The Walls Within
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: July 29 , 2013 -

The joint team inspecting border-fencing at Goubajang :: Pix - Hueiyen Lanpao

How serious is the Government of Manipur towards resolving the long-standing border dispute with its neighbouring country Myanmar?

This is one question that the people of Manipur should be asking today, especially in the light of the latest revelation that a large portion of Govajang village located along Indo-Myanmar boundary is going into the hands of Myanmarese authorities as a result of the ongoing Indo-Myanmar border fencing.

To facilitate the border fencing, Govajang is said to have been divided conveniently without the consent and knowledge of the villagers and now about two-third of the total land area of the village is falling within Myanmar.

As a consequent, the villagers, who are predominantly agrarian workers and paying hill house taxes to the Government of Manipur all these years, have lost their only means of livelihood after their paddy fields and other agricultural lands have gone into the hands of Myanmarese authorities.

What is even more disheartening is to learn that the free movement of the villagers within their own land has been restricted today on account of the border fencing.

If the words of the Chief of Govajang are to believe, then, the Village Authority has submitted several memorandums to the Ministry of Home Affairs for resolving the border issue.

But instead of resolving the long-standing border dispute, the reply has come in the form of starting the border fencing all of a sudden and without any proper demarcation and identification of the villages, thus, resulting in loss of Manipur's territory by about 50 metres to one kilometre to Myanmar.

And, if this is to be allowed, then other border villages of Manipur like M Kamnong, Lamlong Khunou, Waksu, Rilram Centre, Kharou Khullen, Leibi, Choktong, Saibol, Moirengthel, Kwatha Khunou, Nongkam, Yangoupokpi, Lamdong Khunou, L. Molphei, Bongyang, etc, are also going to meet the same fate of Govajang – walls within the border villages.

Here, we may recall how Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh had tried his level best to allay the fear of the people over losing some border areas of Manipur including Moreh town itself to Myanmar after the Myanmarese authorities stake claim as their territory during the recently concluded State Assembly session.

Assuring that his Government has been and will always remain committed to safeguarding the territorial integrity of Manipur and will not give away even an inch of land to anyone, the Chief Minister had assured that the border dispute with Myanmar is just over some un-demarcated portions related to the areas of missing border pillars and his Government exert pressure on the Central Government to settle the boundary issue at the earliest.

Now, how long this 'at the earliest' would take for the State Government to raise the issue?

If it comes after the ongoing border fencing work along the dispute sites were completed, what would be the point? When the construction work on the proposed Integrated Check Post could be stopped at a simple request of the Myanmarese authorities, why can't the State Government exercise its power and intervene to put a halt on the border fencing until resolution of the dispute along the un-demarcated portions?

Even if it is just about the missing nine border pillars, namely, 66, 76, 78, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93 and 94 lying at a stretch of about 10 kilometres from each other, could a Government, which claims to be committed to safeguard the territorial integrity, afford to sit back and watch walls coming up within its border villages?

On the other hand, why is that the Opposition parties in the State have to wait for the Assembly session to take the ruling party to task on important issues of the State?

It's time for the Opposition and the Ruling to break down the wall created between them and listen to the cries of the people guarding the borders, if not for the sake of protecting the territorial integrity of Manipur, but for the sake of ensuring their vote banks.