Landlocked Manipur, dependency & highway blockades
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: August 21, 2014 -

This time it is not within the territory of Manipur, not even in Nagaland but on Assam-Nagaland border.

Of course we are talking about highway blockade and Manipur has already started feeling the pinch of shortage of petroleum products.

Acute scarcity of petroleum products is nothing new in Manipur and the people have been conditioned to stand in serpentine queues in front of oil pumps through one whole night just for a few litres of petrol or diesel.

Even if the ongoing blockade at Golaghat ends in the next couple of days, people of Manipur may not find any reprieve for ATSUM has already lined up an indefinite blockade on all National Highways leading to Manipur, thanks to the stand-off over seat reservation in Manipur University.

Blockades and their impacts are always painful to the common people but they have a treasury of experience in this regard.

As far as highway blockades are concerned, Manipuri people are known for their unnatural endurance and this was demonstrated before the whole world without an iota of doubt during the protracted highway blockades called by ANSAM, SHDDC, UNC and even Nagaland based NSF.

All miserable impacts of highway blockades get multiplied manifold because of Manipur’s virtual dependence on a single highway for connectivity with the outside world.

Whereas Manipur is entirely dependent on imported goods for its daily requirements, Imphal-Dimapur-Guwahati highway is virtually the only route which is fit for movement of heavy trucks.

So even if everything is calm on Manipur section, movement of goods and people is affected when there is any kind of disturbance or unrest in either of the transit States; i.e Nagaland and Assam. This is exactly what is happening at the moment.

Manipur is a classic case of landlocked hinterland region with Imphal-Jiribam highway still languishing in the most deplorable condition of a 19th century cart-track. In the absence of any alternative viable route, vulnerability of Manipur to highway blockades tends to extremity.

It is simply bewildering that those at the helm of affairs at New Delhi cannot make a standard, all-weather highway between Imphal and Silchar.

A landlocked State like Manipur needs not just one or two highway(s) but at least half a dozen which would connect the State with the outside world in different directions.

In fact, Manipuri people are being bedevilled by the twin problems of dependency and vulnerability to blockades which are intrinsically inter-related.

These twin problems often act as multiplicative factors, breeding, at times, serious humanitarian crisis.

To ward off such crises in future, both the problems of dependency and vulnerability to blockades need to be addressed in a wholesome manner.

The immediate crises can be overcome by neutralising blockades but lasting solution to the problem of blockades and its effects lies in doing with total dependency on imported goods or uni-directional trade pattern. As we have said, Manipur’s dependency has reached its limits. There is no easy way out or a ready-made solution.

It demands a sustained struggle guided by an appropriate political will to reverse the advanced stage of dependency. Dependent or independent, highways are indispensable to Manipur.

Today, highways are road to survival. In future, they can be roads to prosperity. This is all the more undeniable in the absence of access to sea routes or maritime trade.

Vulnerability to highway blockades can be reduced significantly by opening as many routes as possible instead of depending entirely on a single route.

No landlocked state can afford to rely on a single transit state. This is a universally accepted understanding and one need not be a rocket scientist to grasp its implications.

One lesson which we can learn from highway blockades, particularly protracted ones but which most of us fail to grasp so far is the degree of dependency of Manipur on imported goods, and of course New Delhi’s grants and aids.