PREPAK (Pro) censures Loktak Project, Ithai Dam
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, October 09 2022: The proscribed PREPAK (Pro) has asserted that the Loktak Project and the Ithai Barrage only impoverished the people and made Kangleipak dependent on imported food grains.

A statement issued by the outfit's Chairman Longjam Paliba M on the occasion of the 46th raising day of Phingang Lanmi (armed wing of PREPAK-Pro) however maintained that the revolutionary movement was not ignited by underdevelopment or absence of development.

Nonetheless, the Government of India followed several policies to keep Manipur as an underdeveloped colonised State, the statement alleged.

Reduction of Manipur to the status of a Part C State following the alleged annexation in 1949, withdrawal of Permit System and investment of just Rs 1 crore in the First Five Year Plan (1951-56) testified that the Government of India conspired to keep Manipur as a colonised State permanently, according to the statement.

The Government of India sanctioned just around Rs 301 crore in 28 years from 1951 to 1974 and 1980 to 1985.This amount sanctioned for development works over a period of 28 years was less than the annual loss suffered by the people of Manipur on account of the Loktak Project due to submergence of vast tracts of paddy fields, Paliba remarked.

Even during the British colonial period, there was 25 per cent surplus food grain production annually.

But Manipur became dependent on imported food grains after Ithai Barrage submerged around 80,000 hectares of paddy fields, he said.

The people of Manipur were not consulted when the Loktak Project was launched in 1971 and there was no responsible Government in the State.

Even today, the State Government is not given any authority to monitor the project, according to the Chairman's statement.

It alleged that Delhi's agents made plans from a very early stage to make Manipur dependent on imported goods.

Following the footsteps of British colonial rulers, the Government of India introduced Article 371-C to divide the hills and the plain.

It was during 1949-1971 that India sowed its seeds of alleged colonial rule over Manipur, reads the statement.

In the name of bringing socio-economic development in the North East region, the North Eastern Council (NEC) was set up in 1971 under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) .

Even though all development related matters are primary responsibilities of State Governments, the State Governments were sidelined from NEC and MHA was given the functions of development and administrative agency.

In another word, Manipur was treated as a 'militarised State' since 1949, it alleged.

India's experiment with mixed and planned economy which lasted for 40 years from 1951 to 1991 ended in utter failure even though politicians and those at the helm of affairs managed to get rich and wealthy during this period while the vast majority of people were reduced to abject poverty.

India adopted the western economic policy of neo-liberalism in 1991.Under its neo-liberal economic policy, a large number of resources were handed over to a few capitalist classes, it said.

Subsequently, construction of roads, exploitation of mineral resources and even Railways have been privatised.

India is no longer a Socialist Democratic Republic but it is now an oligarchy, the Chairman remarked.

In the meantime, education has been transformed as a commodity of earning profit.

All the aspects of education like social manners, morality etc which should be learnt from parents/family have been completely dominated by school education.

The emergence of a large group of youth who have taken to drugs is a result of the absence of convergence between family education and school education, Paliba said.

Apart from the revolutionary groups, the Manipur State Assembly condemned the Merger Agreement on September 28, 1949.Public conventions held in 1993 and 1996 declared the Merger Agreement as illegal, according to the statement.

A Manipur State Council declared independence of Manipur in London in front of international media on October 29, 2019, it mentioned.

Elected representatives ought to know the root causes of the India-Manipur political conflict.

Staging surrender dramas and making claims like the number of people with anti-India sentiments has declined only exposed their arrogance, it added.

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