New Delhi: Former Manipur governor Gurbachan Jagat, while talking about the turmoil in Manipur in an article published in The Tribune, argued that the situation in the northeastern state is worse than the peak of conflict seen in states like Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.Jagat, who has also served in J&K and Punjab as an IPS officer, wrote,”What defies all logic is the fact that police stations and police armouries have been attacked across the state and thousands of firearms and huge quantities of ammunition looted. This did not happen in the worst of times in J&K, Punjab, Delhi, Gujarat,” adding that the stolen arms would continue to pose a challenge for the state’s security forces.He wrote that despite the appearance of a calm and slow-paced life in Manipur, ‘primal instincts’ were always visible in the state along with hostility towards the tribal population. Jagat said that tribal territories were clearly marked and largely adhered to, with some cross-migration that ultimately emerged as faultlines where the recent spate of violence was targeted.He expressed his concern for the people of the state where over a hundred have died, many have been injured, thousands of houses and villages burnt and the subsequent loss of livelihood of the people.Also read: Meiteis Have Not Been ‘Denied’ ST Status. Exclusion Was Their Own Choice.“Now let us come to the thousands who have lost not only members of their families but also their homes, their livestock and means of livelihood. Thousands have fled their homes and villages in the valley and the hills and found refuge in neighbouring states or in refugee camps set up temporarily. Some might have also gone across the border to Myanmar. Whatever little that might have survived the first onslaught of violence must now have been destroyed,” he said.While raising questions about the condition of the ‘hastily’ set up refugee camps, he asked if a state that can’t protect its police stations can be expected to provide ‘quality shelters’.“I do not know how far the writ of the state administration has been restored and if it is able to monitor the activities at these camps. It has to be done on a war footing – providing food, shelter, sanitation, medicines, doctors, etc. It is a huge task and I hope and pray that those running the state government prove equal to the task,” Jagat wrote.The former governor also emphasised on the need to rehabilitate the people who have been displaced because of the ongoing violence, saying that they can’t be locked up in refugee camps or expected to stay with their relatives in the neighbouring states forever. “They have to go back to their habitat from which they have been uprooted by force of circumstance. It is this task of rehabilitation which would test our country and the state of Manipur,” he said.Watch: 2 Months of Manipur Riots: People Say Present and Future Have Been Destroyed, State Has Failed ThemHowever, he also pointed out that the state has not succeeded in rehabilitating people in the past. “Earlier, whenever and wherever such tragedies have taken place, resulting in uprooting of people, we have not succeeded in restoring them to their original habitat. In larger states and cities, people manage to find alternative places of livelihood, although never similar to what they had lost. But Manipur is a small state; its people are used to living in their valley and hills. Where will they go and from where will they obtain the means to start new lives?” Jagat asked.He urged the central and state governments to work together in drawing a comprehensive rehabilitation plan so that individual and collective pain of the people of Manipur can be alleviated.
