Understanding essence of normalcy : Exorcising the ghost within
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: October 21, 2024 -

It would be a gross error on the part of the Government if it understands the restoration of normalcy only in the context of the ongoing conflict between the Meitei and the Kuki-Zo communities.

The need to understand normalcy demands a sincere, hard, inward look and try to answer how Manipur may be like once the two sides come to the negotiating table and decide on a course that would be acceptable to all.

It was just a day earlier that police chief DGP Rajiv Singh talked about the need to reduce the ‘weaponisation of society’ and one needs to understand this observation beyond the ongoing ethnic conflict.

How would the situation be like once the two warring sides, that is the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zos decide to stop the hostility and the two sides no longer see each other as adversaries ?

As things stand right now, ‘demand letters’ or ‘monetary demands’ is trending and Manipur has witnessed many coming out on the roads to lodge their protest against what they say is unbearable monetary demands from the power players.

Is this trend an offshoot of the ongoing ethnic conflict or is it something which was just waiting to happen ?

No easy answer here, but it should be clear that the Government cannot afford to understand the meaning of normalcy by just controlling the ethnic clash.

Already there are talks doing the round of some entrepreneurs who have decided to throw in the towel, unable to meet the growing monetary demands and there have also been instances of protests being held against the monetary demands served on educational institutions, particularly schools.

Not a healthy trend at all and there may yet be others who have preferred not to come out in the open in protest against the monetary demands served on them and quietly bear it in the hope that things will improve.

For reasons which should be obvious to all, The Sangai Express has not conducted any indepth study on the growing trend of extortion, especially from the business class running shops and enterprises, but let it be clear that in extorting from the entrepreneurs or business class or any professional, the impact is felt by the common people.

A little look at the reality will tell how and why this is so. It is the job of the Government to ensure the security of the citizens and as noted earlier, the feeling of security can be instilled only when the Government learns to understand normalcy beyond the ongoing ethnic clash.

The only hitch is whether the Government is able or willing to look and understand what normalcy actually entails.

At the same time, the Government particularly the police should understand why guns were looted from the police armouries in the earlier days of the violence.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah had also pointed out to the arms looted and the need to recover them.

Points noted and acknowledged, but one wonders why the police head referred to only the arms which have been looted from the police armouries and failed to question from where the guns used by the Kukis have come.

This is important and in as much as efforts should be made to recover the looted guns, it is only right that the police also question themselves why the need to loot the arms arose.

Go back to May 3, 2023 and take another hard look at the video clip wherein fully armed Kuki militants complete in battle fatigues could be seen heading towards Torbung.

Why have not a single question been raised from the side of the Government on from where these guns have come from ?

And to think that reporters and correspondents who dropped in here at the height of the conflict did not deem it fit to raise this question even once is astounding.

Rajiv Singh is an officer handpicked by Delhi, much like Security Advisor Kuldiep Singh and it is worrying that it is their observations which are being sent to the Centre, observations which do not do much, except paint a lopsided story.

Such an approach cannot be good for Manipur.

The arms looted in the valley have been accounted for and while the DGP was absolutely right in asserting that weaponisation of society will only worsen things one wished that a question from where the weapons used by the Kukis have come was also raised with conviction.