In the grip of madness for over 60 days : Method in the madness
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: July 13, 2023 -

Obvious that people on either side of the clash divide will not come to their senses.

Or in some cases it could be a case of people not ready to come to their senses, though they know it in their heart that there are some elements only who stand to gain from the madness.

Not these elements whose houses have been torched, not them who have had to stay at shelter homes and most certainly not them whose kins have been attacked and killed but it is them who have been dictating how people on either side should respond to the unfolding developments.

Keep feeding the hatred and this has certainly worked, clearly explaining why the clash that erupted on May 3 continues to smoulder even after more than 60 days.

It is only the blind or those who deliberately turn a blind eye to the reality who would not notice the sense of tragedy that has come to add a dimension to the feel and look of Imphal.

The same must be true in the other district headquarters of Thoubal, Bishnupur, Kakching, Jiribam, Chura-chandpur, Kangpokpi and at the border town of Moreh.

The vegetable market at Imphal is as always teeming with people but to any keen observer the difference will be stark.

To any regular shopper who goes marketing at the Ima Keithel and the adjoining vegetable markets, the sense of something incomplete would not have gone missing.

This sense of incompleteness will become all that more glaring when the Yongchak season sets in.

To many more there will definitely be something missing in the leiraks and leikais especially when one sees or encounters the mobile vegetable sellers, living and breathing human beings who hawk delicacies such as Kanglayen, Ushoi, Chenggum and dry fish.

Would Moreh town be complete without the ‘Rice Hotels’ run and managed by the Meiteis ?

Would Kangpokpi bazar be the same without the Khura Hotels which sell piping hot Alu or Tilhou Boras, Mangan Kanghou and Changang with the slice of champra ?

Or the Singju at the Ine’s potpham ? How about the vehicle workshops or tyre retreading centres manned by Tomba, Hongba or Chaoba at Churachandpur or Kangpokpi or Moreh ?

To those with the bigger agenda, all these things are trivialities, but it is in the trivialities of life that one finds the most beautiful things and what makes life all that more meaningful.

It is not just madness. Not just a case of lunacy.

It is something more but putting a finger to it is next to impossible, though it should be clear to all those who have been following Manipur since the outbreak of violence on May 3 that there is a method to this madness.

What keeps this method so well oiled to keep the violence going for over 60 days, is the question.

The answer will lie beyond the violence, the gun fight and the charred remains of the abandoned houses.

Maybe the answer will come once the smoke from the barrels of the guns blows away but more than enough damage has already been delivered.

It is in the face of this reality that one can say with a degree of certainty that Manipur will not be the same.

As things stands today, the normalcy that one is talking about does not extend beyond the belief of the guns going silent at the hills and foothills of Manipur or the clash coming to a complete halt.

But normalcy as understood in the context of the Manipur before May 3, 2023 is something which imagination or the mind cannot work out at the moment.

This the reality and in as much as Imphal and the valley districts will not be the same, Kangpokpi, Churachandpur and Moreh will not be the same either.

For the voice of sanity to emerge and prevail, it is important to go back to the immediate cause of the clash, how it started on May 3 evening and if KIM is so perturbed by the usage of the term narco-terrorists then is it implying that the terror unleashed at Torbung on May 3 was the handiwork of someone else ?

The answer can come from them.