Villages spar over land, Govt unperturbed
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: April 07, 2023 -

IT is high time that civil societies concerned intervene and facilitate negotiation across the table among representatives of Kon-sakhul village and other Vaiphei/Kom villages as the on-going spat between the parties in dispute might spiral out of control and create law and order problem.

The inter-village rival is a not a new phenomenon and unlikely to end with the Konsakhul-Leilon Vaiphei case for there had been similar cases associated with staking claims and overlapping of village boundaries across the state.

In fact, Manipur as a whole is facing a major problem of migration and that loopholes began with the sharing of a 398 km border with Myanmar, which enable easy border crossing into the state.

The community, who themselves are the outlanders, has brought more people to increase their strength in social and political landscape.

A recent instance of bringing in thousands of illegal immigrants, especially in Kangpokpi district, without informing the competent authority caused tension amongst the indigenous communities in the district.

Seriousness of the situation could be comprehended from the narrative previously centred on land ownership changing into questioning by Konsakhul village authorities on origin of Leilon Vaiphei and adjoining villages with the latter fiercely rebutting the same with reference to existence of the village for the past several decades.

Interestingly, even words of wisdom from influential student organisations that the warring groups must reconcile in a peaceful manner so as to dilute any attempt by adversary elements to exploit the situation has not generated any positive response till date.

Of the various factors being cited by the stakeholders concerned for the on-going imbroglio between Konsakhul and Leilon Vaiphei villages and others, encroachment of land seems to be the primary cause for the violent clash that broke out last month.

On its part, Konsakhul village authorities had been contending that Leilon Vaiphei and other villages are tenants of Konsakhul village and they have no right to expand their areas of settlement, while the latter have been claiming that their existence dated back to hundreds of years.

However, there has been no mention or clarification by Leilon Village regarding Konsakhul’s claim that as per a lease agreement signed between the landlord (Konsakhul) and tenant (Leilon), the latter used to pay royalties in the form of specific quantity of paddy grains every year.

As such, taking into account of the fact that major civil society organisations aren’t showing interest in intervening on the matter, the issue at hand calls for proactive involvement of the government to bring the parties in dispute over the negotiating table and ensure that the prevailing tension does not escalate.

There might be ambiguities vis-a-vis land ownership rights in the hill areas but it is the bounden duty of the government authorities to arbitrate and specify boundary limit of the villages concerned and initiate stringent action against the village involved in land grabbing, trespassing, encroaching and aiding settlement of illegal immigrants, if any.

In short, time has come for the government to wake up to the situation and resolve the problem before it is too late as mere deployment of security personnel in the problem-prone villages would not bring any lasting solution.