GLORIOUS HERITAGE OF MANIPUR,2009 RELEASED

Guwahati,Asom,24 December,2008
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3 VOLUME MANIPUR HERITAGE BOOK
,2009 RELEASED BY MANIPUR SPEAKER

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H.Dwijasekhar Sharma- edited three-volume book-' New Insights into the Glorious Heritage of Manipur', with a critical foreword written by manipurologist- Professor Naorem Sanajaoba of Gauhati University,India had been released at Hindi Parishad,Imphal on 22nd December,2008,by Manipur speaker.A reknown Manipuri economist- Dr. Sharma- after his six years of hard labour, on his own, without any state or organisational support whatever, has successfuly prepared the heavy work projecting the achievements in two-millennia old Asian state in history.

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After near total devastation and massive carnage committed by the Burmese administration[ Man-upodrop in Asomiya that was just a fraction of what Manipur suffered] during 1819-1826,Manipur rose again like a phoenix; 1891 Anglo-Manipur war partially ended Manipur sovereignty at British hands; it was bombed out and damaged during world war II.The remaining ,sketcy and flimsy skeletal traces of Manipur history and geography had been characterised by leftist armed revolution in 1950, and subsequent guerrilla armed struggle launched by pro-left national liberation group against the state in the heart of Imphal city since 1979, interspersed routinely by democratic mass movements some times leading to burning of the state assembly, all India party offices and sudden kamikaze style death of youths during the mass movements. Manipur is full of human drama, human history in action.Dr Sharma-edited three-volume compendium is worth a an academic parikrama , a visit in the dense and the thick of human history.

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Eminent Manipuri sholars- every one unique in own's own domain -viz.,Dwijashekhar, N.Khelchandra,Dr.O.K.Singh,A.Kamson,Jhaljit,Maichou Nilabir,Dr.Manikchand,Dr.M.Kirti,Kulachandra sarma,Manindra,Brajakumar sarma, Arun& Arun, TS .Gangte,Achoubisana, Joychandra, Dr.Kamkhenthang,et.al. made their significant contributions to the book.

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Dr. D.Sharma makes his point,"The present endeavour therefore seeks primarily to have an unorthodox and rational re-look and re-assessemnt of the much- hyped past of Manipur and reset differentially such relevant archaeological,ethno-historical and politico- economic memories for the benefit of Manipur's current generation..."

In his foreword to the well-knit book, professor Naorem Sanajaoba drives home, the established civilizational values that his land and people constructed brick by brick over the last two strongly contested mllennia.He writes: "

"External challenges and internal divisiveness pose threat to the continued existence of Manipur notwithstanding the world's oldest insurgency [read national liberation movement if you like] and continued militarization of the Manipur civil society occupying the South Asian political space.Future Manipuri historians would be curious enough to see that the two-millennia old Manipur history has not vanished into thin air within the universe of continental Indian political configuration- something resembling a black hole of vulnerable national groups."

The foreword albeit the name of the state makes a timely and rationalised caution to the states of the NE region ,which are made historically and geographically vulnerable due to the faulty, divisive and calculated Indian policies and programmes, in the context of enormous demographic changes that substantially erode the indigenes and autochthones in Assam,Nagaland,Tripura so and so forth. The three volumes have enriched the NE regional heritage and historical legacy.

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