Opening highways for public Off limit for Meiteis
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 23 2023 -

Rather late, very late in fact but good that the Government has at last decided to open the Imphal to Mao route on National Highway 2 and the Imphal-Churachandpur stretch of the highway.

However the very announcement of the Government should not blind Manipur to the fact.

National Highway 2 or the Imphal-Dimapur line was offline or blocked to the Meiteis and not to the non-Meiteis.

It is this very reason why vehicles are checked at two points, one at Taphou Kuki and the other at Saparmeina.

Non-Meities, meaning the Nagas and others such as Meitei-Pangals and non-natives could take the Imphal-Dimapur-Guwahati route by bus but not the Meiteis.

However the fact that the very exercise of checking and verifying each and every vehicle that traverses along NH-2 did not go down well with the people of Senapati district can be gauged from the no nonsense statement issued by the Naga People’s Organisation, that if the vehicles are checked, then no Kuki-Zo individual would be allowed to set foot on Naga areas.

The stand of the NPO came after the Tangkhul Naga Long (TNL), in the early days of the ongoing clash, warned that no vehicle can be checked on the Imphal-Ukhrul road stretch.

The stand of the TNL can be understood in the backdrop of the fact that there are at least two Kuki settlements on the Imphal-Ukhrul stretch of the road, before one reaches Litan from Imphal.

And Yaingangpokpi is home to the Nagas and the Kukis as well.

For nearly 8 months, the Imphal-Dimapur route has been off limits for the Meiteis, and to many travelling along this stretch would amount to sticking one’s neck out to be guillotined.

This is the reality and can one take the announcement of the Government to mean that adequate security would be provided to enable the Meiteis to travel on the said road stretch ?

As a Professor of JNU recently questioned, ‘In the 2000 years old history of Manipur, when has there been a time when the Meiteis coud not proceed beyond Kanglatongbi ?’ and is this an answer from the Government to the poser raised ?

The answer may lie anywhere in between, but remember a valid question has been raised, and while this is not the first time that NH-2 has been cut off, this is the first time that the Imphal-Dimapur line has been kept off limits only for the Meiteis.

This is a question which should have disturbed Imphal and Delhi a long time back and one wonders why the more than 60,000 troops rushed here after Manipur went up in flames, were not pressed into service to sanitise the highway ?

Who is answerable for this ?

Imphal cannot rest easy with just announcing that the Imphal-Mao stretch and Imphal-Chura-chandpur route would be opened for the public.

This is also the time for the Government to look ahead.

Highway Protection Force is a term that must have entered the lexicon of each and everyone in Manipur but so far it has remained just that, a term to be used as and when the time demands but nothing more.

Manipur will need to move beyond this.

Not the first time that the highway has been cut off, but the difference and a big difference at that, is the fact that the highway has been cut off just for the Meiteis, reflecting the ugliness of the ongoing clash between the Meiteis and the Kukis.

Go back to 2005 when Manipur saw her first ever marathonesque economic blockade when the All Naga Students’ Association, Manipur went ahead and imposed its now well known 52 days economic blockade.

Many others have followed after that, including the blockade called for and against the demand to grant district status to Kangpokpi.

Prior to May 3, 2023, Manipur witnessed another long spell of economic blockade imposed by the United Naga Council against granting district status to Kangpokpi in the early part of 2017.

In all these cases, the blockades were against the policies and programmes of the Government and never was it interpreted as being aimed at any particular community.

This is what sets apart the other blockades from the present one at Kangpokpi.

How the Government respond to the stand of CoTU to oppose the decision to open the National Highway remains to be seen, but crush all opposition is the stand of Manipur.

Show that there is a Government in place.