Timely reminder to the Centre : Not yet dead after two decades
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: November 03, 2014 -

A reminder to the Centre, it is.

Address the issue of the Kuki people who were killed and displaced during the ethnic clash in the early 90s before any settlement is reached with the NSCN (IM).

Down the years the IM faction of the NSCN has increasingly made it more than clear that they represent the Naga people and the ethnic clash referred to here was the bloody confrontation between the Kuki people and the Nagas of Manipur more than two decades back.

Not the first time that such a representation has been made and from the latest memorandum submitted to the interlocutor of the talk, RN Ravi, it becomes obvious that nothing much has been done to translate the standing demand of the Kuki people.

Maybe the Centre or Delhi is too caught up with working out the intricacies of the peace talk with the IM group, but it should be clear that the Kuki Organisation for Human Rights (KOHR) has got the timing right in once again drawing the attention of the Centre to the issue.

This is all that more so in the face of the fact that it was not so long back that the NSCN (IM) leadership had gone to Delhi in anticipation of the next round of talk.

No one seems to know what exactly happened at Delhi or the main agenda of the peace talk, but the Kuki issue is something which has the potential to snowball into a bigger issue.

How Delhi goes about tackling the issue is something which only time can tell, but it is more than a case of the past catching up with the present or the past casting a shadow on the future.

Obviously an example that everything is not going to be hunky dory for the NSCN (IM) or Delhi.

A telling example that a peace talk or a political dialogue cannot be seen only through the prism of the parties involved.

That other factors can come in is a distinct possibility and the voice raised by KOHR should underline this point.

Clearly there are obstacles which have to be negotiated on the road to peace or lasting solution and not everything can be or should be seen only through the prism of the parties involved in the negotiation.

The memorandum is obviously addressed to the Government of India, but what has been left unsaid is the point that there can be other stake holders and not just the NSCN (IM).

More than indicative that the armed movement launched by the NSCN (IM) against the Government of India was not just an armed rebellion but something more and in such a movement, the possibility of others getting caught in the confrontation is something which cannot be written off.

If not for anything else then at least the memorandum of KOHR to RN Ravi testifies this.