Interesting or tiresome month ahead : Talks with SoO groups, UNC
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: February 01, 2013 -

Proposed Kuki State map and Alternative Arrangement demand (file Photo) :: Pix - TSE

February 2013.

This is certainly going to be an interesting month for Manipur.

Maybe tiresome may be a better choice of word. Obviously dialogue or sitting across the negotiating table is the best approach to address an issue, any issue, but equally important too is the agenda of the talk.

With the Government of India already deciding to appoint former Director of the Intelligence Bureau, PC Haldar to head the Government team in the political dialogue with Kuki armed groups, which are under the SoO pact, the first important step towards kickstarting the talk may be said to have been taken.

It may not be a co-incidence, but equally significant too is the process reportedly taken up by the Government of Manipur to hold the next round of tripartite talk with the United Naga Council.

Indications are that the political dialogue with the Kuki groups can start anytime in the first week of February while on the other hand everything suggest that the State Government and Delhi are moving forward to meet the deadline of February 17 set by the UNC for the next round of talk.

Clearly a busy month ahead. Two talks with organisations representing two major tribal groups of Manipur and the intriguing part is how the Government, both at Imphal and Delhi, will deal with two competing claims on land and territory.

The proposed map issued by the Kuki State Demand Committee as well as the areas demarcated as Naga inhabited areas overlap each other significantly and this is where the bone of contention may emerge prominently.

Not an unenviable situation.

Kuki State or autonomous State within the State of Manipur and Alternative Arrangement for the Nagas of Manipur, outside the Government of Manipur and pending a final settlement to the Indo-NSCN (IM) talks and things are as confusing as before.

Where does this leave Manipur as a social and political entity ?

Tiresome, it certainly could be, for there are too many competing claims and forces over the place called Manipur and the last 10-15 years stand as the mute testimony to this.

From the numerous blockades on the highways to the recent indefinite bandh in the valley area, all are enough indications of how the people as a whole have perfected the art of flexing their muscles over their respective domains.

If the Nagas, read the UNC and the ANSAM, showed that they could cut off the lifelines of the State in 2005, 2010 and 2011, then the Kukis or say the Kuki State Demand Committee too demonstrated how they can cut off communication and movement of people in all the hill districts during the recent spates of public blockades.

Again the Kukis under the Sadar Hills Districthood Demand Committee showed how they can cut off all the lifelines during the marathon blockade imposed in 2011.

The valley people too did not fail to show case that they too can disrupt the movement of people during the recent indefinite bandh that was so stringently imposed and enforced in the valley area.

Clear cut instances of the propensity of the people to wield their clout in their respective domains and reflective of the fact that there is not one single community which can lay sole claim on any part of the State’s territory.

Yet despite this, it has not stopped the demand for a Kuki State or the demand for Alternative Arrangement.

It is against this reality that the talks with the two major tribal groups of Manipur will proceed in February 2013.