The North East Students’ Organization (NESO) on Thursday demanded the Centre to immediately invite all parties for a dialogue and come up with a permanent solution to end the ongoing violence in the state of Manipur.
Along with the rest of the North East region, a sit-in-demonstration was held in Shillong to condemn the central government’s failure to resolve the Manipur violence despite six months have lapsed.
The protest was participation of activists from the KSU, HITO, GSU, FKJGP, HNYF, RBYF, Shillong Manipuri Students’ Union, Kuki Students’ Organisation Shillong, Naga Students’ Union Shillong, Shillong Socio-Cultural Assamese Students’ Association,Mizo Students’ Union Shillong, Twipra Students’ Federation Shillong, Arunachal Students Union Shillong, Mara Students’ Organisation bad Lai Students’ Association.
In his address, NESO chairman Samuel B Jyrwa said, “With the support of all concerned organizations, NESO is demanding that the Government of India should take initiative to bring about a permanent peace in the state of Manipur. It should call all the parties to the negotiating table to start a dialogue so that an early solution which is agreeable to the stakeholders of the state of Manipur can be reached so that peace can once again prevail in the state of Manipur.”
“And if the Government of India still delays to take the initiative it only proves that the Government of India is not interested in the welfare of the indigenous people of the NE and the indigenous people of Manipur in particular but is only interested in its land and resources,” he said.
He added, “This is a warning to the Government of India that if they want alienate more the people of the NE from mainland India, the ball is in the court of Government of India, they should act now or the time maybe too late.”
Stating that the NE region has been facing political injustices for past many years, Jyrwa said, “We have been saying this again and again, time after time, generation after generation that the government of India only gives us political injustice but successive central governments have denied that they are giving us political injustices.”
“There are many instances when we think of the NE region, we are being made to merge with India. Manipur by force was made to merge with India, Meghalaya through the Instrument of Accession was made to annexed or to acede with India and many other princely states and autonomous areas were made to merge with India,” he said.
According to him, the Government of India is using the draconian law, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) against the indigensous people of the North East region. Security forces have committed atrocities in the different states of the NE region in the name of fighting insurgency.
The NESO chairman said that the Government of India has done another political injustice by flooding the NE region with illegal migrants from Bangladesh and had even passed the Citizenship Amendment Act in 2019, in order to give citizenship to illegal migrants from Bangladesh..
KSU chief Lambokstarwell Marngar said the lackadaisical attitude of the Government of India only forced us to believe that it has a hidden agenda to wipe out the indigenous people of the North East.
He said that the Centre had deployed thousands of paramilitary forces to Manipur just to be mere spectators of the drama without doing anything to stop the violence. “This makes me suspect that the BJP at the Centre have a hidden motive to instigate bloodshed among the indigenous people in the NE region,” Marngar said.
“Therefore, the KSU sends a clear message to the Centre to immediately take steps to resolve the Manipur situation once and for all,” he added.