Meet revisits human rights movement in State
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, March 02 2014 : The Department of Social Work, Indira Gandhi National Tribal University (IGNTU), Regional Campus, Manipur & Conflict and Human Rights Studies Network, Manipur jointly organised a one day Consultation on 'Revisiting Human Rights Movement in Manipur' at IGNTU Conference Hall here yesterday.

The Consultation was inaugurated by Director of IGNTU, Dr.N Surjitkumar and was chaired by Prof.W Nabakumar, Director, Centre for Myanmar Studies and Professor of Anthropology, Manipur University.

Prof.MC Arun of Anthropology department, Manipur University; Dr.I Varte, Assistant Prof of Tribal Studies, IGNTU; Dr.Dhanabir Laishram, Former Guest Faculty, Manipur University and Dr N Promod of LMS Law College, Imphal were among the resource persons who spoke during the consultation.

Speaking on the evolution of women's movement and its classification, Prof.MC Arun classified the women in Manipur as (i) Emoinu Model who is very submission, docile etc; (ii) Panthoibi Model who acts according to the wish and (iii) Khamnu model who negotiate her space according to the situation.

He commented that the women's movement in Manipur since 1904 to 2013 revolves around this three models.

For instance, when they come in groups such as movement against AFSPA, they act like that of Panthoibi model who takes its own decision and who act according to her wish and not by any influence.

He tries to classify the movement lead by mother and by mothers.

He observed that Women movement can be political while mother led movement is apolitical.

Dr.I Varte observed that if we talk in explicitly ecological terms, then we can say that history of development in Manipur or elsewhere, can be interpreted as being, in essence, a process of resources capture and manipulation by individuals and groups with the power to capture, transform and exploit resources from a much wider catchment area at the expense of those communities depending on the environment and locally available natural resources for their survival.

For decades, the unrelenting works by environmentalists, Civil Societies and others to mitigate the fast depleting resources and address environmental issues in the state have been often sidelined or tucked away.

However, with the increased level of awareness and networking among peoples and groups at the local, national and international level, environmental movements in the state related to the Loktak Lake, wetlands reclamation, Dr.Dhanabir Laishram, who spoke on the idea of civil Society and the civil society Movements in Manipur, opined that term "Civil Society" is the subset of the "Non-state" domain because in non-state sector, all the entities are included such as, the armed insurgent groups, whereas, in civil society domain, only the civil organization involved.

He argued that the government at the centre has been playing a very big role in deciding the future of the people of Northeast.

According to him, the Schedule tribe status demands initiated by some non-tribal Meetei elites, as well as the Inner Line Permit system demand are just a manipulation of the central government, because these demand would eventually trigger an unprecedented ethnic tension in Manipur.

He also argued that the social disharmony that has been plaguing the entire northeast region or Manipur in particular is the offshoot of the policies played by the New Delhi government.

Speaking on the topic of International humanitarian law, popularly known as law of armed conflict, Dr N Promod explained that it is procedure to protect the humanity and the mitigation of human suffering in an armed conflict situation.

He emphasised on the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and its additional Protocol II of 1977.Common Article 3 applies as a minimum to armed conflicts 'not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties'.

While the conflict must take place on the territory of a State Party, it does not have to involve the armed forces of the state, but could involve two or more armed groups.

He observed the non-implementation of the Geneva Convention particularly the Common article 3 India is questionable as India has already rectified the Geneva Convention in 1950.The imposition of AFSPA is also questionable and problematic if we observed the basis of Imposition.

However, it is an indication of the existence of armed conflict.

In his concluding remarks, Prof.W Nabakumar observed that most necessity things is to understand ourselves and to understand other through the own perspectives.

If we try to solve our problem by the mean of other which is aliens to us, it will only increase the problem.

So whatever, issues we have in Manipur can be address through our perspectives? The human rights movement has to be examined further and in a more details exercise so as to give a new direction.

Comment