Dimapur, July 5 (MExN): The razing of government high schools in the hill districts of Manipur does not come as a surprise as it was bound to happen. Stating that indignation and discontentment had been building up for decades, the All Naga Students’ Association Manipur (ANSAM) advised the Manipur government to ask ‘why’ rather than ‘who.’
“The Manipur Government is naïve enough to think that this is just a law and order problem. No. This is a complicated socio-political problem, and must be dealt with accordingly. This is an issue involving two distinct entities – the tribal in the hills and the Meiteis in the valley” stated the organization through its vice president Sounii Khapa.
The organization highlighted the causes of the present turmoil, which, ANSAM stated ‘started long ago when the valley people took advantage of the simplicity of the tribals and began arbitrarily framing policies to keep them under subjugation.’ “The Meitei dominated Government has been surreptitiously making plans to occupy the hill areas through so called various urbanization policies – the latest being the attempt to convert Moreh into a Municipality border town” ANSAM explained.
Further, the Meitei language and script was imposed on the tribals. On April 24, 1979, the Manipur Official Language Bill was passed making Meitei the official language of the state; the use of the English Language was to be progressively restricted, the organization explained. Then in 1983, a notification was issued making Meiteilon a compulsory subject in all schools (and it still is); in 1989 Meiteilon was made a compulsory M.I.L. paper in the Civil Service Exam (UPSC). The ANSAM mentioned that a plan was made to forcibly assimilate the tribals into the dominant Meitei stream by imposing the state syllabus in all schools under BSEM. “To prevent any school from seeking affiliation to other better Boards like NBSE, CBSE etc, a cabinet decision was taken on 7th January, 2004, denying NOC to all private schools” it explained adding that May 14, 2005, the State Cabinet again decided to make the “newly concocted” Meitei Mayek (Meitei Script) compulsory in all schools in Manipur; this was to be introduced in a phased manner. Moreover, after M.U. was converted to a Central university, the Meitei-dominated Manipur government “craftily” reduced the tribal quota from 33% to 7.5% by applying the all India reservation ratio, ‘notwithstanding the fact that the tribal population in Manipur is very high.’
“Could this be the beginning of the impending catharsis? If this is the case, then, the government should find out the root cause of the problem ‘Why it has happened,’ instead of using military might to suppress every symptom by trying to find out ‘Who has made it happened’” the organization stated.
