Imphal: Rebuffing a reported statement made by Union home secretary GK Pillai recently about the status of Manipur territory, the BJP State president, Shanti Kumar, on March 7 said that the Union home secretary is uninformed about Manipur history and that it was due to negligence on the part of the Union government of India of 1947 that Kabow Valley was usurped by Burma, now Myanmar. Terming the statement of the Union home secretary that stated that not an inch of Manipur land was given to the government of Myanmar as ‘unfortunate’, Shanti Kumar said that the Union minister is uninformed about the history of Manipur.
If the first and the then Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, had claimed before General Um of the then Burma during the demarcation of land in 1947, Kabow Valley would have been in the map of Manipur, the BJP president said.
He went on the say that 500 sika was given to Manipur (king) by the British as a price for occupying Kabow Valley. ‘If it was not a part of Manipur, why would the British purchase it by paying 500 sika?’ he asked, adding that the then Union government of India apparently had a hidden agenda by not claiming Kabow Valley.
Asserting that Kabow Valley was part and parcel of Manipur even before the arrival of British in India, Shanti Kumar said that the State unit of BJP has already drawn a road map to visit Myanmar regarding Kabow Valley with the support of central BJP authority.