'Abrogate SoO', 'Separate admn' calls : Deafening silence
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 17, 2023 -

Over 40 days since Manipur went up in flames in the evening of May 3 and a path is yet to be chalked out to restore normalcy or a state anywhere near the understanding of normalcy.

Abrogate the Suspension of Operation pact inked with the Kuki militant outfits, flush out the narco terrorists, implement the National Register of Citizens etc is the call that has been raised by one side of the party in conflict while on the other side the call is about a 'separate administration'.

There could be one or two other points which have not been raised but which could be understood in the reason laid out by the Indigenous Tribal Leaders' Forum (ITLF) for deciding to stay away from the proposed Peace Committee with the Governor as the head.

Either way a tough call for the Centre to take and read this with the silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and things certainly get more and more complicated.

Juxtapose the points raised here against the 'will take time to settle' prognosis of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and uncertainty is the one word that would fit in snugly with the understanding of Manipur in the present context.

Will take time to settle is certainly reading the situation right, but what could be the way forward ?

Walking between the two demands of 'abrogate SoO' and the radical 'separate administration' cannot be decided by a toss of the coin and this is where the Government of India will need to get a first hand account of the true story and to go anywhere near the true story, one would need to go back to days before May 3, 2023, the day the actual clash started after a number of houses were torched and gutted at Torbung, after the Tribal Solidarity March.

The Kuki Inpi, Manipur is understood to have listed a number of Kuki villages which have been allegedly burnt down but has conveniently kept a stoic silence on the number of houses destroyed and burnt at Torbung, the settlements burnt and razed to the ground at Churachandpur town itself and it has also conveniently overlooked the fact that the Imphal-Dimapur highway has been blocked since May 4 at Kangpokpi.

How about the verification of passengers along the Imphal-Dimapur highway via their Aadhaar Card so that 'no one' slips through the net cast to 'detect, identify and pull down anyone with a surname that is unique to a people here ?'

In short who first lit the match stick at Torbung that soon engulfed Manipur in flames ?

There will obviously be no easy answers to the posers raised here and either side will continue to tell the story it would like to tell.

See the things either side would like to see and hear the things that either side would like to hear.

It is amid this reality that these questions have been raised on why the Prime Minister is still silent and apart from these posers, it may also be asked whether the Prime Minister has taken a report directly from the Chief Minister of Manipur or is merely relying on the feedbacks received from Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Manipur however cannot go on like this.

Not a single day passes by without reports of a clash here and there, of houses being burnt and people being killed.

Curfew relaxation period or time is one of the more sought after news from the readers every morning and it has been over a month since everything has come to a standstill, except for the news that continue to come in every minute of violence and shootouts, each with different versions.

The complete ban on internet service continues and it has been like this since the evening of May 3.

Life however has to go on and it is amid this disturbing reality that hundreds of students sat for the National Entrance cum Entrance Test, with the results having already come out, more sat and many more are getting ready to sit for the Common University Entrance Test (Both UG and PG) and there is something distinctly tragic in seeing vehicles pasted with the sign 'Tangkhul Naga from Ukhrul' or 'Poumai Naga from Senapati' moving around in Imphal and on the Imphal-Dimapur highway.

May 3, the 'abrogate SoO' call, the call for a 'separate administration' continue to cast its long shadow and the Prime Minister continues with his version of Silence which is louder than the shrill report of gun shots.