Amit Shah to Mohan BhagwatFrom across the border

‘It (violence) is not happening. It is being made to happen.’ This is not The Sangai Express nor Chief Minister O Ibobi or most significantly the Meitei media in Imphal which has raised this question, but the president of the RSS, Mohan Bhagwat. Significant to note too that the RSS chief qualified his statement with the observation and poser, ‘The conflict benefits external forces. Are external forces involved ?’ It was with a reason why The Sangai Express deemed it fit and proper to carry the Dussehra Rally event organised by the RSS at distant Nagpur on October 24 as the lead news, for it addressed the core issue in Manipur, a point which the people of Manipur have been raising in the last 150 days, and which have been endorsed by the statement of Union Home Minister Amit Shah on the floor of Parliament, not so long back. Yet there is nothing much to show that corrective measures have been taken up at the ground level to settle things as it should be. It is also extremely important to note that the announcement of the RSS chief came just 24 hours after two cadres of the Chin-Kuki Liberation Army were arrested along the Indo-Myanmar border at Chaljang village in Churachandpur district with drugs, a huge cache of arms and ammunition and cash amounting to nearly Rs 5 lakh. The report did not specify where the arms and ammos were headed towards, but it should not take much genius to work out where the drugs were headed to. With the drug route via Manipur having been cut off following the ethnic clash which erupted on May 3, Mizoram seems to be the ideal destination from where it can be taken to other parts of the country. Anyone who keeps a tab on the daily happenings in the region must be aware that Mizoram is now the favoured drug route and this should give a big impetus to the stand of Manipur that the present clash is intricately linked with the War on Drugs campaign launched by the State Government. Mohan Bhagwat did not touch on Poppy plantation and the drug trade, but the very fact that he raised a question on the involvement of elements from across the border in the ongoing conflict is the answer which is known to Manipur. Answer lies in the very question which was raised is the truism which cannot be refuted and this should expose the lie in the claim ‘Cannot live with them so give us Separate Administration’ raised by the ten Kuki-Chin MLAs and which is being pursued by the Kuki armed groups and the CSOs as well including the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum, Committee on Tribal Unity, Kuki Inpi, Manipur and others.
Mohan Bhagwat is not just another Tom, Dick and Harry and what he says should matter. Moreover he would not have opened his mouth on something so sensitive without first studying the reality. This is where it becomes important to question what the State Government has done to capitalise on the stand of New Delhi and the RSS. Remember the very poser, ‘Are extremists from across the border involved in Manipur violence’ falls perfectly in line with “the violence was triggered by an influx of Kukis from Myanmar into Manipur” proclamation made by the Union Home Minister on the floor of Parliament sometime in August this year. The popular demand for the National Register of Citizens should be seen in the backdrop of the facts which have been enumerated many times by Manipur and which have been given further credence by the observation of the Union Home Minister as well as in the very fact that the RSS chief raised a question on the involvement of elements from across the border in the ongoing clash in Manipur. The foreign hands should also be seen in the backdrop of the fact that the president of the Zomi Revolutionary Army (ZRA) is a Myanmarese and this is precisely the reason why the call for a National Register of Citizens has gained strong currency amongst the indigenous people of Manipur. With all the factors tilted heavily in favour of Manipur, Imphal needs to play its card well and this call should not be lost on the people either.