http://www.kanglaonline.com/index.php?template=headline&newsid=829&typeid=0
Kangla Future
Source: IMPHAL FREE PRESS
Posted: 2004-11-23
The Kangla has been de-garissioned. The question is what now? A state
government ordinance has immediately declared the place as protected,
nullifying any possible fragmentation or transfer of ownership in part
of full to any party. But this can hardly be enough. The place has to be
preserved but equally important is, its 236.62 acre have to be
maintained – a no mean task for a government that does not even have
enough money to pay employees salaries in time. Considering the
fecundity of the soil, a month or two of neglect can have all kinds of
vegetation run riot. The government must prevent such a sorry fate. As
the chief minister, Okram Ibobi said in his speech at the Kangla handing
over ceremony yesterday, Prof. Nalini Thakur of the School of Planning
and Architecture, New Delhi, has been entrusted to work out a conceptual
plan for the Kangla, so that it can bid for the status of a World
Heritage Site under the UNESCO, and also in the process as a National
Heritage Site. Recognition as a World Heritage Site may not be a
cakewalk, but a place in the list of National Heritage Site should be
easier. The former status would be ideal, but the latter will be a great
help too.
This brings us to the next logical question. The government must decide
fast how it intends to preserve the Kangla. Is it to be a historical cum
archeological park or is it to be a place of worship? Are the temples
and sacred sites of the Meiteis in the Kangla to be treated as monuments
or used as temples? The two cannot mix, as the unending controversy over
the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi status has demonstrated before
everybody. We are sure there will be a big tussle on these issues too.
As for us, we would prefer the Kangla to be preserved as a historical
and archeological park, for indeed it is this in all sense of the word.
Encapsulated in it are innumerable historical landmarks, some of which
are of immense significance and interest to the entire world. Over and
above its being a symbol of a unique South East Asian kingdom that once
was, it was also the headquarters from where the Allied troops planned
its defense and later offence against the Japanese in the latter’s
disastrous Burma campaign. The beautiful colonial style bungalow now
known as the Slim House in which lived Field Marshal Sir William Slim,
the architect of the Allied victory in this World War II theatre, is
also very much a part of the Kangla today. It would not be an
exaggeration to say that the Kangla can tell the history of Manipur more
lucidly than any other. It must also be remembered that its chances of
winning a World Heritage Site status hinge on all these priceless relics
of history, some dating back centuries and others to modern times. They
must all be preserved for the present and for posterity. None, except
perhaps the most irrelevant, must be destroyed, even those that remind
of very bad patches of Manipur’s history. Time sublimates even the
ugliest and the cruelest. That is why Hiroshima and Nagasaki preserve
the faces of horror they went through. There is beauty in the ability to
accept life as it is with all its warts and moles. So be this in the
case of the Kangla. In direct contrasts the world once watched with
horror how the Talibans destroyed the Bamian Buddhas.
Let us also look at the brighter side of things. More than a century of
garrisoning of the Kangla was disgraceful no doubt, but let us also
acknowledge that if the de-garrisoning had happened earlier, who knows
we may not be having any Kangla today. It may well have, or probably
would have, suffered the same fate as the Palace Compound, the
alternative site where the British allowed another line of the Manipur
monarchy to establish itself after 1891, with large chunks of it either
sold off as real estate, and another chunk encroached upon and defaced.
The troops at least have left the place intact and undiminished in aura.