A test of leadership
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: June 12, 2024 -

IT is heartening to know that Chief Minister N Biren Singh has not been daunted by the ambush laid by armed Kuki-Chin militants on his advance security team along the National Highway 37 near Kotlien on Monday (June 10) and, thus, not changed the plan of visiting Jiribam district to personally assess the situation prevailing there following outbreak of fresh communal violence between the Meetei/Meitei and Kuki-Chin communities.

Apart from sending out a strong message to the armed Kuki-Chin militants, who are making repeated attempts to break apart Manipur, this visit of the Chief Minister to Jiribam is a crucial moment in the over one year long ethnic conflict in the state that has so far resulted in loss of hundreds of precious human lives and displacement of thousands of families, on both sides of the clash divide, not to speak of its debilitating impact on the people of other communities who stay neutral from taking sides in the conflict despite numerous provocations.

The fact that Jiribam is a district with a diverse ethnic composition comprising Meeteis, Muslims, Nagas, Kukis and non-Manipuris and it had managed to remain unaffected by the ethnic conflict until recently is an important point to be kept in the mind in understanding the pattern of the violence being perpetrated by armed Kuki-Chin militants in pursuance of their ultimate goal of creating a separate state or nation by carving out territories from India, Myanmar and Bangladesh, with the conflict stirred up in Manipur to break apart its territorial integrity as the stepping stone to realisation of that dream.

Unfortunately, the government of India and its central security forces have been acting otherwise even though this ploy of the armed Kuki-Chin militants has been already recognised by Bangladesh and spelled out in no uncertain terms by its Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Even if the government of India has inexplicably not given order to its security forces to act against the increasing threats posed by armed Kuki-Chin militants, it is now incumbent upon the people of Manipur to take a decisive stand.

It is in this context that the visit of Chief Minister N Biren Singh to Jiribam district to personally assess the situation prevailing there even after the ambush laid by armed Kuki-Chin militants on his advance security team is very significant.

In addition to sending out a strong message to the armed Kuki-Chin militants, who have been making repeated attempts to break apart Manipur; this visit of the chief minister to Jiribam as the executive head of the state government would help in conveying the stand of the people of Manipur, who are now becoming apprehensive, if not fully convinced, of a hidden agenda of the government of India in allowing the ethnic conflict between the Meetei/Meitei and Kuki-Chin communities to go for so long.

By reaching out (not through mobile phone as he had done so) to the people of faraway Jiribam, which is located at distance of 220 kilometres from the state capital Imphal, Chief Minister N Biren Singh could also demonstrate not only his own commitment but also of his government to protect the state and its people.

Coming as it is at a time when the popularity of his party and the government led by it suffered a humiliating defeat in the just concluded general elections to the 18th Lok Sabha election, and there is ever growing discontentment among the people who are now openly shouting slogans calling for resignation of all the ministers and MLAs who cannot save Manipur, the outcome of Chief Minister N Biren Singh's Jiribam visit is most importantly going to be a test of his leadership under fire; or bomb, as the case may be, if we may add.