Is Delhi doing its job is the question : Get the highway opened
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 28, 2023 -

Is New Delhi doing its job ?

The Centre apparently thinks it is and perhaps it is to give more muscle to what it thinks it is doing that Union Home Minister Amit Shah is reported to have suggested to Chief Minister N Biren to keep the valley or the Meitei people under control, while he would deal with the hills or the Kuki people.

That this has vastly been interpreted as the Union Home Minister suggesting to the Chief Minister that the Centre would deal with the hills while the State Government should focus on the valley is another matter, but it is significant to note that New Delhi thinks it can control the hills or the Kukis, in another word.

Making thinks more complicated is obviously the silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and this is where it becomes important to question how the Union Home Minister received such a good dose of confidence in more than hinting that Delhi can do a better job in the hills.

Dropping more than a hint that it is beyond the capacity or willingness of Imphal to control the hills or is there something more ?

Hazardous it would be to shoot in the dark, especially at a time like this when Manipur is reeling under a crisis as sensitive as it is undergoing right now, and this is where people expect New Delhi to do more than what is being done right now.

An application of the mind, sincerely at that, should make things more clearer and mark the word given in synopsis.

Law and order obviously comes under the ambit of the State Government, but this is an extraordinary situation and it is now nearly sixty days since the Imphal-Dimapur line has been cut off.

When highwaymen, or to use a more ‘civilised’ term ‘village volunteers’ are given the free hand to start checking all passenger vehicles to check if they are carrying anyone from the other side of the clash divide, then it is surely a sign that the lifeline of the State and her people has been left at the mercy of the elements who have it in them to let loose their pogroms on the highway.

Reports coming in say that there are at least four check points along the said highway and this is a repeat, a repeat of a point underlined in an earlier commentary but there is no change at the ground reality.

Only Nagas, Pangans and mainland Indians, or Mayangs to use the term, are free to travel along this route which connects Manipur to the rest of the country.

No Meitei taxi drivers now take the Imphal-Ukhrul road, as this road passes through some Kuki inhabited areas and last heard there is a dearth of professional drivers servicing on the Imphal-Ukhrul road.

These are but just two examples that come to mind and perhaps the Union Home Minister should set his focus on creating such a condition that the said routes are free for every bonafide residents of Manipur.

One also hopes that Delhi has taken note of the report that the car bomb which exploded on a bridge on June 21 and injured three children came from Churachandpur side.

This was the Police Control Room, which said this and heading the Unified Command is Security Advisor Kuldiep Singh who is not a Meitei man.

Assembling a car bomb obviously could not have been the handiwork of some rag tag group of desperadoes or the village volunteers, but would have involved a certain degree of expertise.

Where did those ‘professionals’ get the training from ? Who are they?

And why is the Kuki Inpi, Manipur so perturbed over the report that the car bomb case has been handed over to the National Investigation Agency ?

Maybe they can throw some light on this.

It would also do good for KIM, the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum, and the Committee on Tribal Unity to seriously and sincerely look back on May 3 and see who struck the first matchstick that set on fire so many houses at Torbung.

It was this fire which spread all over Manipur and morphed into the Meitei-Kuki clash.

Go back to May 3, the starting point to try and douse the flame that has engulfed Manipur in madness.

This is not pointing a finger at anyone blindly but stating the fact and any responsible body, which claims to carry the mandate of the people they claim to represent should have the moral courage to acknowledge the truth.