Good that the State Government has decided to move on. Obviously given the fact that the President has withheld or rejected the Protection of Manipur People Bill, 2015 the best way forward is to draft a new Bill and see whether it can pass muster with the Centre or not. Moreover it is also very important to keep in mind that the three Bills passed by the State Assembly on August 31 last year had divided the people so deeply that even now the nine people killed at Churachandpur in the protest against the Bills are lying in state. Take all sections of the people along while drafting the new Bill is one important decision that was taken during the all political parties meeting held on June 25 and this invariably raises the question of whether the State Government took all the people into confidence before passing the three Bills last year or not. This is an important point which the State Government cannot afford to overlook. Yes take all the stakeholders into confidence, talk to them and see if all are ready to give the nod to the fresh Bill or not. If one section of the people express any reservation then the best option would be to keep the new draft in abeyance and see how things may be prepared for its acceptability. This should be the thumb rule.
Now that the State Government has decided to draft a new Bill, who should it consult ? As regular contributor to The Sangai Express Free Thinker put it in the column, Poking Nose Without Malice on June 25, the State Government should seriously think of consulting Constitutional lawyers of the Supreme Court. There is also no reason why the State Government cannot consult the legal advisors to the President of India. Yes consult the very best there is in the country to get the Bill or Bills enacted. Already the State has seen enough trouble and it should be clear before the State Government that one wrong step and it may spell doom for the people and the place. A Bill or Bills which should be acceptable not only to the Centre but also to all sections of the people here or else any move to protect the local people will fall flat on its face. An issue which should have united all the local people has far from uniting the people today driven wedges so deep that even calls for separate administration for the hills have been rung out. Something somewhere is wrong and let the people also wake up to the fact that they need to move beyond the same old rhetoric and do something to make the concept of oneness more complete.
Home Editorial
