INDIA’S REMOTE northeastern Manipur state, which borders Burma, is on the verge of economic collapse following a two-month blockade of its two key highways by supporters of a regional separatist tribal leader.
The insurgency-ridden state’s three million people, largely dependent on imports from mainland India or contiguous provinces like Nagaland, Assam and Mizoram – transported via the two blockaded roads – face not only a shortage of essential food and fuel but also crucial medical supplies and equipment.
Persistent shortages have forced several hospitals in the capital Imphal and the surrounding Valley region, home to about two million people, to shut down.
Other government-run hospitals have gradually stopped admitting seriously ill patients as there are neither oxygen cylinders nor intravenous fluids to support them nor fuel to run life-sustaining intensive care units.
Infrequent airlift of emergency medical supplies from Assam aboard military transport aircraft have simply not been adequate to keep the hospitals functional.
“We have to close down and have warned all patients in the intensive care unit to find alternatives,” Dr K H Palin, head of Imphal’s largest Shija hospital, said yesterday.
Thousands of agitated Naga tribespeople began their blockade of two vital highways connecting Manipur to the rest of India in early April to protest against local elections – taking place after two decades – believing they would deprive them of their rights.
Their agitation was exacerbated 10 days later by the state government banning Naga separatist leader Thuingaleng Muivah from visiting his village inside Manipur.
The local authorities feared that if permitted to enter the state, Mr Muivah – who heads the Nagaland National Socialist Council (IM) militant group that conducted India’s longest-running insurgency until a ceasefire in 1997 – would stir up separatist passions creating security problems.
Mr Muivah, who alternates between Amsterdam and Bangkok, returning periodically to New Delhi to participate in peace talks with the federal government, has long claimed large swathes of Manipuri territory as part of his movement. It was launched in the late 1950s to establish a larger “Nagaland for Christ”.
Meanwhile, in Imphal’s normally teeming central market, only locally produced vegetables, fruit and fish are available at highly inflated rates.
Everything else, including rice, that is the staple food of the locals, is either non-existent or, for the little there is available, is unaffordable for most.
Three convoys of supplies moved in recently with a police escort, which proved inadequate, to meet soaring demand, resulting in crowds of screaming locals besieging shops. Those crowds had to be broken up by security personnel swinging bamboo canes.
So far, the State and federal governments have failed to find a solution to the impasse. Feeble attempts by senior federal interior ministry officials to neutralise the stand-off have only emboldened the warring factions, intensifying local misery.
India’s seven northeastern states, including Manipur, have for decades been wracked by armed insurgencies for varying degrees of autonomy, self-determination and independence.