demand to integrate Naga-inhabited areas of Manipur, among others, with the state of Nagaland. The resolution poses a dilemma of sorts to the center in that ignoring it would surely be read as its unwillingness to close the option of ending the longest guerilla struggle in the country, while accepting the resolution would entail the end of any chance of negotiated settlement with the NSCN-IM. State assemblies are at liberty to resolve on any matter that represents the interests of the people. However, a nagging question that arose is as to whether this route to preserve the integrity of the state's territory is the best available, or a desperate measure adopted because the majority in the legislature either are ignorant or unwilling to consider alternative routes.
In multi-ethnic societies like in Manipur, the state should not only represent, but be perceived to represent all sections of society and their interests. Momentary flashbacks of recent political developments in the state fail to portray such a picture. The denial of 6th schedule of the constitution to the hill tribals smacks of repression of tribal rights in the least. The Manipur governmentís opposition to the delimitation of Assembly constituencies based on the 2001 census is a brazen denial of equal, nay, proportionate representation to the tribal people. The forcible implementation of the ADC elections under an act which fails to give adequate powers to the elected councils on matters pertaining to the protection of tribal lands, etc. is a blade cutting through the very heart of any remnants of emotional integrity in the state. The unequal honor given to the dead and living are telltale signs of an exclusivist government driven only by a greed for tribal land without an iota of responsibility for the tribal peopleís welfare.
Territory in politics is a dynamic concept. It is the people that define territory, not the territory that defines the people. Today, the hill tribal people are disillusioned with the concept that is Manipur. It has become one that threatens their very existence by threatening their land. It is with the deep understanding about the existential relationship between the tribals and their land that framers of the Indian constitution provided for schedules such as the Fifth and Sixth to ensure prevention of alienation of land from the tribals. The state governments of Manipur since 1972 have consistently remained defiant on extending these provisions to the tribals of the state. It is precisely against such dominant community dictated actions of the government that the provisions of the sixth schedule seeks to protect minority tribal peoples and their way of life. The center may need to first consider this defiance of the Manipur state government before considering the state assemblyís recent resolution seeking yet another majority dictated constitutional safeguard for the state's territorial integrity.
The demands of the NSCN-IM and that of the various Kuki insurgent groups for a Kuki state, in the light
of the above, seems nothing but by-products of a state government that claims to be of the people, by the people but for only a section, the largest section, of the people. The best guarantee for the territorial, and
more importantly, emotional integrity of the state would perhaps be to do away with the government's
character of being off the people, buy the people and force the people.
