Over a month since PR came into force : What is the way forward ?
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: March 29, 2025 -

What is the way forward ?

More importantly, has any tangible steps been taken up to put Manipur on the road to normalcy ?

For now, let’s look at the steps taken up so far, after Manipur came under President’s Rule on February 13.

The first and perhaps the most important step taken up can be the call from Governor AK Bhalla to all to surrender illegal arms within a stipulated time frame.

The response was positive in the sense that even the Arambai Tenggol turned in a good number of arms at the 1st MR Ground some time back.

It was in taking cognizance of the positive response that the time frame to surrender the illegal arms was extended by another week some time back.

The clemency period is now over and security forces have obviously started working overtime to recover as many arms as possible and this is best underlined by the daily inputs from the police, the Assam Rifles and the Army on the number of arms recovered.

The arms recovered thus far are from both the hills and the valley districts, but significantly and disturbingly there has been no report of any sophisticated arms being surrendered in the hills, read Kangpokpi, Churachandpur and Tengnoupal.

The call to open all roads to ensure free movement of the people fell flat on its face, best exemplified by what happened on the Imphal to Senapati stretch of National Highway 2 on March 8.

These are some of the more prominent cases or incidents that come to mind even as one look back at the Manipur post February 13 and the question still hangs, what is the way forward ?

To anyone it should have been more than clear that CoTU and ITLF are hell bent on sticking to their slogan, ‘Solution first, peace later’ despite the fact that it was no one less than Union Home Minister Amit Shah who had categorically ruled out the possibility of a Separate Administration.

The question then is, what is fuelling the stand of CoTU and ITLF.

The answer is obviously the proddings from the Kuki militant groups which come under the SoO pact.

The question then is what is the status of the SoO pact ?

New Delhi has been quiet on the status of the pact after its term expired on February 28, 2024, but Delhi has been quiet on the status of the pact, prompting then Chief Minister N Biren to say that the pact is still in force with Delhi.

Beats all logical deduction for the simple fact stands that once a driving license has crossed its validity date it stands invalid and the need to renew it becomes indispensable.

It cannot be different for the SoO pact, but then trust Delhi to talk in two tongues and this is not helping matters at all.

A fact that must be known to Delhi, but the stalemate continues and this is where one is constrained to question, how does it benefit Delhi to keep something as critical as the validity of the SoO pact under wraps ?

One thing is certain. For Manipur to start taking the first few steps towards normalcy, New Delhi has to demonstrate its sincerity.

In the over one month of President’s Rule being in place, it should be more than clear which of the two sides is more than keen to keep the pot boiling.

And why is this so should also have been clear to everyone.

With over 60,000 personnel who were rushed in after Manipur went up in flames on May 3, 2023, it should not have been a herculean task to keep NH-2 open, for the focus could be from Kanglatongbi to Kangpokpi a distance of about 24 kilometres.

This is a step that could or should have been taken up from May 4, 2023 but no such steps were initiated and it should be more than obvious that in the interregnum, enough time would have been provided to the Kuki militants to tighten their grip on the said stretch of the highway.

A point which was demonstrated without any doubt on March 8, when the road trip from Imphal to Senapati had to be aborted.

So it is that National Highway-2 continues to be off limits for the Meiteis.

Likewise no efforts can be seen to allow the Kukis to return to the place they once called home at Imphal.

In short there is nothing much to write home about, after Manipur came under President’s Rule, but then again it should also not be forgotten that expecting a new regime to change a state of affairs which has been in force for nearly 2 years will not be fair.