After Delhi meet of April 5, what next ? Emerging truth and reality
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: April 07, 2025 -

What next ? This is the question that must be right up there in the mind of every thinking man and woman in Manipur now that the first ever meeting between representatives of the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities under the aegis of the Union Home Ministry has come and gone.

And 24 hours after the highly anticipated meeting, there are more questions than answers and the little that has been received and gone to the public domain are the proposals forwarded by the Union Home Ministry.

No surprise elements in the proposals put forward for they are all steps needed to be taken up to put Manipur on the track of normalcy.

As widely published, the three proposals laid down by the Centre are - declaration of ceasefire between the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zos, opening of highways and roads to all sections of the people and to pave the way for a lasting solution to the protracted violence.

Again it was not surprising to see the six member team from AMUCO and FOCS, representing the Meitei community, agreeing with the proposals laid down by the Home Ministry while the representatives from the Kuki-Zo community put up the ‘need to consult people first’ rider.

Here it is not difficult to ascertain that the ‘need to consult people first’ line would have been laid down with specific reference to the clause ‘opening of highways and roads to all sections of the people’ and is a hark back to what happened to the ‘open all highways and roads to all sections of the people by March 8,’ directive of the Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Manipur has certainly not forgotten the drama that unfolded on National Highway-2, a highway that passes through some Kuki dominated places such as Motbung and Kangpokpi and it remains to be seen how much things would have changed after the first ever meeting between representatives of the Kuki-Zo and Meitei community.

What the Union Home Ministry has had to lay down before representatives of the two communities has been laid down clear and loud, but what Manipur wants to hear is what the representatives from either side had to say during the meeting.

It is not clear whether the representatives of the Kuki-Zo community have returned or not while reports coming in say that the people who represented the Meiteis are set to return on April 7.

How things unfold is anybody’s guess, but the radical position adopted by the Kuki-Zo community would not have missed the eyes of the Union Home Ministry.

The very line, ‘need to consult people first’ is more than an indication that the soft approach to ensure free movement of people on all highways and roads from March 8 has only emboldened the Kuki-Zo side to strike such a posture.

A reality which New Delhi can no longer afford to camouflage in their politics of molly coddling one side in a case of conflict between two groups of people.

The Centre is yet to announce when the next round of talks would be held or more importantly if there would be further such talks, but the significance of holding the first such meeting between representatives of the two communities is significant.

This is a line which The Sangai Express had been advocating from the early days of the clash and though late, it has come and one hopes Delhi is able to look at the issue without its vision being clouded by the compulsion of geo-politics.

This is where it becomes important for New Delhi to look deeper and understand what the Kuki-Zo representatives actually meant by the line ‘need to consult people first’.

This is obviously not the time to beat around the bush and anyone who has been following the Manipur violence minutely will understand who exactly the ‘people’ are, the people who need to be consulted first.

Manipur knows who is pulling the strings and it is with a reason why there is the growing suspicion that there are solid reasons why Delhi is refusing to acknowledge the hands that are pulling the strings from behind.

It is this same compulsion which has prompted the Centre to keep on talking in two tongues and jump from one branch to the other, best exemplified by the way in which the reason for the ongoing clash has been attributed to the ruling of the High Court of Manipur and to the large scale immigration from across the border.

Now look at the decision to fence the Indo-Myanmar border, do away with the Free Movement Regime, the finger pointed at the ruling of the High Court and the uncertainty over the status of the SoO pact and the politics at work will certainly get more clear.