At this critical juncture, the United Naga Council finds it opportune to clear away the negative projections and motivated analysis which have found their way into the public domain particularly by political parties/some candidates and in the editorial space of some dailies which have otherwise been considered professionally manned.
We are a struggling people, trying to secure a place of honour and dignity for our people, where our identity and history is recognised, our land is protected and our culture and traditional practices respected. We have a political aspiration to live together with our own and strongly desire not to be separated by arbitrary boundaries and divided by different laws and dispensations. We strongly desire that the sanctioned opportunities to develop and grow is not usurped by others who have their fair share of the same. For asserting these basic things, which are indispensable for good life for our people, Nagas are branded as exclusivist, parochial and divisive and every of our issues have been explained away to insignificance. In the name of pluralism and under the slogan of protecting the territorial integrity of Manipur, the Nagas, the tribals and the other minorities in Manipur have been marginalised to a helpless situation, where the interest and convenience of the dominant and communal forces hold sway over our natural, legitimate, democratic and constitutional rights. For our rights that is sanctioned by law, yet denied by the interest of the dominant and for our future, we have organised ourselves and sustained our people’s movement to secure what is our due and to others in similar plight.
As declared in earlier occasions, we reiterate our support for the rights and aspirations of the fellow struggling tribal communities, other minorities and the marginalised sections of the majority community in the present State of Manipur. We will stand for mutual respect and good neighbourliness among the different communities. We will continue to struggle together with those who are similarly placed, for justice and a fair deal for all and for the end of any manner of hegemony.
It is our appeal therefore that the divide and rule policy of the adversary must not find prey from amongst us and going beyond that we undertake to uphold the rights and political aspiration of all who are suppressed and dispossessed.
Publicity Wing
United Naga Council