Over three months of President's Rule : Has normalcy returned ?
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: May 17, 2025 -

Question still hangs.

There is nothing much to suggest that Central intervention by way of President's Rule has been able to put Manipur on the track of normalcy but the question of greater importance is whether the return of a popular Government with anyone as the Chief Minister would be a better option.

And this question is raised in the backdrop of the fact that noises have begun to come from quite a number of MLAs on the need to instal a popular Government.

How Delhi responds to this growing line of thinking from some of the MLAs remains to be seen, but the important question is whether the return of a popular Government would be able to take Manipur anywhere nearer to what is understood as a state of normalcy.

True, killings and incidents of violence have come down appreciably in the recent past, but the fact remains that nothing much seems to have changed since May 4, 2023, the day that the National Highways literally became off limits for all Meiteis.

Till today no Kuki-Chin-Zo people have deemed it safe to return to the place they once called home at Imphal or at any of the other valley districts.

Free movement of the Meiteis continues to be curtailed and the very fact that an organisation christened Kuki-Zo Village Volunteers-Eastern Zone had deemed it fit to come out with the stricture that no Meiteis would be allowed to set foot on what they call Kukiland on their way to the Shirui Lily Festival should say so many significant things.

In a way the buffer zone drawn up at the personal intervention of Union Home Minister Amit Shah in the early days of the clash in 2023 continues to haunt the collective psyche of the people.

And it is this very act of criss crossing the length and breadth of Manipur with buffer zones that has emboldened a non-descript body like the Kuki-Zo Village Volunteers-Eastern Zone to come out with such a stricture on the movement of the Meitei people.

And this is where the question arises on whether the coming of a new popular Government would in any way be able to address the points raised here.

Remember March 8, 2025 when the free movement call of Union Home Minister Amit Shah had to beat a hasty retreat from National Highway-2.

Or would the installation of a new popular Government, complete with a new face as the Chief Minister, be able to help take Manipur anywhere near the understanding of normalcy?

The answer will obviously lie with the MLAs concerned but there will be no answer in black and white.

It is however clear that in as much as Imphal was in the dark on how to deal with the unfolding situation for nearly two years, Delhi too ls fumbling to deal with the same.

This is what one finds surprising, coming as it does in the backdrop of the fact that securing National Highway-2 say from Kanglatongbi to Kangpokpi, a distance of about 25 kilometres should not be such a tall order.

This line should be understood in the backdrop of the fact that over 60,000 Central security personnel were rushed into Manipur after the place went up in flames in the evening of May 3, 2023.

Other than this what tangible steps have been taken up?

The April 5 meeting held between representatives of civil society organisations representing the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zos on the other hand ended with the Kuki-Zo representatives cocking a snook at the points drawn up by officials of the Union Home Ministry with the line, 'will need to consult with our people first'.

No one knows how Delhi has taken this snub from the Kuki-Zo representatives, but to any keen observer it is more than clear that such a stand can be struck only when there is some sort of a familiarity with each other.

This point would not have blown over anyone in Manipur and the indifference of Delhi to this has only created more rooms for tongues to wag and conspiracy theories to fly thick and fast.

Either way this has not helped matter at all.

And this is what would lead many to question on the type of feedbacks that Raj Bhavan has been giving New Delhi.