CM of Manipur, not CM of Congress : Pound of flesh for LEP
- Sangai Express Editorial :: September 10, 2013 -

The Union Ministry of External Affairs writing to Chief Minister O Ibobi not to depute any Government dignitaries to over see the row that has been kicked up by the fencing along the Manipur-Myanmar border, as there is immense tension in Myanmar over the said issue.

So what should the Chief Minister now do ?

Time to remind him and Delhi that Mr Okram Ibobi Singh is the Chief Minister of Manipur and not the Chief Minister of the Congress party. Period.

He is the leader of the people of Manipur and not an underling of the UPA Government or Delhi. Central to Delhi's reluctance to take up the matter with the urgency it deserves is the Look East Policy, a policy that is aimed at not only reaching out to the South East Asian Nations but also to somehow blunt China's growing influence over Myanmar. Manipur be damned.

Appease Myanmar at all cost.

A flawed foreign policy or a manifestation of the thought process that Manipur exists in the realm of LEP as merely a geographical extension, a land route which can be the gateway to South Asia and beyond ?

Or can a process of history repeating itself be discerned in the row that has been kicked up along the border with Myanmar.

Remember 1962, when the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru literally bade adieu to Arunachal Pradesh during the Chinese incursion ?

Time to tell the people who are calling the shots from Delhi, that allowing a neighbouring country to set up an army base camp well within its territory, Manipur's territory in this case, cannot be equated with maintaining cordial ties with an immediate neighbour.

Perhaps it would be in the fitness of things to digest and note the argument put forth by the prolific Dr Irengbam Mohendra Singh in his article last Sunday wherein he observed that "Myanmar's soldiers have now begun to make Chinese style incursions-staying for short periods in Manipur's territory and withdrawing-to test the willingness of India to fight. They now understand that India regards these intrusions as 'friendly routine established pattern' and dismisses them as harmless military exercises".

View this argument in the backdrop of the MEA's instruction to the Chief Minister of Manipur and Delhi's priority becomes clear.

Myanmar has stolen a step ahead of India with the loser being Manipur, not Delhi. This is the truism. There should be no two ways about it.

It is here that Mr Okram Ibobi should rise to the occasion and assert that he is the Chief Minister of Manipur and not the Chief Minister of the Congress.

That he is the leader of the people of Manipur and not an underling of Delhi.

Or would this amount to wishing for the Moon ?

Only time will tell, but the developments in the past few days do not inspire much confidence.

To be sure it was the written intimation from the Ministry of External Affairs that constrained the State Government to put on hold its earlier announcement that a Ministerial team to be led by Deputy Chief Minister Gaikhangam would inspect the border.

The claim by the CO of the Light Infantry of the Myanmarese Army that information about setting up a base camp at Hollenphai was intimated to the CO of 9 Assam Rifles at Moreh, tells many a story.

True the Assam Rifles authority has rubbished the claim of the Myanmarese Army, but with the MEA's instruction to the Chief Minister now coming out in the public domain, there may be something in the claim of the army officer of Myanmar.

LEP, a grand scheme and a radical shift in the foreign policy of India, but with Manipur standing to lose chunks of her territory and it should be clear that the interest of Manipur and her people do not figure in the overall scheme of the LEP.

The dividends will be reaped by Delhi while Manipur will have to pay her pound of flesh. This is the bottomline.