Any lessons learnt from the last 2 years ? Need to introspect
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What lessons has Manipur learnt from the over 2 years of conflict ? It is not for nothing why there is the generally held belief that the true character of a people or a group of people comes to the fore during times of crises and one may need to look back at the days gone by since the evening of May 3, 2023 to study the character of the people that came to the fore. That Manipur was caught unaware by the violence that erupted on May 3, 2023 is a given but more than two years down the line and what steps have been taken up to rectify the shortcomings of the past ? Nothing much to write home about here but it stands that in the over 750 days of violence and stand off, there were points in time when Manipur seemed to have lost the plot, not exactly knowing how to proceed further. Who the foe was and is, is common knowledge but in between there came a time when Manipur exactly did not seem to know who they were up against with the goal post changing with each new development. What did the days of street protests, the muscle flexing exercise, the road blocks, the fire lit in the middle of the road, the ambulances told to take a detour, achieve ? Did this go any way in diluting the demand for a Separate Administration ? Did the days of protest on the roads of Imphal manage to win over any friends ? Or did the protests manage to send any point to Delhi and take Manipur nearer to the understanding of cleansing the place of illegal immi- grants ? Has it taken the place anywhere nearer to the demand to actuate the National Register of Citizens in the State of Manipur ? True Delhi has decided to fence the Indo-Myanmar border and put some conditions in the Free Movement Regime but how much will these measures help in tackling the menace of influx from across the border ? These are questions which the people should be raising. At the moment, everyone seems to have forgotten that those who have raised the Separate Administration call are still laying down the script of the narratives. And just how successfully the false narratives have been peddled can be easily discerned from the misleading question asked by the Assam Public Service Commission in the Agricultural Development Officer Examination. That the said question has been rolled back is welcome, but yet at the same time, it is amazing that Manipur seems to have overlooked the efforts of the Meitei Heritage Society to get the said question overturned. A point that not much have been learnt in the over 2 years of conflict and this is what is worrying. And it is precisely due to the unwillingness to scratch the surface and look at things as it should be that rooms are created for false heroes and heroines to emerge. If any worthwhile lesson had been learnt then it should rest on the premise that false heroes and heroines can and will emerge only when a conducive atmosphere is created for their emergence and it should not need anything extraordinary to realise who is best placed to create such an atmosphere.
Time for all to look inward, digest the reality that Manipur has missed the bus to proceed to the next point in the race of development, blinded as the people were and are under a false sense of superiority. A complex which has not served the interests of the place and her people in any way. It is precisely because of this false sense of importance and superiority that young students had to be herded out of their classrooms to come out on the roads and demand the extension of the Inner Line Permit System before it was ultimately enforced here in 2019. Land or ancestral land which should have automatically come under Constitutional protection, before ILP was extended, was willingly thrown away under the belief that the Meiteis are above the understanding of Scheduled Tribes. The missed chances, the unwillingness to acknowledge the reality and the willingness to be blinded by some cooked up stories that sought to ‘glorify’ the place and her people are facts that are scripted boldly on the understanding of Manipur today. The point is, have any lessons been learnt from the follies of the past or will Manipur continue to hark back to a ‘glorious past’ that practically does not seem to have much of a bearing in the 21st century ? This is where the question whether Manipur has learnt anything in the last 730 days becomes significant.
Time for all to look inward, digest the reality that Manipur has missed the bus to proceed to the next point in the race of development, blinded as the people were and are under a false sense of superiority. A complex which has not served the interests of the place and her people in any way. It is precisely because of this false sense of importance and superiority that young students had to be herded out of their classrooms to come out on the roads and demand the extension of the Inner Line Permit System before it was ultimately enforced here in 2019. Land or ancestral land which should have automatically come under Constitutional protection, before ILP was extended, was willingly thrown away under the belief that the Meiteis are above the understanding of Scheduled Tribes. The missed chances, the unwillingness to acknowledge the reality and the willingness to be blinded by some cooked up stories that sought to ‘glorify’ the place and her people are facts that are scripted boldly on the understanding of Manipur today. The point is, have any lessons been learnt from the follies of the past or will Manipur continue to hark back to a ‘glorious past’ that practically does not seem to have much of a bearing in the 21st century ? This is where the question whether Manipur has learnt anything in the last 730 days becomes significant.