Imphal, June 15 2022: Six student bodies – AIMS, AMSU, DESAM, KSA, MSF and SUK, have demanded former MU vice-chancellor in-charge professor Amar Yumnam and Dr Sadananda Sahoo, who supervised/guided a thesis with fabricated history of Manipur, to clarify on the matter.
In a joint statement, the student bodies said that one retired brigadier Sushil Kumar wrote in his book ‘The Complexity called Manipur’ that he got PhD under IGNOU School of Inter disciplinary and Trans-disciplinary Studies on his thesis ‘Socio Economic Roots of Insurgency in North East India’ .
The book and his thesis depict the valley and hill areas of the state as separate entities at the time of signing instrument of accession and merger agreement.
It also mentions that the area of Manipur that was merged with the Indian Union was only 700 square miles.
While keeping aside the fabrication of history by the research scholar, and knowledge of Dr Sadananda Sahoo considering he is a non-local person, the major question is why professor Amar Yumnam, an indigenous native of the state, overlooked this point at the time of supervising the thesis.
As such, he should clarify on the matter to clear the misunderstandings, the joint statement said.
The statement pointed out that in 1907, the then king, who was also the president of Manipur State Durbar, appointed a British officer as vice-president to assist him in the administration of hill areas.
The British vice-president was under the payroll of Manipuri King and the same record is in the state archives.
The statement also demanded review of the thesis.