MNS, Imphal, May 4: Dr Dhanabir Laishram said that the process of colonization include accommodation of surplus population in the colonized area, exploitation of the natural resources of the area, making the economy dependant on the colonialists, creating a captive market, suppressing dissent, and bringing about biological change in the colonized population through forced assimilation.
The legacy of colonialism is evident in the Constitution of the country which is a compilation of borrowed rules and regulation from various colonial states of the world, Dr Dhanabir Laishram added.
He was speaking in a one-day seminar on the topic “The largest democracy of the world thrives on the legacy of colonialism in colonizing Manipur”.
The seminar was organised by The Freedom Research Foundation, Imphal with a theme, “The Predicament of the People of Manipur.”
The morning session of the seminar, moderated by Professor Dr. R.K.Ranjan, Director, CDC, Manipur University, started off with the presentation of a paper by Professor W. Nabakumar of Manipur University titled “Reading the mindsets of the people of Manipur after sixty-three years of Indianisation”.
The process of Indianisation can be stated to have started after the merger of the state of Manipur to India, when a new way of thinking began to over-shadow our previous established way of thinking through Hindunisation, Sanskritisation and globalization, said W Nabakumar.
“Our established way of thinking began to be considered anti-establishment by bureaucrats, technicians and other government employees of the Indian government and slowly and gradually our economy became a dependant economy, our society started to resemble a ragged cloth which was likely to fall off in shreds eaten away by corruption”, continued W. Nabakumar.
He said that the need of the hour is to re-examine the social security status of the people and the maintenance of status quo of the present system of governance supported by state actors and the demand of overhauling the whole established system by non-state actors.
In the third paper titled “Hoping against hope in the captive market of Manipur”, Dr. Chinglen Maisnam tried to show the dismal state of the economy of Manipur and the consequential manifestation of the captive market of Manipur.
Giving his opinion as the moderator of the morning session, Dr. R.K.Ranjan observed that people of the state have become extraordinarily individualistic while the community sense of mindset have disappeared leading to the process of Indianisation.
The afternoon session of the seminar moderated by R.K.Ranendrajit, CMD, Freedom Research Foundation, Imphal started with the presentation of the paper “Understanding the psyche of the oppressors and the oppressed of the existing colonial system in the context of Manipur” by Professor M. Akshaykumar, Regional Institute of Medical Sciences.
He elaborated on the process of stress management, anger management, trauma management resulting from discrimination faced by the people of the state of Manipur in particular and the North East in general due to diverse ways of thinking of the people of the Indian mainland and the people of Manipur and other North Eastern states.
Summing up the discussions in the seminar, R.K.Ranendrajit observed that racial discrimination is a fact of life in Manipur with even the state security forces taking the example of the army in harassing the people in the name of counterinsurgency operations. He said that psychological warfare techniques are used by state actors to suppress the insurgency movement and the issue of sovereignty by giving huge monetary sanctions.
Earlier in the morning, Manipur legislative assembly speaker Th. Lokeshore Singh said that he would not back down for the welfare of the motherland and will help in any way he can. He then called for sacrifices and selflessness from one and all to make the state peaceful and developed.
He was speaking as the chief guest in the one-day seminar on “The Predicament of the People of Manipur” on Friday at Lamyanba Shanglen, Konung Lampak, Imphal organized by Freedom Research Foundation, Imphal.
He stated that physical injuries inflicted by bullets and other physical ways alone do not make the people suffer from the conflict situation prevalent in Manipur; mental suffering and trauma faced by the people in their day-to-day activities also have far reaching consequences on the lives of the people.
He appealed to the people of the state to forgive and forget each other’s mistakes and try to exist together in peace and harmony so that all round development can be ushered in the state.
Giving the presidential speech, Dr. Kh. Ratan, minister of works and transport, appealed to the resource persons in particular to take into account the present and future context while discussing the three primary concerns – poverty, environment and violence – to attain an achievable objective in the Manipur context.
Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/colonisation-forced-assimilation-discussed-at-seminar/
