In anticipation of June 24 meeting May 3 to June 24
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 24, 2023 -

All eyes are now on June 24, the date Union Home Minister Amit Shah has set for an all political party meet at Delhi.

Manipur has only time to fall back on and hope for the best, for it should be obvious to everyone that there can be no magic formula to take the place on the path of recovery.

It is not yet clear which party would have named who as their representative to the meeting, but it is extremely important that the correct narrative guides the proceedings of the meeting.

The objective is obviously to take Manipur to the path of recovery and this is where certain points should be very clear to make the meeting fruitful.

Conflict resolution has to take so many points into consideration and one of this is the truth and nothing but the truth and this is where the right or correct narrative becomes indispensable.

As Lt General (Retd) Konsam Himalay put it in his article in The Sangai Express on its June 7 edition under the double decker caption, ‘An eye for an eye makes everybody blind; Way towards conflict resolution,’ the verdict of the High Court of Manipur on the ST status for Meiteis ‘may have been one of the many triggers, but not the cause of the violence’.

This should blunt the wrong narrative that has been sold to the outside world that the ethnic violence broke out after the Tribal Solidarity March which was held against the demand that the Meiteis be included in the ST category of the Constitution of India.

To elaborate, it would be in line to stress that the ST for Meiteis demand is not a new born child, but dates back more than ten years.

In the more than a decade long standing demand, it has never ever broken out in violence.

In fact the ST for Meiteis demand had never ever rubbed anyone the wrong way, though not everyone, including the Meiteis went along with this demand.

In fact it was not the ST demand that pushed the rallyists at Churachandpur to march over 10 kilometres and vent their anger on the hapless residents of Torbung.

The clash is also not one between tribals and non-tribals, as Lt General Konsam Himalay stressed with his observation that went something like this, ‘Not so well informed experts have tried to make it a tribal-non-tribal issue.’

It is also not a clash between people of two different religions, the Christians and non-Christians, for amongst the Meiteis there are Hindus, Christians and those who profess Sanamahism.

The correct narrative is important for the June 24 meeting to come anywhere near taking Manipur to the path of recovery.

In as much as the clash is not about the ST for Meiteis demand, one needs to look at the backdrop of the clash.

The Tribal Solidarity Rally of May 3 was held in the backdrop of the intense drive against poppy cultivation, the War on Drugs campaign, the eviction drive against illegal occupants/settlements, initiative to conduct household survey to identify illegal immigrants and the proposed implementation of National Register of Citizens.

These are the points so succinctly laid down by Professor Ksh Rajen of Manipur University in his write up, ‘Wanted : The Idea of Manipur’ and which appeared in the June 2 issue of this newspaper.

The points laid down by the good Professor should more than explain why the rally culminated in violence only at Churachandpur and quickly spread to Kangpokpi and Moreh while the said rally ended peacefully at the Naga dominated districts of Senapati, Ukhrul and Tamenglong.

These are points which should not be forgotten during the all political party meeting. Not finger pointing but for peace to return, everyone would need to stick to the truth.

The debate on whether the State Government did the right thing in evicting encroachers at B Sonjang village sometime in March, is itself an admission that the rally and the clash that followed soon after had nothing to do with the demand that the Meiteis be granted the ST tag under the Constitution.

Right narrative and not doctored media campaign should be the way to go about taking Manipur to the path of recovery.