Look at this picture. Do not look away. This is not a photograph of a remote war zone. This is National Highway 202, Imphal-Ukhrul Road. This is NH-2, the lifeline to Senapati. This is the road to Tamenglong, to Chandel, to Kamjong. This is the daily reality of the Naga districts of Manipur.
A truck carrying rice, medicine, and cement for our children lies capsized in knee-deep mud. Two JCBs are trying to pull it out. Passenger vehicles are stuck for three days. A sick mother cannot reach the hospital. A student cannot reach his exam centre. And in Imphal, the files for our roads are sleeping peacefully in the Secretariat.
And then, suddenly, six months before elections, the same road becomes a priority. The Chief Minister visits. The MLA brings a bulldozer. Blacktopping begins at double speed, without drainage, without foundation, without compaction. A road that was a mud pond for four years and six months is given a thin coat of bitumen in four weeks. Photos are taken. Ribbons are cut. Votes are sought.
We cannot be afraid to question those we elect. Our votes are not just a privilege; they are our voice. When we place our trust in our leaders, we also have every right to ask where that trust is taking our town.
If roads can be built during election season, why can’t development be a continuous effort throughout the entire term?
Are roads only built for votes?
Politically and factually, the answer is simple and brutal.
In the hill districts, roads are not seen as infrastructure. They are seen as instruments of election management.
For four and a half years, the administrative system has a clear logic:
1. Neglect the Hills, Fund the Valley: More than 70% of the State’s road budget, PWD budget and maintenance budget is spent in the 10% valley area. The hill districts, which constitute 90% of the geographical area, receive less than 30%. This is not an allegation. This is the budget document. Look at the Lamphel to Malom road – repaired three times in five years. Look at the Ukhrul to Jessami road – repaired once in ten years.
2. Keep the People Dependent and Frustrated: A broken road keeps the Naga people economically crippled. When a farmer from Ukhrul cannot take his cabbage to Imphal in time because the truck overturns in the mud, his product rots. When his product rots, he remains poor. When he remains poor, he is easier to buy with Rs 1000 and a bottle during elections. Poverty is profitable for corrupt politics.
3. Make the Road a Festival: The system deliberately allows the road to collapse completely for four years. Then, just before elections, a small amount of money is released under pressure, a contractor close to the sitting MLA is given the work on low-bid, and the road is patched up just enough to allow the politician to say, “I have brought development.” It is not development. It is deception. It is a cosmetic surgery on a cancer patient.
This is why you see JCBs only when the election notification is near. This is why the bitumen comes only when the vote is coming.
The moral and biblical betrayal
Morally and Biblically, this is a betrayal of trust of the highest order.
Romans 13:4 says, “For he is the minister of God to thee for good.” A leader is not a master. He is a minister, a servant, a steward of the people’s trust. Psalm 72:14 says of a true leader, “He shall redeem their blood from deceit and violence: and precious shall their blood be in his sight.”
What is more deceitful than taking a vote in the name of development and then abandoning the people to mud, landslides, and death traps?
Every time a truck overturns on NH-202 and a driver dies, his blood is not just on the mud. His blood is on the file that was not moved. Every time a pregnant woman dies because she could not reach Ukhrul District Hospital in time, her death is not a natural death. It is an administrative murder.
Proverbs 29:2 declares, “When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.” The hills of Manipur are mourning. Not because the Naga people are lazy. The Naga people are the most hardworking, resilient people. They are mourning because those who bear rule have made roads a seasonal drama, not a continuous duty.
The cost of seasonal roads
Socially and economically, the impact of this election-season road policy is stupendous and devastating.
a. Economic Strangulation: A Naga farmer pays Rs 40,000 per truck from Ukhrul to Imphal in monsoon, while a valley farmer pays Rs 8,000 for the same distance on a good road. Who will become rich? Who will remain poor? The road itself creates inequality.
b. Educational Collapse: Teachers refuse postings to Tamenglong and Kamjong because there is no road. Doctors refuse to stay in hill PHCs because there is no road. How can we talk about NEP 2020 when the road to school is a river of mud?
c. Psychological Isolation: When you travel for 12 hours to cover 80 kilometers, with your vehicle stuck, with your children vomiting in mud, you begin to feel that you are not a citizen of Manipur. You are a forgotten colony. This feeling of alienation, of being treated as second-class citizens in your own ancestral land, is more dangerous than any insurgency. It is this feeling that the enemies of the state exploit.
The sarcastic irony
Let us ask sarcastically, but truthfully:
If the Government can deploy 10 JCBs in one week before elections, why can it not deploy 2 JCBs for 52 weeks for maintenance?
If a contractor can blacktop 20 kilometers in 15 days before the election, why did he need 4 years to do nothing?
If funds can be found overnight for election roads, why is there “no fund” for retaining walls, for drainage, for culverts that would make the road last for ten years?
The answer is unflinchingly clear: Because a permanent road does not benefit the corrupt system. A permanent road would mean the MLA cannot come every five years and say “Give me vote, I will make road.” A good road would liberate the people. And a liberated people cannot be bought.
What we must demand
Our votes are our voice. And it is time our voice becomes aggressive, lawful, and non-negotiable.
1. Continuous Maintenance, Not Election Repair: We must demand, under Article 371C and the Hill Areas Committee, that road maintenance funds be directly placed under the Autonomous District Councils and not under Imphal-centric PWD divisions. Every kilometer must have a mandatory annual maintenance contract with social audit by the village.
2. Quality Over Low-Bid: We must reject the low-bid system. A road built at 40% below estimate is a road built to fail. We must demand Quality-cum-Cost Based Selection and third-party testing by NIT Manipur or IIT. A road that fails within one monsoon must be rebuilt by the contractor at his own cost and he must be blacklisted.
3. Question Without Fear: We must stop being afraid to question our own Naga MLAs and Ministers. An MLA who cannot ensure a motorable road in his own constituency for five years has no moral right to ask for a vote in the sixth year. Respect does not mean silence. Respect means holding them accountable. The Church, the CSOs, the student bodies must call every MLA for a public hearing – “Show us your five-year road maintenance report.”
The road in this picture is not just mud. It is a mirror. It shows us what the system thinks of us.
A community that accepts seasonal roads will always remain seasonal citizens.
A community that demands continuous development will become a developed community.
Let us therefore resolve: We will not clap for a JCB that comes one month before elections. We will ask where that JCB was for 59 months.
We will not vote for bitumen. We will vote for a system that builds drains, retaining walls, and foundations.
For roads are not just about reaching Imphal. Roads are about dignity, justice, and the right to be treated as equal citizens of Manipur and of India.
Until our roads are continuous, our questioning must also be continuous.
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Michael Meiphami Shaiza is the President of Ukhrul-based NGO Ecological Rehabilitators’ Association (ERA).
(Views expressed are writers’ own and do not, in whatsoever manner, reflect that of Ukhrul Now)
