Territorial Politics: The Manipur context

Keithellakpam Johnson *

Territorial Politics: The Manipur context of tolerating of ambitious and potent dreams where enactment and mobilisation of ever expanding exclusive inhabitated zone and Lebensraum is staged.

Of all the strange nature of the animal world, one natural instinct mankind too shares with some of the species of the animal world is its fierce territorial predisposition. Every human individual is unmistakably territorial.

By virtue of this inherent quality, this territorial predisposition is clearly embodied in the territorial claims and boundaries of human organisation such as political community in the form of nation-state, one of the highest form of humankind organisation as of present era.

Within the nation-state organisation, this territoriality is managed and organized through specific laws of its own though subject to variation according to the uniqueness and requirements of the concerned nation state. Sometimes, resolutions of territorial claims and boundaries are not smooth sailing affairs.

Numerous deadly conflicts have been occurring from time to time due to overlapping claims and counter claims. This may be alluded to perspective crisis borne out of the humankind’s territorial predisposition.

Manipur, a bona fide state within the Union of India, has a diverse population by virtue of different and diverse aspirations of its population. It is, here, a striking example of wild territorial instinct and urges has been allowed, tolerated for a long time with scant respect for the state’s formal institutional mechanisms.

Quite a few ethno-cultural groups are clamouring for their exclusively inhabitated territory. This is more so complicated by virtue of the existence of a kind of mechanism and related laws which divides the state into the hill areas and the central valley and are governed through different land ownership system.

Except, Imphal valley of Manipur which is not restricted to anyone of Indian origin to make its home until recently before the declaration and implementation of inner line permit system (Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873), other territorial parts which are mostly hilly terrain are being hotly clamoured for this and that community (exclusiveness is always emphasized).

In the ensuing melee, the jurisdiction and power of the state of Manipur has been constantly challenged, over and above the unjust accommodations and curtailments from the central power. Such is the case that has become a thriving ground for groups to be mobilized and organized encompassing scattered, dispersed habitations and generate the process of declaration of this and that area constitute their exclusive land.

More often then not comes the corresponding aspirations of homeland dress up in the nuances of human rights. In many cases, there will be lot of noise and exhortation masquerading in decent liberal words whenever there is any potential obstacles sprang up in contrary to their exclusive claims.

It is this precarious situation that can harbour a perfect breeding ground for explosive and deadly territorial clashes which had happened and still, the future possibility has not been mitigated.

The history of Manipur cannot be reduced with a single community. It should be able to be viewed through the lens of a secular and multi-ethnic dimension also. The historical evolution and composition of the construction of Manipur through social-cultural-political exchanges and intermingling should be adequately highlighted.

It will be highly factual if it is not interpreted from the interest and perspective of the present. Past should be understood strictly through its context not from the present context. Only then, our present will be freed to most extent from unnecessary strife and turmoil based on imaginary or real past misdeeds.

One thing which needs extra attention for the harmonious existence of the Manipur state is the necessity of continuously putting forth and disseminating the authenticity of the historicity of the state of Manipur which has been home to so and so communities and refuting concocted and fabricated counter histories which intends to destroy the social fabric of harmony and peaceful co-existence.

The fact of historical evolution and establishment of the entity called Manipur must be shown to all for adequate recognition and the arbitrary discriminatory laws directed against a certain indigenous group should be reviewed on the basis of the fact of the history and for a peaceful cohesive posterity.