused much hardship to the lives of the people, specially the poor sections.

Everyone talked about the NH 53 as the alternative lifeline of Manipur. Various organizations came out with the idea of voluntarily protecting the Imphal-Jiribam road, and MLAs and Ministers and even the state government openly voiced the need for improvement of the road so that all the goods and fuel carrier vehicles could traverse the road for bringing goods and fuel into the state from Silchar, Assam. That was the longest economic blockade ever imposed by Naga bodies on the two NHs in Manipur.

The record was broken by the same Naga bodies themselves, who are undoubtedly the pioneers, rather fathers of all economic blockades in the world. This time, the period of economic blockade, what the pioneers called indefinite, stretched upto the 68th day, wow! Have no doubt, it's not going to be the last.

For all we know, these pioneers would be calling for another and more longer "indefinite economic blockade" in future too. After all, the world is not going to come to an end tomorrow.

And why shouldn't they use the God's gift (to them) of having Manipur formed as a mountains-locked land and connected by only two main NHs to the rest of the country to put nearly 2.5 million population of the state in misery to demand their rights?

Funnily, the UNC and ANSAM have turned their demands from "tribal rights" before and at the beginning of the record-smasher blockade to "Naga rights" at the end of the blockade. One just can't miss the obvious.

Earlier, the Naga bodies tried to justify their hidden agenda of calling for various forms of agitations in the name of "tribal rights" against the Manipur (Hill Areas) Autonomous District Council (3rd Amendment) Act, 2008 but when no other tribal communities such as Kuki, Paite, Hmar, Zou, Mizo, etc extended solidarity to their agitations, the ANSAM and the UNC, in fact one and the same, had to finally come out with the truth–the Naga rights––integration of so-called Naga areas.

Be that as it may, meanwhile, all sections of the people of Manipur, except a handful of supporters of NSCN-IM and Muivah, are now talking about improvement of the NH 53 and making it the alternative lifeline.

The Transporters and Drivers' Council, the apex body of all associations of truckers and tankers of Manipur, for now looks determined not to ply the Imphal-Dimapur road until the Centre, the government of Nagaland, NSCN-IM and other NGOs give written assurance that they would never harass the drivers and passengers of Manipur and collect illegal taxes.

This stand should not be changed at all. There may be plenty of efforts from the side of the government and vested interest, such as the business lobby of Thangal Bazar to break the TDC's stand and allow vehicles to ply NH 39 in narrow and selfish interest, but we'd remind all concerned that letting the goods and fuel carriers ply the NH 39 since there's no blockade now would be making the same mistake made again and again in the past.