It was only after 79 days that the concern government authority including that of the MHRD and State authority agreed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding as per the demand of the Manipur University Community after three days of marathon talk. The pain and anguish of staying away from its normal duty will only be felt by those who are facing the circumstances and even journalists feel uncomfortable when away from duty for even 3 days. No wonder those book worm in the Manipur University would have felt the same when they were compelled to stay away from their favorite work for 79 + days now. That was why on August 16, a day after the nation celebrated the Independence Day, Manipur University community particularly those in MUSU, MUSA and MUTA finally found some relief after the representative of the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD), Govt. of India acknowledge on what the MU community have been demanding for such a long period.
The joy of the gesture from the MHRD representatives and the state government was not only felt to the MU community but to all the people of the state. The long impasse that had been giving a headache to the state government had finally found a way for settling if only the state government authority stopped blind support to any kind of shrewd game played by the MHRD representative.
Well lip service can never be treated as official as per the rules of law of the country. And we have seen many a times on how we the people of the state have been cheated by thousands of assurance by the authority on various issues from time to time. Even memorandums of understanding signed by the authority have many times been dumped in dustbin. This has been reminded as the way the office memorandum notified by the in-charge Registrar of the Manipur University speaks volume on how he had been instigated to play another shrewd game to the community of Manipur University.
The notification of the MHRD which superseded the earlier notification by reconstituting the 3 member fact finding committee by 2 member enquiry committee chaired by a retired acting Chief Justice of Megahalaya High Court with another member from among the retired Vice Chancellors of a University fulfilled only a part of the agreement which was signed between the MU community, representative of the MHRD, Govt. of India and a representative of the state government.
The counter point which comes up from the Manipur University Communities who are demanding removal of the VC AP Pandey is that while welcoming the reconstitution of the earlier fact finding committee, the game being played to mislead the people is easily sighted. As this newspaper had time and again stated that, playing tricks to the MU community will not work. The kind of game can be played with the common people to garner support from them during election time but not with the community which has been researching the human establishment.
Yesterday the MUSA, MUTA and MUSU have released a statement which stated why they are not satisfied with the new order from the MHRD (Imphal Times produce the story in today’s edition).
And today major newspapers today carried news items base on the office memorandum notified at the strength of the present Registrar-in-Charge which says that the memorandum of understanding signed between the Joint Secretary of the MHRD, Govt. of India, Commissioner of the State Higher and Technical Education, Manipur University teachers’, Students and staffs bodies in the presence of the Chief Minister has been approved by the Minister of HRD and that the leave of the Prof. AP Pandey has been related with the ongoing enquiry.
It is public now on how the Registrar-in-charge and the in-charge VC Prof. Vishwanath had been intimidated by the Joint Secretary to clarify the matter. It was not at all an official order but a mere email communication which is no difference from a verbal conversation through electronic device. As mentioned earlier, there were many occasion which MoUs signed between the government authority and that of the agitating groups are often landed in the dustbin, there are thousand reasons to ponder on the authencity of the so call “Office Memorandum”. On the other hand lack of sincerity is easily notice and more over it is no difficult to dissects reasons for issuing such ‘order’ which skipped two major points agreed in the Memorandum of Understanding. The memorandum of understanding is shrewdly carpeted and a game which is seen by only the people who have six eye is seen playing with support from “YES SIR” mentality state government.
The way the MHRD is dealing with the ongoing impasse at Manipur University reflected the mindset of those in the Central government towards the people of the state.
Those in the state government including the chief minister as well as those in the Central government particularly those in the MHRD should know that “ you can fool some people for some times, but you can’t fool all the people for all the times”.
