Delhi do of Apr 5 to Kpi do of May 12 : Connecting the dots
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: May 14, 2025 -

Will go back and discuss with our people rider set by the Kuki-Zo representatives when asked to sign the list of points drawn up by the Union Home Ministry after the joint meeting on April 5 at Delhi.

Kuki-Zo MLAs likely to hold talks with CSOs at Kangpokpi on May 19 and leaders of the armed groups under the SoO pact taking part in the deliberations organised by CoTU on May 12 at Kangpokpi.

Connect the dots and a clear pattern should emerge.

Does not need rocket science technology to understand who the 'our people' could be that the Kuki-Zo CSO leaders referred to while talking about the need to consult them first before they could sign the points of agreement drawn up by the Union Home Ministry.

Likewise it does not need genius to work out who the CSOs could be with which the Kuki-Zo MLAs are likely to meet on May 19 to talk 'peace'.

Top this off with the report that leaders of SoO groups took part in the high level consultative meeting organised by CoTU and it is mind boggling that New Delhi has still not considered it fit to acknowledge the hands of Kuki militants in the ongoing violence that erupted on May 3, 2023.

This is where it becomes important to repeat the question which The Sangai Express has raised many times in this column and that is why Delhi has not questioned from where the arms used by the Kuki-Zo community have come from while Union Home Minister Amit Shah made it clear that the arms looted from the police armouries in the valley areas must be recovered.

It is this double standard which is one primary reason for the violence to drag on for so long and even as this column is being written down, news has come in that Kuki militants who have taken on the name-Kuki Village Volunteers, Eastern Zone-have come out with the firm warning that no Meiteis would be allowed to cross what they call Kuki areas in Ukhrul district to attend the upcoming Shirui Lily Festival.

Perhaps it was in anticipation of such reckless moves from the Kuki militants that the Tangkhul Naga Long, the apex body in Ukhrul district had come out not once, but more than twice that the Imphal-Ukhrul road should be left free without disturbance from any quarter.

Whether the warning from the Kuki militants has any impact on the turn out at Shirui Lily Festival or not remains to be seen, but on the Imphal-Ukhrul road there are at least three Kuki settlements. Litan too is of mixed population, with the Kukis and the Tangkhuls living next to each other.

From April 5 to May 12 and the pattern that emerges is clear.

It is just that Delhi has preferred to look the other way, best understood as a stand dictated by geo-politics compulsion, but everything is as clear as black and white.

It is on the basis of the gun and muscle power available with the SoO groups that the so called Kuki Village Volunteers, Eastern Zone has dared to come out with a statement which is nothing less than a direct challenge to the stand of the Tangkhul Naga Long.

And it is this point which Raj Bhavan should take note of and accordingly sound the Union Home Ministry.

And the TNL has every reason to come out with such a standing directive, more so when the Shirui Lily Festival is within shaking hands distance.

Take note, to a very great extent the success or otherwise of the Shirui Lily Festival will depend on the footfalls and if the Meiteis are barred from taking the Imphal-Ukhrul road in the face of the threats issued by the Kuki militants, then the turn out at the said festival will see a drastic reduction.

And a festival with less participation will certainly not rank up there as a success by any calculation.

This is the reality that the Tangkhul Naga Long should take note of.

One wonders whether the United Naga Council will have anything to say in the face of the open threat issued by the Kuki Village Volunteers and more importantly how about Raj Bhavan?

Will the Shirui Lily Festival also see another repeat of the March 8 fiasco when Kuki militants managed to push back the free movement call of the Union Home Minister?