Two developments that are important
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: August 11, 2023 -
AFTER repeated disruptions and several abrupt adjournments in its proceedings, the Indian Parliament, at long last, on Wednesday started discussion on the present ethnic conflict between the Meitei/Meetei and the Kuki-Chin communities in the tiny north-eastern state of Manipur.
Whether the exchange of verbal fire-works and blame games between the Opposition and Treasury benches within the sacred hallowed hall of the Parliament over the shoddy affair of allowing the ethnic conflagration to go on burning for more than three months at the cost of so many precious human lives and public as well as private properties would be able to drown out the sound of gun-fights that is shattering the peace of the land and come up with a solution is yet to be known with any certainty, but it is a great solace not just for the suffering innocent people on either side of the clash divide but also for all the affected people of other 'neutral' communities that at least a headway has been made towards finding a solution to the present crisis.
This is definitely a welcome development in the effort being made to put the normal life of the people in Manipur back on the track again. Let us not forget that displaced and uprooted from their homes and hearths and taken away of whatever little possessions they had, a teeming number of people whose daily struggle for existence is far remove from the dirty politics of communal hatred and do not even have an inkling of why their so-called leaders are instigating the two ethnic communities to engage in a vicious cycle of senseless killings are yearning for the return of normalcy and peace in the state.
In another welcome development, during a meeting held in New Delhi on Wednesday, Union Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah is learnt to have told a delegation of the Indigenous Tribal Leaders' Forum (ITLF) to look for an alternative site for the burial of the Kukis killed in the ongoing clashes.
To this, the ITLF delegation is said to have conveyed the Union Minister that they will get back to the people of their community regarding the alternative land for burial and come up with a decision.
As a matter of fact, the High Court of Manipur had already given specific order to all concerned - the state and central governments, the law enforcing agencies/personnel as well as the public belonging to both the warring communities - for maintaining status quo ante at the proposed burial site in question, thus forcing the ITLF to defer its mass burial event planned on August 3.
Failure of maintaining the status quo ante as ordered by allowing vandalization of houses belonging to the Meeteis/Meiteis using bulldozers by mobs of Kuki people coming from Churachandpur and S Kotlien had also compelled the High Court to take up a contempt case filed against as the respondents.
So, from the meeting of the Union Minister of Home Affairs and the ITLF delegation, one can rest assured that the threat of reigniting the whole cycle of violence between the two ethnic communities due to the proposed burial of the slain Kukis at Torbung Bangla in Bishnupur district from where the first spark of the flame that has engulfed the entire state and beyond today was ignited on May 3 evening last is out of the picture for now, if not for good.
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