Brandishing the communal brush : 'I am not communal, you are' posture
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: January 30, 2013 -

Not everything, correction, nothing is right with Manipur.

The divide is deep and not acknowledging this would amount to adopting the 'Ostrich's head in the sand' posture.

This is the reality and while there does not seem to be a formula which is acceptable to all, this should not be any reason to continue to give space and room to the rabble rousers, whose only claim to fame is to sow the seeds of distrust and animosity amongst the people.

Increasingly the basis of politics in Manipur seems to rest on communal and ethnic divide.

'Don't agree with my political line of thought, then you are communal' is the line of approach adopted by the different competing forces and this has been played out at different platforms and venues and in different garbs.

So indefinite bandhs, indefinite blockades, give it any prefix or suffix, political aspirations, political demands etc all rest on the premise of pitching one community against the other.

So deeply embedded is this approach that all issues are today seen through the narrow prism of 'Us Versus Them'.

The agenda is simple enough.

To gain currency and strike the sentiments of the people, what better approach than to portray someone else as the villain of the piece.

Speaking out on behalf of the people has today come to mean lashing out at another community and this cuts across all the so called public leaders belonging to different communities and ethnic groups.

The prevalence of such a culture is the reason why a universal issue, such as the assault and molestation of a woman hovered dangerously close to a communal stand off.

The communal finger can be pointed at anyone and by anyone and today this has become a free for all for anyone or any organisation purporting to be speaking on behalf of a group of people.

From the indefinite blockade to pursue the demand of upgrading Sadar Hills to the status of a district to the counter blockade that followed and which resulted in Manipur witnessing a sort of a history in the form of the over 100 days highway blockade in 2011, from the indefinite bandh called in the valley area to demand justice in the assault and molestation of a woman in full public view to the molestation of a minor girl during the indefinite bandh, to the hill bandh that followed the indefinite bandh, to all issues confronting Manipur, the politics of viewing everything through the divides that community and ethnicity spawn is complete.

The Kuki State Demand Committee has suspended the public blockade imposed since the evening of January 24 following assurance from the Chief Minister that all efforts would be put in to initiate a political dialogue with the SoO signatories and now the United Naga Council has served a deadline of February 17 to continue the tripartite talk centering around the demand of an Alternative Arrangement.

In all the issues and demands raised, the propensity of raising or pointing the communal finger has been unmistakable.

In the rigmarole of the blame game that is being played out continuously, it seems everyone is communal in the eyes of the other while to oneself one is not communal.

This is tragic and at the same time comical.