Trouble on the beleaguered National Highway-39 is far from over. After the atrocious 68-day blockade by All Naga Students Association, ANSAM, and the United Naga Council, UNC, concluded, the highway still remains a bone of contention. This important lifeline of the state is still only partly used, that too on the quiet because of a boycott, or ban as it is more appropriate to be called, by a section of the truck drivers’ representative body, the Transporters’ and Drivers Council, TDC, supported by civil organisations like the United Committee Manipur, UCM. The TDC is demanding the government to first sanitise the highway of illegal taxmen, the latest of which was a students’ organisation in Dimapur, a matter which came to the fore during the ANSAM blockade. They are also demanding an assurance that the government would put an end to what they call daily harassment and humiliation by miscreants along the highway. We have absolutely no dispute with what they claim. However, as has become the culture in Manipur, boycotts are no longer voluntary. Instead they are enforced on the pain of loss of life and limb. This is regrettable and condemnable. As much as the ANSAM economic blockade which created a humanitarian crisis was unethical, the enforced nature of this boycott is beginning to give it a similar hue.

Let good sense prevail then. If the boycott must continue, so be it as a voluntary act, but let it not degrade to another blockade. More importantly, even if interstate traffic of freight vehicles is sought to be prohibited, with a view to make the matter of developing the NH-53 and other alternate highways urgent, leave the state sector of the highway unobstructed. The impassioned appeals and complaints through the press by populations living along this highway have now increased in frequency as well as in pitch. These voices must be heard and responded to. It goes without saying that this must be done with empathy. This need for all to empathetically understand each other, so well encapsulated in the biblical saying “do unto others only what you would have them do unto you”, was loudly demonstrated in the space between the ANSAM blockade and the current blockade like situation. We do hope the lesson has been absorbed and digested by one and all. In any case, bitter as everybody would have become after the two months of extremely intense standoff, let the ember of hope not be snubbed out by any of the parties by resorting to burning bridges of future reconciliation, if not immediate ones. Let the bitter passions evoked by the standoff on either side of the fence not become cynical to the extent of taking pleasure in inflicting indiscriminate pain and suffering on each other, men, women and children.

The government cannot remain silent on the issue. If the problem remains unresolved and another crisis results it must take full responsibility for all the consequences. Without losing another moment then, it must make the effort to meet the reasonable demands of the strikers, such as making NH-39 safe, upgrading NH-53 on a war footing, compensating losses and injuries suffered by drivers during the blockade months etc. As a bonus, could even think of an insurance scheme for drivers to cover such losses and injury expenses in such situations in the future. However, it cannot remain a silent spectator to the current situation, thus allowing another reverse blockade situation to harden. Negotiate and settle the issue, otherwise, ensure at least inter district movement of all classes of vehicles along this road is restored. The issue will soon become one of protecting a major population pocket of its own citizens. Let the government not take recourse to its now infamous tactics of wait and watch. This tactics left the entire state mauled and battered in the wake of the two months of economic blockade by the ANSAM. Weeks after the conclusion of the blockade, the state is still barely able to find its feet, weighed down heavily by uncontrolled, skyrocketing prices. In this physical and spiritual state of being, if another crisis of a similar nature were to grip it now, it would be no less terrible than the toll of the death knell. Let the government take heed and recall that a stitch in time saves nine.