Once
again Manipur is reeling under an indefinite economic blockade of its two vital
national highways. Imposed by the state-based United Naga Council, it has
forced people to silently endure the ordeal of a scarcity of food, petroleum
products, medicines and other essentials.

During
one of these forced shutdowns, in 2011, former Union home minister P
Chidambaram even rubbed the people of Manipur the wrong way when he sarcastically
remarked the “supplies are available except that prices are very high”.

No
effective action against the culprits is possible when the authorities have
meekly surrendered the two highways to the Nagas.

The
UNC has also banned work on the construction of the Jiribam-Tupul-Imphal
railway line and all national projects in the Naga areas.

All
this started after the Joint Action Committee for Sadar Hills raked up its old
demand for conversion of Kangpokpi (Kuki-dominated) area in Senapati district
(predominantly Nagas) to a separate entity for the sake of administrative
convenience.

 The UNC accuses the Okram Ibobi government of
not honouring in “letter and spirit” the four Memoranda of Understanding it has
signed with the state government and the Centre on the Sadar Hills district
issue between December 1981 and November 2011, demanding that “not even an inch
of the Naga ancestral land and its original (sic) should be touched while
creating a new district out of the Sadar Hills”.

It
claims to possess a written assurance to this effect from the Union home
ministry after the signing of the last MoU.

For
more than 30 years the Sadar Hills has been the bone of contention between the
Kukis and the Nagas. Now it has become a prestige issue for both. The Nagas in
Senapati district, adjoining Nagaland, feel that once the Kukis are given a
separate entity it will harm the Nagas’ cause for Greater Nagaland as demanded
by the NSCN(IM) leadership. Till now there had been some semblance of peace in
the area because of the MOUs.

The
JAC claims that after deferring an announcement on the new district two or
three times, the chief minister agreed to do so in October.

Having
reportedly agreed to the proposal to prepare a declaration plaque — already
erected on the deputy commissioner’s office compound at Kangpokpi — Ibobi
should have shown due regard for propriety. He was apparently caught in his own
trap, so he must take responsibility for the turn of events.

–Editorial