Lim in a different package : The Zalengam map
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: November 05, 2012 -
The Kuki National Organisation, a conglomerate of different armed groups, has put its card on the table. Zalengam, under the Constitution of India and comprising of Chandel, Churachandpur and Sadar Hills is its aspiration.
Anathema to the idea of Manipur as a geo-political entity, but nevertheless the clear cut stand announced by the KNO at Delhi on November 2 is noteworthy.
Seven years since the Suspension of Operations pact came into force and no political negotiation.
Just a symbolic gesture, apart from the scaling down of violence, is how the spokesperson of KNO put it. Here again succinctly put. No beating around the bush.
The 'no more signing' or extension of the pact after it expires on November 22, stand, on the other hand may be seen as a pressure tactic exerted on the Government of India to start the negotiation across the table.
With the negotiation between the Government of India and the NSCN (IM) reportedly drawing to a conclusion, the announced stand of the KNO seems to have come at the right time.
Where does the role of the State Government come in here ?
The SoO was first signed in 2005 between the different Kuki armed groups and the Government of India and the State Government only came into the reckoning in 2008.
This point is important and its political implications may have been underlined by Deputy Chief Minister Gaikhangam, when he informed The Sangai Express that the State Government is just a facilitator in the peace pact.
Telling and at the same time confusing as well, but then the politics of peace is as confusing as any other aspects of politics, best exemplified by the ongoing negotiation and the reported model worked out between Delhi and the NSCN (IM).
Clearly uneasy is the head that wears the crown. Chief Minister O Ibobi is on a 20 day tour to Australia, but the uneasy sense of the calm before the proverbial storm, must be weighing heavily on his mind.
A written submission is the alibi that the State Government has resorted to in the face of the reported model designed between Delhi and the IM leadership and in the midst of this now comes the demand for Zalengam from the KNO, which too is under a pact with the Government.
Manipur is surely reeling under the pressure of pulls and pushes from different players and from different directions.
If the emerging picture of the model purportedly worked out between the IM group of the NSCN and the Government of India is any indication, then it is a clear reflection of the brain storming sessions that the back room boys at Delhi must have undergone in the last 15 years.
India gave Chanakya and his philosophy to the world and in a series of master strokes, Delhi appears to have neatly 'respected' the sanctity of the territorial integrity of Manipur and at the same time offer Nagalim in a different package.
How the State Governments of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur respond to this will go a long way in scripting the future, particularly Manipur.
This is where the question of Zalengam also becomes significant and interesting.
The KNO has had its say and how Delhi respond to the situation is something that time alone can tell.
Equally important too is the question of where the United Peoples' Front, the conglomerate entity of Kuki armed groups, which is the other party to the SoO pact, stand.
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