RPF chief bats for sustained armed campaign-II
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, February 25 2014 : "Our longing for freedom is a historical fact and our everyday contemporary existential struggles have sufficiently proven it time and again.

However, colonial India has always attempted to depict our struggle in a wrong light before the world", the statement continued.

The support (to the colonial regime) and complacency shown by the electoral class is naturally poised to derail the revolutionary struggle.

A hardcore comprador class is created in the process to help and consolidate the colonial continuum as they jointly dwell into a blood-sucking business.

Such a proposition is aptly expressed in the words of African activist Frantz Fanon when he said "some blacks can be whiter than the whites" .

Indoctrination of Manipuris in alien religious practices, culture, fashion and non-indigenous developmental models have been simultaneously coerced upon as an integral part of India's colonialism.

The degree of indoctrination has reached such a point where colonial apparatuses begin to thrive internally through native agents.

Manipur's economic decline began immediately after the Anglo-Manipuri War of 1891.The British imperialism started to produce a dependent economy by uprooting agriculture and dismantling all productive bases.

The imperial encounter proved very costly for the Manipuris as hill areas were kept under their control along with the destruction of sites where salt was found abundantly.

Not only this, in the wake of World War II, Manipuris were made bonded war labourers.

The present condition as experienced after India's annexation of Manipur is no different from what was faced during the British imperialism.

Underdevelopment of Manipur in particular and what India calls 'North East India' in general are justified in the name of region's geography and poor connectivity with outside world.

The region is yet to witness any substantial growth in terms of establishing manufacturing units.

Instead, Manipur's hydro-electric sources are exploited at the behest of private firms and Government of India while the rightful Manipuris are denied any benefit from these hydroelectric projects.

Several small and large dams have been commissioned to extract maximum profits from water resources of Manipur which has adversely affected ecology and environment.

Until recently, the North East was a region identified with natural handicaps whereas today it has been rather termed "a region with full of opportunity".

This is perhaps for the main reason that India could fulfil its capitalist interest by opening itself to South East Asian countries.

However, the capitalist inroad into the region is not at all devoid of India's military approach to counter armed struggles in the region.

The multi-pronged Indian strategy to subjugate the region remains well exposed in the eyes of the world as its security forces are indulged in drug-trafficking and other illegal businesses.

"If the people are not awakened to defend ourselves, the time is not far when the Look East Policy would become nothing more than a passage and transit for trafficking drugs and dubious route for trading.

India has no vision and commitment to develop the North East or Manipur," Chaoren asserted.

India is interested in securing its economic and political needs by appeasing its neighbours which can be seen in the recent border fencing fiasco.

The border fencing conducted in the Indo-Myanmar border areas under the aegis of Home Ministry of India did not show any commitment to protect Manipur's territoriality.

The list of colonial India's overt and covert attempts to subjugate the people of Manipur is too long to be conclusive.

In the name of Military Civic Action Programmes, full scale attempt has been made to diffuse people's collective aspirations by unjustly luring women, orphans and children mainly those who belong to weaker strata of the society.

Militarization of civil spaces has become a reality for Manipuris today.

"It is a matter of serious concern to see people from some quarters of media fraternity positively responding to government's call to generate a better relationship between media and police.

If we fail to understand the autonomy and freedom of media, media too shall become one among many endangered sites of our Manipuri life world", the rebel leader cautioned.

Therefore, the challenges before 'our revolutionary journey' is not one but many.

"Our longing for a fully liberated new Manipur constitutes the core of our political vision and struggle.

It would be sheer waste of time to look for a solution within the ambit of India's Constitution", it stated.

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