Looking back at the past 730 days : The lessons to be learnt
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: May 05, 2025 -

When violence first erupted in the evening of May 3/2023 at Churachandpur and Imphal and the valley districts retaliated late in the evening of the same day, the Kuki-Chin-Zo hardliners had the perfect ingredients to present a 'scripted tale' to the outside world.

No one, least of all New Delhi has deemed it fit to acknowledge that violence first erupted at Churachandpur and Torbung and gun toting elements took part in the neatly coined 'tribal solidarity march', giving the much needed space to the Kuki-Chin-Zo script writers to paint the victim story, a story which was so convincingly packaged and told to the outside world by some pen pushers who winged their way to Manipur in the initial days of the violence.

The story of the majority bashing the minority was sold with such finesse that one is left wondering if this group of people come anywhere close to the understanding of a tribal group!

And the victim story continues to be told even today, that is after more than 730 days or two years.

Houses belonging to the Meitei community being bull dozed, brought down with explosives and flattened to the ground at Churachandpur today stand as mute testimony of the precise manner in which the Meiteis were targeted and hounded out of Churachandpur.

It is the same at Kangpokpi and Moreh, places where the Kuki-Chin-Zo community are in the majority.

Even relief centres were overrun by gun toting Kuki-Chin-Zo militants and six people, including three women and three children were abducted and later done to death in the most brutal manner at Jiribam during the latter part of 2024.

The Sangai Express has also carried stories told by survivors, stories gleaned from the reports submitted to the Manipur Human Rights Commission and yet all these instances have been overlooked by the people who matter with even the Prime Minister breaking his silence only when the infamous nude parade went viral in the early part of the conflict.

The story of the nude parade made headlines all over the media in different parts of the country, but no coverage was given to the fact that the prime accused in the dastardly act were penalised by the Meitei society with houses of the accused being destroyed, apart from being handed over to the police.

Only the pen pushers can answer why not much coverage was given to the retribution meted out by the Meitei society against its 'criminal' members.

In the initial days of the conflict The Sangai Express did not give any specifics and stayed clear of naming communities involved in the mad violence, but as days passed and the narratives became more and more scripted to paint the aggressors as the victims, the time came to start naming communities and so it is that even headlines today have not stopped short of naming communities.

This is how it has been for a little less than 730 days in The Sangai Express and it will continue for lies cannot be camouflaged indefinitely under clever words and self censor.

Two years down the line and what are the lessons that Manipur has learnt?

Tough to say but this is the time to perhaps study why Manipur does not seem to have much of a friend or ally.

What can Manipur do to take along everyone with what is right?

There will obviously be no easy answer and perhaps the first thing that should be mulled over sincerely is the question of why something as important and crucial as marking the completion of 2 years of the strife could not be held under one single umbrella.

Why is this so?

When even the people or the folks who are seemingly leading from the front cannot come together, even in observing a crucial day like May 3, then is there any hope of reaching out to allies at this time of crisis?

The answer is best left out there in the open, but the time is more than right for all to come together so that answers to the posers raised here can come.

For this no one can be held responsible for everyone in one way or the other have failed to come out from the cocoon of the 'I', a sort of fixation which has now come to define the great Meitei society.

And this, is at a time when everyone is talking about the fate of Manipur.

This is also the time to look back at the last two years and study if any missteps had been taken.

For one, cases of targeting each other in the face of such a crisis were totally unnecessary and did nothing to protect the understanding of Manipur, other than massage the bloated egos of some.