Collateral damages of ongoing clash : Pushing false narrative
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 20 2023 -

Whichever way one looks at it, it is heartbreaking, though completely avoidable.

Call it collateral damage but the more than 200 days of clash has also seen the fall from ‘pinnacle’ of some personalities in the eyes of the public and this has been painful, very painful to The Sangai Express.

Reflects something profound on the way in which society has been existing and is heading towards.

Maybe no one would give much of a thought to the question of which direction society seems to be heading but there is something deeply concerning about this and this is where it becomes incumbent on the part of everyone to shed their ego and opinion formed by looking only within oneself.

Time to look at things and understand it from a bigger perspective. The important point is, this is about the continued existence of Manipur as a geo-political reality and certainly this is not the time for the self to cloud one’s perspective.

It is this which can derail the right narrative, a narrative that is based on what really happened at the ground reality.

To ensure this, it then becomes important, very important for everyone concerned to shed their egoistic take on things that concern everyone and not give it a totally personal twist to the reality.

Nothing can be more tragic than this and blindly allowing the ego to blind oneself to the reality and give a push to the agenda that is being pursued by those who have taken an anti-Manipur stand will be not only self defeating but also erode the very idea of Manipur.

Everyone should come around to this idea-this is not the time to let one’s personal biases, however deeply rooted it may be, give room to anyone to further twist and pollute the understanding of the present stand off.

A stand off that has claimed nearly 200 lives, displaced thousands of people from the place they once called home and are forced to live at relief centres spread across the State.

This is all that more important if one occupies a social position, a position which everyone looked up to at point of time or the other.

Unfortunate it is that some amongst the people have allowed the ego to blind their vision and shut their views to the reality and in the process derail the narrative that is being sought to be presented not only to the whole country but to the world.

It is for a reason why The Sangai Express has struck a hard stand on the false narrative that has been peddled and which has been consumed with so much dexterity by the fly by night operators and it pains to see when this very false narrative is given some sort of a legitimacy by those who were once placed on a pedestal.

Manipur fits the bill of the understanding ‘Public worship and public wrath are two sides of the same coin,’ and presently the place is witnessing the side of the wrath scripted by the very set who are at the receiving end.

The time also calls for all to look beyond the obvious, the obvious which has come out in all its ugliness in the public forum and question how such a thing came to occupy the public domain.

It is a matter of concern that in the dust and anger kicked up by the content of what has come out on the public domain, not much thought has been given on the how and why it has come out.

It is this point which every right thinking citizens of the land should be raising within themselves.

Today the victim is someone, tomorrow it could be anyone and certainly the old understanding, ‘Walls have ears’ seems to have come eerily true.

This is one point Manipur should be worried about. Questions should be raised at the right time and now is the time to raise such questions.

As noted in an earlier commentary in this very column, the longer the clash and days of unrest continue, the more Manipur will suffer and today it is the collateral damage that one is talking about and tomorrow the collateral damage could be something worse.

Nobody would want such a thing to become a reality but it stands that in the given reality, silence is the better part of valour.

Mindless utterings of words, words which are blinded by ego and a bloated sense of self importance can be the undoing of anyone.

The present is the best lesson to drive home this point.