From 19th to 20th month of mayhem Creating confusion

From 19 to 20 and in just a few days time Manipur would have completed 19 months of mayhem and step into the 20th month. This means that Imphal and Delhi have been groping in the dark on how to deal with the ongoing crisis and even as the world gets ready to welcome year 2025, to Manipur it would not mean anything different from the last 19 months, that is dating back to the evening of May 3, 2023. Just how lost is Delhi and Imphal in studying, much less coming anywhere near to taking Manipur to the path of normalcy can be gauged from the utterances of the Delhi mandarins. A sure sign that Imphal has disappointingly failed to convey what should be conveyed to the Delhi bosses. So while Amit Shah first pointed to the ruling of the High Court of Manipur as the reason for the violence to erupt this changed to illegal immigration with the latest being an ethnic clash. The illegal immigration point was repeated with conviction by Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar when he said that immigrants from across the border is one primary factor for the violence erupting in Manipur while addressing a gathering in the United States. To give weight to the illegal immigrants line of thinking Delhi did not dilly dally in announcing that the Indo-Myanmar border would be fenced and topped this off with the declaration that the Free Movement Regime would be suspended. Just how confused Delhi is can be seen clearly in its later decision to grant free movement across the border with the 10 kilometres rider and a compulsory permit to be obtained from an Assam Rifles post. Confused Delhi, but yet at the same time it has been pursuing its own political agenda and in the process making things worse for Manipur. It was again Home Minister Amit Shah who gave a sort of a pat on Chief Minister N Biren when he informed Parliament that he is co-operating. Yet in the same vein this did not stop Delhi from the removing the ‘co-operating Chief Minister’ from the Chairmanship of the Unified Command. Delhi not consulting the Chief Minister when appointments to key posts such as the DGP and the Chief Secretary are made has taken the understanding of a ‘co-operative person’ to an altogether different level. This is what has left the people confused and flabbergasted. In the initial days of the conflict, Manipur was given to understand that the Union Home Minister would look after the hills while the Chief Minister would be in charge of the valley districts and one wonders how responsibility would be fixed now for the spate of attacks that have been launched from the hills, the latest being the bombardment of villages lying at the foothills, the Meitei settlements of Sanasabi, Shantikhongbal, Shabungkhok in Imphal East.
Much like 2023, Manipur would not step into the new year any wiser or anywhere near the understanding of normalcy. From May 2023 to till when in 2025 is however one question that would be raised by many even as the people join the rest of the world  in stepping into the new year on January 1. It has been a disturbing year, much like 2023 but what sets apart 2024 to the previous year could be seen in the emergence of the Congress as the political party which has been making all the right noises. It was this which saw the oldest political party emerging top in the Lok Sabha election held in the early part of 2024, wresting both seats by extremely comfortable margins. To those who have been watching the political developments closely, it would be more than clear that the Congress of today is a much more effective party with just 5 MLAs than the Congress just after the 2017 Assembly elections when it had 28 MLAs in its kitty. That a good number of them switched sides later is a different thing, but the people voted 28 Congress MLAs in the 2017 Assembly elections. However with just 5 MLAs after the 2022 Assembly polls, the Congress is today seen as a much more effective and forceful political party. This is what is interesting and this is something which this column had commented upon some time back. Apart from the ongoing violence with no end in sight, 2024 may be understood as the year that the Congress managed to come back into the reckoning and this is saying something a lot for remember this has come about when the BJP returned figures of 31 MLAs in 2022.