To look to the past or the future : The Black Day debate
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: September 12, 2012 -

The spirit behind the appeal to forgo the observance of September 13 as Black Day is appreciable.

It was on the stated Biblical virtues of 'forgiving others' that the United Kuki Liberation Front, Zomi Defence Volunteer and the Kuki Revolutionary Army (U) had urged the Kuki community to skip Black Day and this is something very meaningful.

Yet at the same time the Kuki Inpi, the apex body of the Kuki community, has asserted that it would go ahead with observing Black Day and based its stand on the customary laws of the Kuki, which reads as the wrongs done to the Kuki people be put right.

The two lines of thought cannot be separated in black and white, for the issue involves human sentiments, love, pride, emotion and all other attributes that fall in the realm of humanity.

However this should not deter right thinking people from either side of the ethnic divide to raise the question of whether observing Black Day is to relive the past and reinforce the bitterness, hatred and animosity that led to the ethnic clash of the 90s in which hundreds of people were killed or whether observing such a day is to serve the purpose of remembering the past so that such ugly incidents are not repeated in the future.

Whether to cling to the past or to look to the future. It is these two questions that should guide the debate over the merits and demerits of observing Black Day.

What is the spirit that drives the Kuki community to observe Black Day every year ?

Is it to demand justice for the Joupi massacre wherein more than hundred villagers were slaughtered in a single day, allegedly by the NSCN (IM), or does it amount to keeping the embers of hatred burning ?

This is a question that only the Kuki people can answer, but its ramifications should be significant to the whole of the State.

No group of people can afford to forget the past. Yet it is also important that in remembering the past, it should not serve as fuelling negative thoughts.

Rather the ugliness and bitterness of the past should be remembered precisely to ensure that such incidents do not recur in the future. This is the least that the present day adults can do for the younger generation.

In observing Black Day, let this be the primary reason. No one will feel the pain and trauma of the ethnic clash of the 90s more acutely than those who were the direct victims and it is only right that they be allowed to remember the departed souls.

However it also stands true that in remembering the near and dear ones, no room should be given to war mongers.

The past cannot be undone, but there is something that the Government and civil society organisations from all communities can do to lessen the negative impact of the past.

From the numerous applications and memoranda submitted by the Kuki Inpi to the Centre and the State Government, it is obvious that not all those who were displaced in the ethnic clash have been rehabilitated satisfactorily.

It should be clear to Delhi and Imphal that failure to address this issue can only fester the wounds of the past.

Different players may have tried to apply the healing balm, but it remains that there is still a lot left to be done. This is where the need for everyone to search their conscience arises.

It is about humanity and not merely between the Kukis and Nagas or the Kukis and the NSCN (IM).