GUWAHATI
All books on Manipur’s history, culture, tradition and geography will have to be approved by a State-appointed panel before they are published, an order issued by the BJP-led government said.
University vice-chancellors and college teachers – serving and retired – will comprise the 15-member committee to be headed by Manipur Education Minister Thounaojam Basanta, the September 15 order issued by State’s Higher and Technical Education Joint Secretary, Divedita Lairenlakpam said.
The director of University and Higher Education will be the member-secretary of the panel “to accord approval for publication of books on these topics concerning the State”.
“It has come to the knowledge of the government that some books published on the said topics contain materials which may either distort facts or disturb the peaceful co-existence amongst the various communities in state or both,” the order read.
“Therefore, any person/group desirous of publishing of books on the history, culture, tradition and geography of the State may submit an application to the University and Higher Education director along with a copy of the manuscript of the book, for placing the same before the committee for its approval,” it added, warning of punishment under the relevant law if books are published in violation of the order.
Apprehensive academics
Academics in the State, declining to be quoted, said the order would curtail academic freedom and stifle the critics of the government.
The trigger for the order was a thesis by Sushil Kumar Sharma, a brigadier who served in the Central Reserve Police Force on deputation, which claimed the Manipur kingdom measured 700 square miles at the time of the State’s merger with India in 1949. The thesis came out as a book titled ‘The Complexity Called Manipur: Roots, Perceptions & Reality’.
The claim created a controversy in the Meitei-dominated Imphal Valley as it implied that the surrounding hills inhabited by Naga, Kuki and Zomi tribes were not a part of Manipur. The valley-based groups said the “distorted piece of information” could have been deliberately inserted to legitimise the concept of Greater Nagalim envisaging the merger of all Naga-inhabited areas of the northeast, including Nagaland.
