Separate admin Vs abrogate SoO call : Burning since May 3
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 12, 2023 -

The Centre’s mute response says two things.

For one New Delhi is not at all likely to agree to the separate administration call raised by the ten Chin-Kuki MLAs and on the other hand it is not likely to listen to the demand to abrogate the SoO pact, a demand which has spilled over onto the streets of Imphal and the adjoining districts of the valley.

So what is the way forward is the natural question that follows.

No clear cut answer, but it is more than clear that the Government is still groping in the dark to pave the way towards peace and understanding between the two communities which have ‘literally been at war’ since the evening of May 3.

Perhaps this ‘still groping in the dark’ line may be better understood in the question, who are amongst ‘the few Ministers of the State Government’ to be included in the peace committee to be headed by Governor Anusuiya Uikey, a committee formed at the initiative of the Union Home Ministry ?

Can one expect to see anyone from the 10 Kuki-Chin MLAs to be in the peace committee ?

No answers at the moment, but since it is a peace committee, the Centre cannot afford to be seen as taking sides.

Even as the peace committee has been set up with the Governor leading the pack, the Committee on Tribal Unity (COTU) has reportedly intensified the blockade along NH-2 particularly at Kangpokpi following the killings at Khoken village on June 9.

It was the practical side in him speaking and it was not without any reason why Union Home Minister Amit Shah held that it will take time for normalcy to return and while this is accepted, the question still is how long the ‘it will take time’ prognosis is going to be.

And it is in the midst of this reality that life has to go on, to refer to an observation made earlier in this very column, and it is amid this ugly reality that hundreds, if not thousands, of young students sat for the deferred National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) exam some time back.

The scene at any of the exam centre back then encapsulated the present reality of Manipur and fast forward by a few days and it is amid this that yet another hundred, if not thousands, of students have to appear for the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) for the Undergraduate and Post Graduate studies.

CUET will be spread over many days and reflecting the reality, hundreds of students belonging to the Kuki-Chin community must have opted for examination centres located outside Manipur.

A number of Naga students too must have opted for other centres such as in Kohima, Guwahati or any other town in the North East.

As in any crisis, it is not the affluent section of society which will feel the agonising pinch of having to send their children and wards to examination centres located outside Manipur.

For many it would mean taking a flight and air travel don’t come cheap.

It would mean having to put up at the residence of friends or relatives and for some at hotels.

Either way this means extra expenditure, a financial burden which could have been avoided if only the people had demonstrated some sense and not allowed hate to blind their vision.

It is the children, the young students who have to suffer for the selfish and ‘politically motivated’ agenda of their elders and as noted earlier here, it will take time for normalcy to return.

It was not a courtesy call, but a cry that came straight from the heart when students of Churachandpur Medical College met Governor Anusuiya Uikey urging her to do something concrete so that the career of the students is not derailed.

A meeting that reflected how young students have been adversely affected by the mindless clash, which today has already claimed numerous lives and turned to ashes many more houses.

‘Will take time for normalcy to return’ may mean more clashes, more senseless deaths, more cases of arson, blocked roads and highways, in fact more of violence.

The politics of hate, politics of vengeance that is being played out on the roads and streets, at the foothills, on the National Highways has gone on for too long and this about sums up the fact that the Government is still groping in the dark to find an answer.

But yet there is no reason for the people to grope in the dark, for the initiative of restoring normalcy should start from the people.