Place where the first match stick was struck : Revisiting Torbung
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: July 24, 2024 -

Revisiting Torbung after more than a year and this is where the seeds of the present clash were sown.

Along with the story of revisiting Torbung, The Sangai Express also carried the news story of a four storey building being razed to the ground in a ‘massive, surgical explosion’ at Churachandpur town, the place where the march towards destruction, killing and mayhem was staged.

Much have been written on how the first match stick that was struck at Torbung went on to engulf the entire State in flames, how the Tribal Solidarity March of May 3, 2023 was staged on the biggest of all lies, that is against the demand that the Meiteis be included in the Scheduled Tribe list of the Constitution of India, how and why violence erupted at Churachandpur and spread to Kangpokpi and Moreh, all places dominated by the Kuki-Zo communities and how the Tribal Solidarity March ended peacefully at the Naga dominated districts of Senapati, Ukhrul, Tamenglong and Chandel.

The bombed house and the clinical manner in which it was razed to the ground at Churachandpur should tell so many things and that is how the clash extended beyond ethnic cleansing to the extent of finishing everything that the Meiteis at one point of time called theirs.

Go and take a look at the levelled localities where the Meiteis used to live in Churachandpur and juxtapose this reality against the victim stories that have been peddled by the mainstream media and how the term ethnic cleansing was seen only at what happened at Imphal and the valley districts.

The first match stick was struck at Torbung and houses of Meiteis there were systematically targeted, set on fire and destroyed.

That gun wielding elements were very much part of the Tribal Solidarity March is known to all and this is where The Sangai Express had earlier questioned why a protest march against the ruling of the High Court should turn against a community, the Meiteis in this case.

Or if the mob had anything against the policies and programmes of the Government, why were Meitei civilians targeted in the first place ?

Imphal retaliated only late in the evening and to repeat what has been said here many times, a well known Kuki gentleman dropped in at the office of this newspaper to inquire about an earlier report, even as Torbung had gone up in flames.

It was only later in the evening that Imphal and the valley districts erupted in violence.

Going back to the source of the conflict will not take Manipur anywhere nearer to the understanding of normalcy, this is a given, but there is the need to set the record straight for the people and the place to move forward towards the path of normalcy.

And set the record straight, one must, if not for anything else but to negate the victim stories that have been floated with so much finesse and lapped up by the media from other parts of the country.

From Torbung to Churachandpur and then to Moreh and Kangpokpi.

This is the trajectory of the violence and throw in Imphal in between and one can get a clear picture of the start of the violence.

A sincere look at how the violence erupted will leave no one in doubt that the Tribal Solidarity March had in fact nothing to do with the High Court of Manipur order, for the Kukis know it and so do too all the others that it is not the Judiciary which can decide whether a community fits the bill to be tagged a Scheduled Tribe or not.

That is the job of Parliament.

This is where tagging the order of the High Court in tracing the start of the violence reeks of a design to give a lopsided understanding of the clash.

As stated earlier here, the Kukis have every right to protest any policy and programmes of the Government but this cannot justify the act of targeting members of any other community but this is precisely what happened at Torbung and later Churachandpur town on May 3, 2023.

So far at least 20 Meitei families are reported to have returned to Torbung Sabal Mamang Leikai but the same cannot be said about the Meiteis who escaped alive from Churachandpur town.

The video shoot of the four storey house that was brought down to the ground at Churachandpur has gone viral on the social media, but here again one need to ask why this particular video shoot was released at this point of time.

Manipur should be aware that they are up against an adversary, who has perfected the art of cooking up stories and earning the sympathies of others with their false narratives.

This is where Manipur and her people would need to be always extra alert.