The present crisis in Manipur is a creation of the successive government’s incompetence and lack of foresight and inability to grasp the complexity of the history of the Northeastern states, stated civil society organisations in a joint release on Wednesday.
The release jointly issued by the Federation of Civil Society Organisations (FOCS), Manipur Women’s Federation (MWF), Universal Mothers Organisation (UMO), Yelhoumee Kanba Lup (YEMKAL) and a students’ body stated that the Indian Army entered into suspension of Operations (SoO) Agreement with constituents of UPF and KNO on August 1, 2005.
The then Congress governments in the Centre and the state agreed to formalise the Suspension of Operation with effect from August 22, 2008, it added.
It claimed that using threat and intimidation, the SoO cadres actively promoted and indulged in settlements surrounding the valley and created a ring of Kuki settlements surrounding the valley and in the foothills along the two National Highways.
It accused the Assam Rifles of allowing SoO cadres to do as they pleased, in return for information and assistance in tackling Meitei and Naga insurgents.
“Despite signing of formal agreement in 2008, the Congress government in the Centre did not bother to bring the agreement to a logical conclusion by initiating talks. The 15-year Congress government in the state was no better. It was only in 2018 when the BJP came to power in Manipur that an interlocutor was appointed to initiate talks with the SoO groups for bringing about a final settlement with the SoO groups,” it read.
By this time, the programme of valley penetration under the protection of the SoO groups had done irreparable changes in demographic as well as political landscape, it claimed. For instance, the Kanglatongbi area a part of the northern end of Imphal West district which was earlier dominated by the Nepali population, came to be dominated by the Kuki population, it added.
“In 2012, the Congress government in the state deleted four Gram panchayats (namely Koubru Leikha, Toribari, Kalapahar and Santalabari parasain), and one Zila Parishad constituency (namely Kanglatongbi) which were part of Imphal West revenue district from the Manipur Panchayati Raj system and allowed these areas to come under the Kangpokpi Autonomous District Council. Shortly after this, the congress government also created a new subdivision named Thangting in Churachandpur on August 25, 2014, by including names of several previously unheard-of villages in the area known since time immemorial as Thangjing. After the people of Manipur raised a hue and cry, the Congress Government further renamed this sub-division as Kangvai on February 19, 2016,” it stated.
Further, with Kuki settlement all along the stretch of National Highway No 2 lying in Kangpokpi District, this stretch became the favourite weapon of the Kuki CSOs to press demands upon the government by resorting to economic blockade threat, it claimed.
In this regard, the Congress must answer for its fallacies as soon as possible and the visit of the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will not be welcomed in Manipur without an answer for the aforesaid acts, it added.
