State of lawlessness since May 3 Eyes on Parliament
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: July 20, 2023 -

The Government better accept this. Nothing is right. Everything is wrong.

When the clanging of the electric posts carries a message which is deemed to be more important than the call from the Government to come to the negotiating table,
when a statement issued by any of the power players from either side of the clash divide is taken to be more important and crucial than the curfew relaxation period daily announced by the Government to see if it would be conducive to go out for marketing,
when the re-opening or closure of schools is decided by the power players and not the school authority,
when those out late in the evening for some pressing family work or due to professional engagements need to see which road is blocked and not the curfew hours,
then something is seriously wrong.

This has been the state of affairs in Manipur ever since the State went up in flames in the evening of May 3 and more than 60 days down the line there is nothing to suggest that things are beginning to move on track.

Situation is such that now every media professional feels the need to have the word Press boldly pasted on their vehicle and this is not only to tell the police that it is a media man or woman behind the wheels but all the leikai sentinels.

How long will situation carry on like this ? Is this healthy for the growing youngsters, the young boy and girl, who would one day have to compete with the rest of the country and the world to be called a man and a woman ?

No easy answer here and it is more than obvious that the Government too does not have a clue on how to go about resolving the issue.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi is understood to have conveyed in an all political party meeting that Parliament is willing to discuss the Manipur violence when it meets from July 20.

Apart from Union Home Minister Amit Shah who has been keeping a tab on the situation here, having even taken a first hand account of the situation, this will perhaps be the first time that Delhi will sit down to discuss the Manipur situation.

How primed is the State Government to present its case in Parliament is the question that follows. Will the three MPs, including the Rajya Sabha MP, be in a position to give the story of Manipur without seeming to take sides ?

This is where the mettle and preparedness of the political leaders of Manipur will become important.

A half baked story or one sided presentation of the case will not cut ice with anyone in Parliament and this is a point which the three MPs should keep in mind.

Coming as he is from the Naga community, the take of Lok Sabha MP Dr Lorho Pfoze will be crucial.

As someone belonging to a community which is not a party to the ongoing clash between the Meiteis and the Kukis, what Dr Pfoze says in Parliament will sound more palatable to the world and Parliament.

One also hopes that Mizoram plays by the book and keeps its member in the Parliament reined in.

Remember Greater Mizoram was a demand raised by the Mizo National Front but this was turned down when the Mizo Accord was signed in 1986 during the time of the late Rajiv Gandhi.

Let Parliament discuss the issue, but yet at the same time, it should not be forgotten that it is up to the people to decide whether to put the State on the track of normalcy or not.

Too many people have met senseless deaths, too many houses have been razed to the ground while thousands are still holed up in different relief camps opened across the length and breadth of Manipur.

The Imphal-Dimapur Highway continues to be under the diktat of the Committee on Tribal Unity (CoTU) and it has been like this since the evening of May 3.

Something has to give. Manipur cannot afford to go on like this and this is where it becomes necessary to come to terms with the truth and nothing but the truth.

The first step would obviously be to acknowledge that the opposition to the ST for Meiteis demand was just a facade to organise the Tribal Solidarity Rally on May 3 and the second is to acknowledge who drew first blood at Torbung on May 3.