Expecting the unanticipated : Spectre of another blockade
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 12, 2012 -

Proposed map of Kuki State :: Pix - TSE

Unanticipated but not totally unexpected.

An indefinite public blockade just when Christmas is round the corner should explain the unanticipated part but looking at the development after December 5, the public blockade call issued by the Kuki State Demand Committee on December 11 is not totally unexpected.

After Deputy Chief Minister Gaikhangam managed to convince the Kuki State Demand Committee that the Centre would soon initiate a political dialogue in line with the demand raised by the SoO signatories, particularly the Kuki National Organisation (KNO), all eyes, at least the people concerned, were focused on the December 5 date set by Delhi.

Ten minutes was the reported time that it took for the representatives of the Kuki National Organisation to talk with officials from the Union Home Ministry and the State Government on December 5 at New Delhi and it was more than apparent that it was some sort of a walk out from the meeting.

The SoO pact has not been abrogated but neither has it been extended, as far as the KNO is concerned.

This is where the slip between the spirit of the pact and its implementation at the ground level becomes apparent. The stinging remarks issued by the KNO, a few days back, pointedly accusing the Joint Secretary of Ministry of Home Affairs (in-charge of North East) and the dire predictions of things to come, perfectly fits in with the public blockade which is being readied to be imposed from December 14.

A Kuki State is the demand put up by the Kuki State Demand Committee and the areas where the public blockade is supposed to come into force is significant in many ways.

The public blockade is no doubt a pressure tactic mounted on the Centre to give a written assurance that a political dialogue under the SoO pact will start soon but at the same it is also a very meaningful political statement on the presence of the Kukis. A statement on where their writ runs and can be enforced.

Delhi or the Union Home Ministry has not yet explained why it has deemed it better not to commit itself to a written assurance, but the underlying meaning is not that hard to miss.

As the KNO has made it clear, a Kuki State or Zalengam is their prime agenda and the proposed Kuki map is not just a sketch.

Surely Delhi would not have missed out on the boundary of the proposed Kuki map and any talk on this point will surely upset the apple cart, particularly the ongoing dialogue with the NSCN (IM), where it has also projected its own map.

Already, charges and counter charges have been mounted on the map projected by the Kuki State Demand Committee and in refusing to give a written assurance to start a political dialogue, which would invariably centre around the proposed map, Delhi has given the signal that it is not ready to commit itself to anything which has the potential to set off a chain reaction.

The public blockade on the other hand is anti-people, as are all other forms of blockade, and it would be in the fitness of things for the Kuki State Demand Committee to review its decision.