Highway to Miseries

Manipur is a state under siege, and the current economic blockade by Nagas of NH 39 is pushing its citizens on the verge of starvation.

National Highway 39 is like no other in the country, perhaps even the world. It is the lifeline to a state, a lifeline that gets snapped ever so often and for weeks at a stretch, thus causing unimaginable sufferings to the millions of people it is supposed to connect to the rest of the country, and the world. The 436-km highway, which originates at Numaligarh in Assam, snakes through Nagaland before entering Manipur and ending at Moreh on the Indo-Myanmar border, is the route via which all goods and essential commodities, including life-saving drugs, enter Manipur. This crucial road passes through a number of ethnic conflict zones in the hill districts of Manipur before it reaches the Imphal Valley that is home to nearly 60 per cent of the state’s 3-odd-million people.

Every year, this highway gets blockaded several times for an average of eight days at a time, thus sending prices of all goods and commodities spiralling to levels inconceivable in the rest of India. Most of the blockades are imposed by various Naga groups who inhabit the hills and want integration of their areas into what the Naga insurgent outfit, the Thuingaleng Muivah-led dominant faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), demands as ‘Nagalim’ or greater Nagaland—comprising Nagaland and Naga-dominated areas of neighbouring Manipur, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Myanmar.

Since 17 April NH 39 has been blockaded once again by Naga groups, this time to oppose elections to local bodies in the hills. The blockade was intensified after Manipur refused to let Muivah visit his village in Manipur’s Ukhrul district, with students and other groups in Nagaland enforcing a blockade on the highway just before it enters Manipur. The blockade, which entered its second month this week, has resulted in what is being considered an unprecedented situation even by Manipur’s standards. Leave aside the prices of commodities that have skyrocketed—petrol is selling for over Rs 200 a litre, an LPG cylinder costs Rs 2,000 and foodgrains have virtually disappeared from markets—even the state machinery has come to a standstill. Public transport has gone off the streets and most government employees are unable to go to work. Courts and schools have stopped functioning and by the end of this week, even ministers and top bureaucrats will not have fuel for their vehicles.

The only referral hospital in the state has stopped even emergency operations for want of oxygen cylinders, many critically ill patients have died, some have been flown out of the state. It was only earlier this week that life-saving drugs were airlifted via IAF aircraft from Guwahati, Assam. Military transport aircraft are also airlifting rice, but the couple of sorties a day that the IAF can manage is clearly not enough to feed even 5 per cent of the population in the Valley.

The blockades have impacted the state’s fragile economy. According to estimates, every day that this highway remains closed costs the state over Rs 10 crore. More than 600 trucks carrying commodities, consumer goods and petroleum products enter Manipur through this highway everyday. This is in addition to over 200 buses and 400 private vehicles that ply this highway daily. For all practical purposes, the only alternative to reach the state is flying into state capital Imphal.

Though bandhs and blockades are very frequent in Manipur—there were 110 bandhs and 234 economic blockades throughout the state between 2004 and 2007, the accumulated loss of which was Rs 1,320 crore (nearly 40 per cent of the state budget of 2006-07)—it is the frequent disruptions of NH 39 that hurts the state and its people the most. Over the past 15 years, this highway has been blockaded six times on average every year, and each blockade lasted an average of five days. Unofficial estimates put the loss suffered by Manipur due to these blockades at Rs 300 crore a year.

The continuing blockade for over a month now has already cost the state’s economy a crushing Rs 400 crore, estimate some research students at the Manipur University’s commerce department. Manipur’s per capita income (Rs 17,950 per annum in 2005-06) stood reduced by 11.8 per cent in 2005-06 and 9.9 per cent in 2006-07 due to bandhs and blockades in those years. The figure has only gone up since.

It would only be logical for a state that’s so crucially dependent on this highway to keep it open, with the help of security forces if necessary. But New Delhi’s intentions have been suspect. “New Delhi has only been sensitive to the sentiments of the Nagas, and has always prevented Manipur from taking resolute action against groups that block this lifeline,” a senior leader of the opposition Manipur People’s Party (MPP) says. This was evident this time too. The state cabinet resolved to take the help of the Army and para-military forces to escort trucks and buses along the highway, but New Delhi didn’t permit this, fearing that use of force to break the blockade would anger Nagas, especially the NSCN, with which the Union Government has been engaged in a protracted negotiation to end the decades-long insurgency in the state that has cost over 25,000 lives since Independence.

But if New Delhi has not sanctioned resolute action, successive governments in Manipur are also to blame for the hardships that Manipuris have been suffering due to this lifeline snapping so often. Two other highways—NH 53 and NH 150—also connect Manipur through Silchar in Assam and Mizoram respectively. But the condition of these two roads is pathetic—not fit for heavy vehicles. Despite funds being sanctioned by New Delhi, precious little has been done to develop these highways as alternate routes.

No other state in the country has faced such a crisis. All because a highway that’s the state’s lifeline remains blockaded by a group of people. And no one outside Manipur seems to care. “Imagine any other city, say Delhi or Mumbai, being made to suffer like Imphal is suffering now. Imagine what the Government would do if all roads to Delhi or Mumbai or Kolkata are blocked for weeks at a stretch. The Army would have been deployed and the roads cleared overnight. But Manipuris are made to suffer like this,” laments Th Sithlou, a teacher at Manipur University.

crisiseconomic blockadeManipurNagalandNH 39starvation