In his message to mark its 45th Foundation Day of the proscribed outfit, Interim Council Chairman Aheiba Angom, said, “Without the strength of unity, revolution for independence will not find success.”
TFM Desk
On the eve of its 45th Foundation Day, the proscribed People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) Interim Council Chairman Aheiba Angom on Saturday called for restrengthening unity and obligation of all.
In his message to mark the occasion, the chairman said, “Without the strength of unity, revolution for independence will not find success. The first obligation before us now is to generate the power of solidarity and to construct an unbreachable unity of spirit through sorting out differences in views by communication, and to engage in serious encounters against the Indian Occupational Forces.”
“If we battle with powerful aggression in recognition of people’s interest we will gain positive steps,” he added.
The proscribed outfit also extended “goodwill message with revolutionary honour” to the beloved folks of both hills and valley; comrades of the Party; all revolutionary groups fighting for the restoration of the lost independence of the motherland, and those similar fellow groups in the WeSEA region; brothers and sisters of newspapers, Print & Electronic media in service day in and day out, read the press statement.
The chairman said PREPAK has been endeavouring at the utmost level to advance a concerted independence struggle by consolidating the people of all the communities inhabiting Kangleipak. However, a handful of people who have fallen prey to the Indian government and its agents as well as lost into the delusion of India are circulating the false narrative among the people, particularly the hill brothers and sisters, that the independence struggle is meant only for the valley.
The India government is working to prevent cadres fighting for the whole of the motherland from setting foot on the hill by opening camps for ethnic armies at several parts of the hill through the excuse of Peace Talk and SoO with different hill groups, he added.
Maintaining that all of them have grown up in shoulder-to-shoulder fraternity, the chairman said, “Following a state of mutual understanding and excuse of errors and mistakes, each of us together should develop a firm unity for future generations. Let our strength and power be not abused. With our firmness in strength and solidarity let us make a Kangleipak of welfare.”
Describing India as a new colonial country in Asia, the chairman said since the forceful annexation of Kangleipak in violation of Indian Independence Act 1947, Manipur Constitution Act 1947, International Law, and provisions of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969 so known as Treaty on Treaties all its originally existing language, faith, customs, culture, conventions and land boundary peculiar to an independent land and independent living have seriously decayed.
The chairman said that the area of Kangleipak after annexation has been reduced to 22,327 sq km recalling King Bodhachandra’s address at the first National Assembly of independent Kangleipak. The then king stated on October 18, 1948 in his proclamation about the area and of the land boundary, “Read her Political History from 24 A.D. She had her dominion over a wide area extending as far as the southern portion of China in the North, the gold mine in the Sibasagar Valley, the river Chindwin in the east and south, and Chandrapore(Cachar) in the west, her present area is 8,650 square miles plus 7,000 square miles of the Kabaw Valley, including 7,900 square miles of the hills,” he said. It means that because of having been under India the land area of Kangleipak has been seriously distorted, he added.
The king’s proclamation that “all these times when Manipur was in the highest of her power Hill and Valley were one; and this oneness defended Manipur against all invasions and thus, she could maintain her independence upto 1891, when the rest of India had already been conquered by the British” itself is the evidence of the truth of the International Boundary of the once independent Kangleipak, he said.
The chairman further said from the percentage of landless people at about 22-23 in 1990-91 it sharply increased to 40 per cent in the census of 2011/12. With the loss of the earlier noble culture of labour for self-reliance in food many farm areas are converted to commercial use on a large scale. Fields and homestead lands are being sold for government jobs. 100/100s of acres of land have been taken over for government development projects of making highways, expansion of airport, development of railways, starting of industries, building several dams, establishment of government and private educational institutes, and business centres, he added.
The chairman maintained that the scanty produce from the few fields remaining idle throughout the year is feeding not only us but also the population of outsiders to the tune of over seven lakhs. Moreover, all these – non-availability of fertilizer at the right and appropriate times, lack of complete and systematic management of irrigation in the fields, not undertaking welfare programmes for farmers – again render farmers and fields paralytic.
“There is no policy of land use in Kangleipak. No land reform is also done in this direction”, he added.
For the objective of sufficiency in food for all the effort cannot be limited to the valley constituting only eight per cent. Instead, a complete land reform should be executed first after classifying areas of land for use of both hill and valley. However, the divide and rule policy adopted by India for discord and disunity between hill and valley has made it unsuccessful, he said.
He claimed that the India government’s major activity is to continue and prolong their colonialism and to permanently consolidate it through several strategic ways. Enforcement of Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in 2019 by extending the toothless Inner Line Permit (ILP) is only to transform the Kanglei people into Hindustani for all time, he said.
By erasing forever Kangleipak and Kanglei people, India has been persistently attempting to present them as Hindustan (India) and Hindustani (Indian). Efforts are being worked out constantly to wipe off the ancestral prints of the Kanglei people by replacing with the Hindustani elements all of the legacy of our tradition in terms of language, faith, attire, culture, customs, convention, ritual practices for ever from the face of the earth, said the chairman.
He also said attempts are also being made to manipulate the history of independent Kangleipak as history of Hindustan. India has been trying to falsely show as within India’s war or movement against the British the Kanglei people’s battles from time to time against the colonial British, such as Anglo-Manipuri War of 1891, Khongjai Lal, Zeliangrong Movement under the leadership of Haipou Jadonang and Rani Gaidinliu, he added.
The chairman said within this strategy, the portraits of three brave women patriots of WESEA region – Rani Gaidinliu of Kangleipak, Lalnu Ropuiliani of Mizoram and Phan Nonglait of Meghalaya — who firmly stood against the colonial British were installed on the wall of Red Fort in Delhi on August 15 in the course of “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav” celebrating 75 years of India’s independence. There is no reason not to take the installation of their portraits as just a guile to present them as freedom fighters of India, he added.
Such an event is directed towards the objective of assimilating the politics, culture, and ethnic identity of the people of WESEA region for Rashtriya SwayamSevak Sangh (RSS) and Hindu Nationalists to convert India into Hindu rashtriya, he added.
Further, the presentation of Rani Gaidinliu, Zeliangrong woman leader as tribal leader of Nagaland is intended to blur the history of the land and as a wedge of discord and hatred among the communities of the WESEA region, he said.
“Though motherland Kangleipak has been annexed, the spirit of freedom in the hearts of all Kanglei people can never be blunt. It has been so chiselled into an indestructible mark in every heart of the revolutionaries as no force can ever ravage it. Any thought of surrender to India or compromise to weaken the independence struggle has never been with the revolutionaries,” he said.
The chairman further said India has been using the elections held in Kangleipak from time to time as a highly effective weapon of repressing the independence movement of the people. The youth of motherland having been snared into the temptations of election who are also involved in the freedom struggle are being exploited as election warriors. “Elected leaders also could not do anything for the welfare of the people. For a political administration to proceed under a regulated system,” he added.
The election is made to serve as a way for drawing the people in closer affinity to India from Kangleipak or, if possible, to obliviate Kangleipak for a fully Hindustani oriented people, he added.
Schemes of India government being put into action in the guise of welfare singularly lead to the conditions of flouting of the natural rights of the people of the land, suppression of the voice of democracy, endless instigation and interference, destabilization, forcing people into protest march, and militarization, he said.
Insisting that such a course of action is a disregard of the UN Sustainable Development Goal, the chairman said that to become the master’s pet, this puppet government undertakes all projects brought in by the India government based on neo-liberal development without either sanction of the State Assembly or the consent of the people.
The chairman further said for successful carrying out of their agenda the Indian military serves as the prop, while the economic development of the original people is being retarded even as tenacious attempts continue to grab not only the inhabited lands but also many open areas. The deployment of military in this land was since India’s first step in 1991 into liberalisation, privatization and globalization developed in congruence with the spirit of capitalism. The military are in persistent move to force stations in Tamenglong, Ukhrul and different hill villages causing disruptions in the tradition, folk life and independent living of the villagers. Villagers have a lurking fear that their land might be snatched away.
Though the identity of a people of a land or state is usually viewed in the perspective of the social, the political and the economic affairs the most vital is the aspect of economy. If the people of a land cannot have a distinct character in the life of its economy the community shall die out. Therefore, the economy is the most crucial in the life of a community. However, today besides the economy, social and political control of Kangleipak has been in the hands of a few from outside. All Politicians and Bureaucrats of the motherland have also been bonded to the few, with their free thinking decapacitated. As a result, policy decisions of the economy are adopted to their advantage against the welfare of the people, he said.
The chairman also said since the annexation of Kangleipak into India the Social, Political and Economic Identity of motherland has been in a state of degeneration. Consequently, the spirit of Kanglei nationalism is gradually sinking down while on the contrary Indian Nationalism is arrogantly on the rise. It is in this context the question arises as to how long the original Kanglei people can keep their identity, he added.
Though India claims in pride before all as the recognized leader which can or does assume great responsibilities in Asia Region and the World, the situation within it is very despairing. This country, like Africa, is in the world a land of joblessness, starvation, and half-fed people in poverty. India stood two steps down from the earlier at 131 in the human index survey on December 20, 2020 under United Nations Development Program (UNDP) conducted across 189 countries of the world taking into account the life expectancy, levels of education and standards of living, said the chairman.
Asking whether to keep merely looking on or be opposed to reinstate the ancestral legacy of independent Kangleipak, the chairman said “We the present generation should respond. Indifference of no response or avoidance cannot be accepted.”
“Let it not be ever forgotten that we are the descendants of those brave patriots inspired with indefatigable spirit who fought in Seven Years Devastation and Anglo Manipuri War, 1891,” he added.
Asserting that in the observation of International Law, sovereignty of Kangleipak is not yet lost and India simply obstructs and keeps it at abeyance, the chairman said, “The first obligation of the current generation is to make the obstruction known to the international community and with their support to remove it for resumption of our sovereignty.”
The PREPAK also offered the salute of honour to those “invaluable brave patriots – men and women – who have martyred during the long continuing course of the revolutionary war to determine the destiny of motherland”. It also extended the revolutionary regard to its dear comrades languishing as war prisoners in jails.