Emergence of power players Need to exercise caution

Manipur needs to be very, very cautious and this observation is made not without a reason. Ever since Manipur went up in flames in the evening of May 3, 2023, no one seems to know who is calling the shot. The result is chaos and all round confusion  and it is in such a situation that power players of different hues will emerge and Manipur is undergoing such a situation at the moment. Even as the storm kicked up by the strong voice of protest raised by Senapati based civil society organisations against the assault and looting of two Poumai youths some days back is yet to die down, at least two prominent Rongmei organisations, the Rongmei Naga Youths’ Organisation (RNYOM) and Rongmei Naga Students’ Organisation, Manipur (RNSOM) have raised a strong voice of protest against the assault of a Kabui civilian at Keikhu Kabui Khul in Imphal East on November 5. Round this off with the brutal assault of the Headmaster of Irilbung Government High School in Imphal East within the sanctum sanctorum of the educational institution on November 7 and Manipur today comes close to the understanding of a place where brute force can be used and unleashed by anyone as if there is no rule of law. Demonstrating brute force inside a Temple of Learning and not surprisingly students and teachers of the said school have come out as one to lodge a strong protest. Not the first time that people have had to come out and lodge a protest against the increasing demonstration of brute muscle and gun power reflecting a situation where there just does not seem to be a Government in place. What is the State Government doing is a question worth raising at the moment. Manipur and her people have been reeling under an undeclared state of war for over 18 months now and making things worse is the emergence of different power players who have not hesitated to throw their weight around and in the process ride rough shod over the sensibilities of the people, the very set of people on whose behalf some of the power players have ostensibly emerged. This is not the way to go about it and this is certainly not the way a State of the Indian Union should be governed. Delhi or the Government of India may or may not take note of what is happening in Manipur, but it is more than clear that there are some elements who have emerged to make the situation all that more critical for the people.
And even as different power players have emerged all over to make life for the people all that more difficult, it is more than clear that Manipur is still far off from normalcy.  Violence has reportedly come knocking back at Jiribam with deadly repercussions with reports coming in that some houses have been torched and one killed. The details are not yet clear, but already the social media platforms are rife with different versions of the violence that erupted sometime late in the night yesterday or in the wee hours of today. Purported video footage of the attack at the village has also gone viral on the social media, all definite pointers that normalcy is still a far cry away. In the last few days there have been reports of bullets raining down on villages lying at the foothills and at the paddy fields where farmers were out for the harvesting work and if the past is any indication the violence at Jiribam will not be the last either for there seems to be no lack of firepower on either side of the communities at war with each other. This is where one is reminded of the posers on whether Imphal and Delhi have worked out the roadmap to peace and normalcy. Or was the October 15 meeting at Delhi, where the Central team first met the Kuki-Zo MLAs, a part of the roadmap ? If at all this was a roadmap, one wonders why nothing has been let known to the people or if what was discussed are supposed to come under the classified information bracket, then why hasn’t this been spelt out ? The Government still has a lot to do and to say this when Manipur has been burning for over 18 months should underline the importance of the words, ‘still a lot to do’.