Self-determination movement in Manipur

Abstract

An important and influential factor with respect to the emergence and historical development of the concept of self determination is formed by the phenomenon of communities refusing to consent, or accept any longer, the exercise of power over them by the ruler or government of group consciousness and political awareness or of an elite or an “alien” people to determine for them and without their consultation their political, cultural, social and economical status. Similarly, The French and American Revolutions were based on natural law theory insofar as they reflected a rejection of the Divine Rights of Kings which is the foundation of right to self determination. During the First World War and in its immediate aftermath, both V.I. Lenin and U.S President Woodrow Wilson advocated the adoption of self-determination of peoples as a principle to guide international relations. Lenin believed even to the extent of arm revolution for exercising right to self-determination while Wilson believes in democratic approach. Soon after the World War II anti-colonial struggles emerged and consolidated across the Asian and African continents. India was not an exception to it. The anticolonial movement as well as devastat by war compelled the British to depart from British India in 1947 and many Asian and African countries. Around the same time United Nations was institutionalized for the international solidarity and to support exercising the right to self-determination and de-colonization movements. The United Nation Charter and its subsequent declaration and covenants are supporting the exercise of the right to self-determination. It is an individual and collective right to “freely determine… political status and [to] freely pursue… economic, social and cultural development. This right is indisputably a norm of jus cogens and also has the legal status of ‘erga omnes’. In the twentieth century the success or failure of assertion of selfdetermination was largely dependent on support from one or more of the Allied Powers. It is similarly true even now. Therefore it was a gift or a favour than a right.