Manipur crisis: Truth be told
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 11 2023 -

As members of parliament (Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha), representing the people of Manipur, it is their bounden duty to raise every key issue of the state in the parliament.

Now the whole world knows that Manipur has been passing through a very tumultuous period for the last several months and her people of all ethnic groups have been suffering untold misery.

Hundreds of lives have been cut short, thousands of houses burnt down and tens of thousands of innocent people have been rendered homeless.

The state of Manipur is facing the grimmest situation in its modern history.

With the Chin-Kuki-Zo people, spearheaded by their MLAs, CSOs, frontal organisations and militant groups, openly demanding fragmentation of Manipur to create an ethno-exclusive homeland of their own, the geo-political entity called Manipur is now facing the gravest threat.

If such a grave crisis fails to prod the three MPs to speak up in the Parliament, we doubt any other issue will be able to wake them up.

As representatives representing the people of Manipur in New Delhi, they (MPs) must be the first to speak in the national capital, both inside and outside the Parliament.

Had they spoken up and given a factual account of the disturbing events which unfolded in Manipur from May 3, 2023, the wrong and concocted narratives propagated by the exponents of separate administration could have been minimized to a great extent.

Feeding on these wrong and concocted narratives, unscrupulous media only added salt to the wound by portraying the violence as conflict between Christians and Hindus, tribals and non-tribals and minority versus majority.

Again, based on these incorrect media reports, the European Parliament came out with a statement condemning the alleged persecution of Christians in Manipur.

Yet, the MPs did not bother to stand up and speak out the truth.

We don’t think the people were asking for the moon when they expected the MPs to at least present a true and factual account of the crisis.

Unfortunately the MPs could not live up to the people’s expectation. It seems Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s politics of silence has afflicted the three MPs too.

It is not only Prime Minister Narendra Modi but several mainland civil society organisations, radical groups and political classes too have been maintaining stoic silence when Manipur has been burning and under siege for all these months.

The crisis is an outcome of deception orchestrated by the Chin-Kuki militants.

On the fateful day of May 3, 2023, several pro-Kuki-militant organisations staged a Tribal Solidarity March against the High Court of Manipur’s directive to the State Government to send a recommendation to the Government of India for inclusion of Meetei/Meitei in the scheduled tribe (ST) list.

Subsequent events following the solidarity march vividly revealed the art of deception employed by Chin-Kuki militants.

While the rally ended peacefully in the Naga areas, in the Chin-Kuki dominated Churachandpur district, Kuki militants and their supporters used the march as a weapon to burn down Meitei houses and attack Meitei civilians.

The Manipur Government had not given its recommendations on whether Meetei/Meitei should be included or not in the ST when the so-called Tribal Solidarity March was held.

Meitei’s ST demand was used as a camouflage to conceal the real hidden agenda of the march which is eviction of Meitei populace from Kuki dominated areas like Churchandpur, Moreh and Kangpokpi to pave away for creation of an ethno-exclusive homeland.

It was a tragedy that several national media houses fell prey to the false narratives floated by exponents of separate administration that the Meitei’s demand for ST status triggered the conflict.

But these media houses never bothered to question how one could justify burning down houses and killing unarmed and unsuspecting civilians in the name of the High Court’s directive which had not been complied with by the Government.

The truths and facts must be told to the whole world.

Now the parliament’s winter session is going on, it is a perfect opportunity for the MPs, though late, to present a factual account of the crisis and possibly explore a solution.