March 2025 : A significant month so far :: Refusing to learn in 23 months
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: March 21, 2025 -

March 2025 has been significant in many ways and will be an important footnote when the story of Manipur is told and retold ten or twenty years down the line.

One is obviously the March 8, 2025 botched attempt to ensure that all the roads are open to all the people of Manipur and The Sangai Express has already had its say on the matter more than once.

The ghost of March 8, 2025 will continue to haunt Manipur and her people for years to come and while the focus of Manipur was on National Highway-2 particularly with respect to the passenger bus that was flagged off from Imphal International Airport to proceed towards Senapati after crossing the Kuki dominated district of Kangpokpi and other Kuki settlements such as Gamgiphai, Motbung etc, that focus has now shifted to Churachandpur.

This was the place from where violence started and the first match stick that put Manipur to flames was struck at Torbung to target Meitei settlements.

This was back on May 3, 2023, the day violence first erupted in all its ugliness at Churachandpur and quickly spread to Kangpokpi and Moreh and later Imphal and more than 22 months down the line there is nothing to suggest that things have a turn for the better.

In between, the Chief Minister was asked to step down and the State Assembly has been kept under suspended animation with nothing to show that anyone would be named the next Chief Minister and the Assembly would be revived.

And even as Manipur marches towards the two year mark of violence and bloodshed, there is nothing much to suggest that the people have learnt anything of value.

If March is going to be remembered for the botched bus journey on National Highway-2, it will also be remembered by many as the month in which yet another Meitei youngster has gone missing with many praying or his safe return.

The last call from his mobile has been traced to a place somewhere at Joujangtek village, a Kuki inhabited place, a place where the last contact of two Meitei youths were traced back in July of 2023.

The two youths, Phijam Hemanjit and Hijam Linthoingambi, are still to be traced, though pictures of them in captivity of Kuki militants and their bodies lying slumped went viral on the social media some time in September of 2023.

Yet earlier there was a case of two Meitei youths who strayed into a Kuki dominated district sometime last year and while the two were fortunate to have been set free, after a deal was struck with the Government, there is nothing to suggest that any worthwhile lesson has been learnt in the past 23 months.

March 8, March 16 the day another Meitei boy went missing, March 20 a day on which the office of this newspaper has been buzzing with calls and inquiries of whether another two youths have crossed Gamgiphai and ventured into areas known to be unsafe for the Meiteis.

This is the reality and if even after 23 months of violence, no lessons have been picked up, then one can only wonder what has gone wrong with some section of the youngsters.

Earlier another live video coverage of two Meitei youths being turned back sternly by the security personnel after crossing Sekmai went viral on the social media.

This is a worrying point which all elders of the family must seriously look into.

And even as the madness continues to have a hold on some youngsters, Manipur is nowhere near coming anywhere near the understanding of normalcy what with some of the radical elements of the Kuki-Chin-Zo group continuing to stick to the one line slogan ’Solution first, peace later.’

The solution according to their mindset is a Separate Administration, a call that has already been rejected by none other than Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

This is the reality, a reality which should have been clear to everyone since the evening of May 3, 2023, but extremely disturbing it is to see some youngsters moving into areas that are known to be unsafe for them.