The politics of starting a dialogue : Pattern behind the delay
- Sangai Express Editorial :: July 10 , 2013 -

The proposed map of 'Kuki State' :: Pix - TSE

Not a case of the Government's right hand not knowing what its left hand is doing.

More a case of the Government's right hand not knowing what its right hand is doing.

This should about sum up the Union Cabinet sitting on the proposal forwarded by the Union Home Ministry to start a political dialogue with the Kuki National Organisation, one of the two umbrella groups which have inked the Suspension of Operation pact with Delhi and Imphal.

The stand of the KNO is clear. A separate State for the Kukis.

Does not need to go into a brain storming session to understand what this would mean.

Decapitating the political, social and geographical entity known as Manipur.

This could be one reason why the Union Cabinet has been sitting on the proposal of the Union Home Ministry to start the political dialogue with the KNO for over six months.

The important question is whether sitting over an important and urgent proposal is the answer to the issue at hand.

It is a truism that suspending hostilities is but only the first step towards initiating a political dialogue, covering a gamut of issues.

This is where the KNO has gone one step ahead of Delhi, or is the hedging and beating around the bush a deliberate political strategy of the Government of India to wear down the cadres of the outfits and in the process put into motion the divisive forces from within ?

Kautilya's divide and rule policy worked and is still working, but it can work only to a certain extent. There can be no foolproof policy. This is a given. Baffling it certainly is.

Seven years down the line, since the signing of the SoO pact and not even a whiff of a signal that a political negotiation would start anytime, despite the proposals put forward by the Union Home Ministry.

The Sangai Express is not privy to the real politiks being charted out in the corridors of power at Delhi nor in the designated camps of the SoO groups, but certainly there seems to be a pattern or a design behind the inordinate delay in starting the political dialogue, which the KNO has been demanding for quite some time, with the Kuki State Demand Committee extending the needed vocal and street power.

Kuki State is the agenda of the KNO and obviously its strategy would be to make this central to the political dialogue it has been demanding. This is where a distinct irony arises.

Delhi and Imphal are the other parties of the SoO pact and while the State Government has made it clear that there would be no question of shedding even an inch of Manipur to create 'homelands' or 'greater Lims' to any entity, Delhi's stand has not been that clear.

Sure there have been verbal assurances, from no less a person than the Prime Minister of the country that the territorial sanctity of Manipur would not be compromised at any cost, but without a Constitutional guarantee or even a written commitment, there is every reason to raise the apprehensions of the people, who stand by the geo-political reality known as Manipur.

Certainly it would be premature to speculate on how the dialogue, if and when it starts, would proceed at this point of time, but it is important to note the strategies adopted by Delhi and the KNO.

Pile on the pressure, by way of bandhs and economic blockades. This is the KNO through its surrogate entity, the Kuki State Demand Committee.

Maintain a stoic silence, sit over the dialogue proposal but keep on extending the SoO pact is the strategy adopted by Delhi.

This is where the slip appears. In the very act of sitting on the dialogue proposal put forward by the Union Home Ministry, Delhi has conveyed an ambivalent stand.

If Kuki Statehood is something which cannot come under the terms of negotiations, then spell it out.

Creating confusion will only lead to chaos.

Or maybe this is what the Delhi mandarins want.

Whatever the case, the question of 'If' and 'When' has been doing the round for too long and maybe it is time to remind the Government of India to let its right hand know what its right hand is doing.