Bid to combat false narrative
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: August 01, 2023 -

AT a time when many national media and news portals have started to focus on the Manipur violence with reports of most demonising the Meetei community in the wake of the naked parading incident, the announcement made by Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI) to organise a protest demonstration in New Delhi on August 6 will hopefully negate at-least the false narratives that the feud is due to religious difference between the two communities and fallout of discrimination of the tribal people.

Ever since the violence broke and grabbed the attention of the national media, there has been a tendency to paint the issue as fallout of years of religious profanation and denial of rights of the minorities by the majority community.

In fact, the latter presumption gained ground after Union home minister Amit Shah contended the directive issued by the High Court of Manipur in April to the state government to initiate process for recommendation of the Meetei/Meitei community as a Scheduled Tribe was the root cause of the conflict, which valley-based organisations have categorically objected to.

However, despite slew of clarifications issued through the media that the violence has little to do with the ST issue the national media continue to give weightage to Amit Shah’s remarks, consequently undermining the fact that the court issued the directive in what is simply endorsement of the ministry of tribal affairs’ multiple reminders regarding progress of the formal process, if any, initiated by the state government.

Nevertheless the national media and news agencies continue to cite the ST issue are the crux of the problem.

Taking advantage of Amit Shah’s stand as well as the handful of national media questioning the rationale for the demand or justification of the ST demand by the Meetei people, Kuki civil societies had been fairly successive in articulating tales that attempts are on to curtail constitutional rights of the tribal Kuki-Chin.

This biased narrative even led to the manipulation campaign impressing not only the national media but also at the international platform thereby evoking sharp contemptuous reactions whenever the Kuki tribes suffer loss of men in conflict whereas there had been no words of consolation despite brutal killings faced by the Meetei community during the on-going violence.

In short, there have been persistent campaigns in the state and from outside to tarnish the image of Manipur, especially the Meetei community.

Mention may be made that years before the April decree, petitions were filed against negligent attitude of the state and central governments to the demand for granting ST status to the Meetei.

As such, COCOMI’s objective to hold the demonstration at the national capital is need of the hour as mainland media aren’t analysing either the other multiple factors for outbreak of the violence or that there is involvement of infiltrators from across the border in the acts of violence against the Meeteis.

More importantly, COCOMI or any other concerned stakeholders can’t rest assured that holding demonstrations in Imphal alone would help protect the territorial integrity of Manipur or stop drug trading, which are some of the factors for polarisation in Manipur on ethnic lines.