Quixotic land that Manipur is : Mixture of opposites
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: July 09 2019 -

Interesting. All different news but tied by the common thread of the understanding-the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

Opposition against the Citizenship Amendment Bill still strong, with different organisations having had their say but voters electing the BJP candidate in the Inner seat of the recently held Lok Sabha elections.

Top this off with the fact that the BJP did not indulge in any double speak in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections but made it clear that the Citizenship Amendment Bill will be brought back if it is voted back to power.

Now it is back in power after a stupendous showing at the Lok Sabha elections with the Inner Parliamentary Constituency of Manipur too backing the BJP candidate.

Is it as good as saying that the people have mandated CAB or is it a case of the BJP knowing how to woo the voters in a better and more organised way than the Congress and the other political parties or was it a case of being in power at Imphal ?

No easy answer here, but the people surely need to look inward and study seriously or else any voice of dissent against the CAB when it comes up will be deciphered as the handiwork of a group of individuals and not the genuine voice of the people.

Making things more disturbingly interesting is the news of a former president of a prominent civil society organisation having joined the saffron party, the same party against which the organisation which he headed earlier standing firmly against the CAB.

Confusing it certainly is, but what is not confusing is the point that there are so called leaders who can delegitimise the stand of a civil society organisation.

It is amid this confusion that the claim of the Army that an ‘undesignated’ camp of the NSCN (IM) has been busted in Manipur came in.

So if there is such a thing as an ‘undesignated’ camp of the NSCN (IM) in Manipur, then surely there must be ‘designated’ camps too in Manipur.

This choice of word suits rather well with the ‘taken note of’ camps of the said armed outfit used earlier by the Army.

Making it more interesting is the point that though the ‘undesignated’ camp was busted here in Manipur, the official statement of the Army was issued at New Delhi.

There may be nothing wrong in this as such, but clearly it would do well for all to remember that there is an office of the Public Relations Officer of the Army opened in Imphal.

Why wasn’t this office used to issue the statement, is the natural question that follows.

Moreover is the Army so sloppy that it forgot to mention where Kekru Naga village is, other than that it is in Manipur ?

How can anyone know where this village is without mentioning the district ?

Did the Army forget to mention the district where the said village is located or was it conveniently overlooked ?

Either way this is not acceptable and one certainly does not expect the Army whose by word is discipline to overlook such an important point.

So from ‘undesignated camp’ to the possibility of ‘designated camp’ to standing against CAB, but supporting the candidate of the party which said that CAB will be brought back, to first heading a prominent CSO to now supping with the saffron party, Manipur is a quixotic land.