The silence in the hills
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: August 09, 2014 -

Despite the differences in the topography of the regions they have settled down or the nature of the daily struggle they have to go through, one common problem that the people living in the hills and the valley districts of Manipur have always faced is the administrative injustice.

This is an undeniable fact none could dare to challenge.

Regardless of the relatively easier life and availability of more facilities in the valley, the repercussion of the problem faced by the people in the hills is inevitably felt in the valley and the vice versa.

This is also another fact that would be hard to deny by anyone, whether he or she lives in the hills or the valley.

This is all because we live in a society where the so-called public leaders who came rushing to stand at our doorsteps to beg for votes during election time, remains high atop their ivory tower far away from the same people in the hills and the valley who elected them to power as their representatives once they get what they want and step into the State Assembly.

It is also this growing distance between the electors and the elected that have created a chasm among the people in the hills and the valley, thereby, propelling a vicious cycle of blame games and mutual distrust, if not outright hatred or rejection of the chain that has tied them together to a common destiny.

Talking of shared destiny and repercussion of the problem faced by one another in spite of living in different spheres, it is unnerving to note the conspicuous silence of the people in the hills to the ever growing movement for re-introduction of Inner Line Permit system to save the indigenous people from the threat of uninterrupted, unchecked and unregulated influx of outsiders who have already captured the economic activities of the people in the State.

Apart from a couple of social organisations related to some tribal community who mostly settled along the fringes of the hills and the valley, so far there has been complete silence on the part of the otherwise vocal social organisations in the five hill districts of Manipur on the issue ILP and the ongoing movement for its re-introduction in the State.

If these social organisations in the hills feel that the problem of influx of outsiders is something that has to be dealt by the people living in the valley alone and they have got nothing to fear from it, it would be a grave mistake.

Yes, it is true that the five hill districts cover around 90 per cent of total land area of the State and there is enough land and resource unlike in the valley which is just 10 percent of the total land area.

But, with the ILP movement already generated enough heat in the valley, for how long the vast lands and resources in the hills be able to restrict itself from the influx that is surely going to spill over?