Representing a political party or a community : Playing the communal card
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: January 24, 2013 -
Representing a political party or a community.
To the United Naga Council, it is obviously the latter, if its comment on the fourteen member all political party team is anything to go by.
Both true and false.
As it has turned out, save for Deputy Chief Minister Gaikhangam, all the members of the team came from a single community, the Meiteis. This is where the true part may lie.
But then again this is a false premise, for they were representing their respective political parties and not any community.
Did former Chief Minister of Nagaland, SC Jamir represent the Nagas or the Congress party, when he recently came to Imphal to elicit support from the Manipur Pradesh Congress Committee for the upcoming election to the Nagaland Legislative Assembly ?
Both or the Congress party will sound acceptable, but to say that he was here to represent the Nagas by excluding the political party, which is the Congress in this case, would be wrong.
Playing the communal card is both dangerous and dicey.
There are enough evidences from across the country to underline this point. However this has not stopped all the people from playing this card. There are reasons for this.
One is the immediate dividends that may accrue from such a tactic.
Creating divisions along ethnic and communal lines can serve an immediate political agenda, a craft which numerous political leaders of the country have perfected to an art form.
However the truth is that once the communal ball is set rolling, then it becomes difficult, nay impossible, to control the course of action, for then the mob would have taken over.
And nothing can be more dangerous than this. Leaderless and struc- tureless, it would be and it would result in chaos and mayhem.
Denying racism is racism. With this line of thought gaining currency across the world, then accusing someone of being communal may also be likened to being communal.
The dividing line is thin, very thin and this is all the more reason for the people as a whole to be wary of any attempt to communalise any issue.
The case of the molestation of an actress at Chandel on December 18 is a case in point.
An issue which should have served as the rallying point for all the people, cutting across communal and ethnic division, suddenly saw itself propelled as the factor for furthering the deep ethnic divide.
The molestation of another young girl at Napetpalli on Christmas eve last year under the cloak of the indefinite bandh enforced in the valley area and the killing of a man near Finch corner in the name of the hill bandh on December 27 made things all that uglier.
This is the tragedy of Manipur. A result of politicising all issues.
Despite the machination of some elements, the people by and large have exercised restraint. This is what continues to give hope to the place called Manipur. The trial of Manipur will continue.
In a few hours from now, the public blockade called by the Kuki State Demand Committee would have come into force.
In about a month, the result for the election to the Nagaland State Legislative Assembly would have come in, which will in turn add to the urgency to ink a final settlement to the ongoing talks between the Government of India and the NSCN (IM).
In between the demand for an Alternative Arrangement for the Nagas of Manipur is likely to get more vocal.
Not for nothing is it said that the character of a people is tested during difficult times and it is the responsibility of everyone to ensure that they do not fail the test in the days to come.
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