Coming back after four years : Shirui Lily Festival
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: May 19, 2025 -

Coming back after a break of four years since its start in 2017 and the Shirui Lily Festival has survived the pulls, pushes and ravages wreaked by the Covid pandemic and the ongoing ethnic clash since the evening of May 3, 2023.

So it is that Raj Bhavan is leaving nothing to chance to ensure that the Shirui Lily Festival scheduled to start from May 20 goes off without a hitch and the beauty and majesty of the one and only Lily found on Shirui peak or Shirui Kashong is presented to the world.

The festival will also go beyond the flower and showcase the hospitality of the Tangkhul community, a people who are known for knowing how to treat guests, a point which anyone who has had the fortune of being guests of the Tangkhul folks will vouch for.

Making things more interesting and encouraging are the extra efforts put in by the Ukhrul based civil society organisations led by the Tangkhul Naga Long to roll out the red carpet for all who decide to make Ukhrul and Shirui village their destination.

Ukhrul and the Tangkhul people have always made their stand known and long before eyes turned to the Shirui Lily Festival, the Tangkhul Naga Long had issued a decree as way back as in 2023 that no one would be allowed to check passenger vehicles on the Imphal-Ukhrul road.

Unsaid but loudly audible in the stand of the TNL is the reminder that there is no such thing as Kukiland in Ukhrul district.

It was this same stand that was echoed in black and white when the NSCN (IM) struck a tough stand against the diktat issued by the so called Kuki-Zo Village Volunteers-Eastern Zone (KZVV-EZ) that no Meitei would be allowed to cross Kukiland while going ahead to attend the Shirui Lily Festival.

It was along this end that the TNL managed to extract an assurance from the Kuki chiefs that nothing would be allowed to be done to disrupt the smooth conduct of the festival.

This is the stand of the Tangkhul people in Ukhrul and the State Government too appears to be leaving nothing to chance to ensure that the Shirui Lily Festival is not disrupted by anyone.

Foolproof security is the assurance given and while no one knows whether the footfalls at the festival would be impacted in any way by the decree issued by the KZVV-EZ, much will depend on how much confidence Raj Bhavan is able to instil amongst the people, particularly the Meitei community.

Much before the BJP led Government elevated the Shirui Lily Festival to the State level, the flower was celebrated at the village level and it was sometime at this point of time that The Sangai Express had mooted a one line idea, 'After Sangai Festival and Orange Festival, why not a Shirui Lily Festival?'

The then State Government took no note of this suggestion, as expected, and it was only after the BJP led Government came to power in 2017 that Shirui was put on the tourists map with the Shirui Lily Festival.

In between the festival had to be given the miss due to the Covid pandemic and the ethnic conflagration that erupted in the evening of May 3, 2023.

Arid so it is that Raj Bhavan, against all odds, is putting its best foot forward to make the festival a success this year and as noted in an earlier commentary here, the success or otherwise of the festival will depend largely on the number of visitors.

And if a situation is created in such a way that the Meiteis would not feel safe to go for the festival, then the footfalls would be reduced drastically.

Basically it is to ensure that the festival flops that travel strictures against the Meitei community was announced by the non-descript KZVV-EZ some time back.

Many, particularly the NSCN (IM) and the TNL, have come forward to rubbish the Kukiland claim in Ukhrul district and even got Kuki village chiefs to sign on the dot that nothing would be done to disrupt the free movement of tourists to Ukhrul and back for the festival.

It is amid the unnecessary tension kicked up by some elements that the festival is set to kickstart, and one wonders whether Raj Bhavan has sounded Delhi on this or not.