Kashmir matters, not Manipur
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: April 26, 2025 -

IT would be unfair to make comparisons between Kashmir and Manipur when it comes to the potential of drawing tourists, but it's an undeniable fact that both are endowed with scenic landscape and have been undesirably besieged by geopolitical extremism, with solution to the perennial unrest situation nowhere in sight in-spite of consistent campaigns by political, human rights and civil society organisations to highlight the plight of the masses at the state and national level and rights activists initiating debates at important discourses held at the global stage.

Moreover, regardless of the similarities in socio-political issues gripping the two strife-torn distant regions, the law and order situation, including the on-going crisis, in the tiny state of Manipur located in the extreme east of the country seldom draws the attention of both the national leaders and the mainstream media whereas any unwanted incident in Jammu and Kashmir on the northern frontier gets magnified and triggers intense debate as a grave threat to national security.

Accepted that the national leaders are prioritising issues of Jammu and Kashmir due to direct interference by successive governments in Pakistan but Manipur too deserves similar seriousness on the part of the central government in resolving the nearly two-year old conflict, among other chronic problems, as there is clear evidence about ethnic armed groups from neighbouring Myanmar abetting the Manipur crisis.

Apart from civil organisations and the then chief minister N Biren consistently claiming involvement of Kuki-Chin armed groups in the Manipur conflict, home minister Amit Shah too had conceded possibility of foreign hand, and hence approved fencing of the Indo-Myanmar border.

However, with exception of initiating the border fencing project, facilitating parleys between the warring communities and assuring repetitively that the Manipur crisis would be resolved, the ground reality is that normalcy in the state is far from being restored, as is evident from civil society organisations of both the Meetei and the Kuki communities rolling up the sleeves, literally, to observe the second year of the May 3, 2023 violence under different themes.

While it is obvious that none of the communities in conflict would let the guard down till the crisis has been resolved honourably, there is growing suspicion about the centre dragging its feet rather than according importance in finding solution.

For instance, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been acting stoically, abstaining from commenting on the Manipur issue other than glancing reference when cornered, and embarking on foreign tours despite relentless demand by the opposition parties and Manipur civil societies to visit the strife-torn state, at-least once.

In sharp contrast, the recent terror attack in Pahalgam, led to the Prime Minister cutting short his Saudi Arabia visit, convening an emergency high level security meeting to chalk up strategies to contain militancy in Jammu and Kashmir and avowing at a public meeting in Bihar that the perpetrators of the Pahalgam incident won't be spared.

To cut the long story short, had the Prime Minister demonstrated interest in addressing the Manipur crisis in the initial stages and cautioned the aggressive party of facing the consequences when gruesome acts of violence were committed against the innocent civilians, including women and children, then there might have been no need for commemorating the second anniversary of the Kuki-Meetei conflict.