Making 2 plus 2 is equal to 5 : Spin doctors at work !
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: May 25, 2024 -

Take 2 and 2 together and surely it will not make 5.

But there will obviously be the champions of false narratives who will want the world to believe that it does make 5 and spin doctors may lay out the script in such a manner that it confuses the people to draw the conclusion that 2 plus 2 does not make 5, but 2.5 plus 1.5 makes 5.

Or 3.5 plus 1.5 makes 4.

This is how the narratives have been spelt out numerous times, ever since Manipur went up in flames and adding more colour to the false narratives is the selective silence on pertinent questions that have been raised.

'The Kukis are at war in two geographically very different places with different opponents. One cannot help but wonder how an unorganised force is fighting a very organised war. How have they persevered for so long? From where are they getting their arms?'

The Sangai Express has not raised this poser, this question has not come from any of the Meitei village volunteers who have taken it upon themselves to defend their homesteads and settlements and neither has it come from any of the Meitei civil society organisations.

The question itself is significant, very significant but making it more significant, enough for The Sangai Express to pick and highlight it, is the fact that this came from a man from Kamjong district, whose village has been flooded by refugees from across the border.

Or take another question, a poser which The Sangai Express picked out and highlighted for public consumption, the line of which went as 'Lately Indian security forces have apprehended many Meitei underground cadres at the border. However there is not a single report of Kuki underground cadre being apprehended at the border.'

Read the two statements coming from the villagers along with the scathing statement issued by the NSCN (IM) just the other day pointing their finger of accusation at the NIA and the Assam Rifles of working in tandem with the Kuki militants and the calculation may not be as fuzzy as 2 plus 2 makes 5.

True to the posture that it has adopted ever since Manipur went up in flames and the Assam Rifles came under scathing criticisms from different sides, the PRO or Staff Officer in charge of Public Relations and Media, issued a rebuttal just one day after the statement of the NSCN (IM) occupied prime space on the front page of all major newspapers published from Imphal.

Baseless and unfounded, is how the Staff Officer of the Assam Rifles has dubbed it, and while it is not the case of The Sangai Express to study which version of the story sounds more plausible, recall what the common villager from Kamjong said a few days earlier and which has been quoted here.

The guns in circulation in Imphal and the valley districts have been accounted for a long time back, courtesy the mass looting of arms from different police armouries and police stations, but where have the guns being used to fire at the Meitei settlements come from?

This is a question which the Assam Rifles and the Government have not bothered to answer.

And if the Indo-Myanmar border is under the watch of the Assam Rifles, how have so many refugees managed to cross the border, constraining the State Government to set up camps, especially at Kamjong district?

How is the refugee situation like at Churachandpur and Pherzawl?

An official answer to this is not expected but the very fact that this poser has been raised should say something significant.

The objective behind the decision to do away with the Free Movement Regime, the grand announcement by New Delhi that the Indo-Myanmar border would be fenced, the open admission that infiltration from across the border is but one cause of the ongoing ethnic clash between the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zos, from none less than Union Home Minister Amit Shah and External Affairs Minister S Jaishanker should not be trashed.

And this objective should be understood against the observations made by the people of Kamjong district.

This is native wisdom speaking, a line of thought shorn of political baggages.