The Prime Minister of India visited the troubled state of Manipur on Saturday, for the first time in more than two years since a conflict broke out between two inimical factions that make up the state. Over the last two years, the ruling government at the Centre -- and at the State, which, until the president’s rule was imposed by the BJP, allowed the conflict to fester and spiral out of control. Even today, despite a modicum of normalcy having returned, the situation remains tense, marked by deep suspicion between the two communities.
That the situation took so long to resolve has many factors. But one of the major factors was the central government’s refusal to hold the state government accountable for its partisan dealings with the situation, which only served to deepen suspicion between communities and delay a resolution of the issue. That the Prime Minister was able to visit the state this year is largely down to the normalcy that has been possible thanks to the imposition of President’s rule in February this year, after the resignation of Chief Minister N Biren Singh.
Singh, who is a Meitei, made no bones of his partisanship and spewed rhetoric that only served to inflame the conflict further. All this was tolerated by the central government only because doing otherwise would mean acting against the government run by their own political party. During these unending difficult months, his government regularly ignored the advice of the Assam Rifles, the force sent to maintain peace between communities. With state government support, armouries were routinely looted, security personnel attacked, and to make things worse, the paramilitary forces had to operate with their hands tied -- given that one side had tacit support of the ruling government of the day.
Today when the the Prime Minister blames the opposition for seeking to destabilise the country, he would do well to introspect his own government’s role in allowing a state to fester in civil strife for nearly eighteen months during which lives were lost, economies were ruined, lives were upended and haunting images of women being stripped and paraded naked brought shame to the whole country.
In this background, the Prime Minister’s visit to the state is not only too little too late, but also smacks of insincerity towards the people of Manipur who were quite literally allowed to stew in their own juices for 18 months. The Prime Minister’s visit hasn’t answered another crucial question that needs to be heard. What's next for the state that’s currently in limbo politically, ever since the incumbent chief minister resigned earlier this year? Is there going to be an election sometime in the near future? Is there going to be a new government with a different chief minister stitched together by cobbling together a coalition? Is the situation calm enough to be conducive to holding an election? It is difficult to recall a time in the history of independent India where the union government fumbled in managing the security situation in a state for such a long period of time.
We wish we could say that the Prime Minister’s visit to Manipur was symbolic, but in the absence of any concrete gains, it is not only too little too late, but also a missed opportunity for building trust between communities to come together for lasting peace.
