In the evening of his life : The leader in Th Muivah
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: October 03 2018 -

At 84 he is definitely in the evening of his life.

But the hope that he has infused in his fellow Nagas is nothing short of a bright, beautiful and sunny morning.

As a brief report in a Dimapur based newspaper of an ailing Thuingaleng Muivah did the round, it quickly caught on with many highlighting the same on social media such as Facebook and many more sharing the same.

Many gave their observation on the man who has led the longest surviving insurgency movement in the region and probably the oldest in South East Asia.

The differences in political thoughts apart, no one can refute the fact that history will remember him as a man who guided the political progress of the Nagas and despite the arguments over the term Nagas and whether it is applicable to the hill people settled in Manipur, the fact stands that it is Th Muivah who has been able to give an identity to the Nagas and no one can refute this.

That this identity has today come to pose a challenge to the existence of Manipur as a geo-political reality is a different thing, but it stands that he has been able to internationalise the cause which he has espoused for the Nagas for decades.

So from a rebel leader who engaged in a bush war with the security personnel of India, today Th Muivah stands tall as a political leader of the Nagas.

Apart from this, it also stands that in him the Nagas have a far sighted leader, a man who can see beyond the next twenty, thirty years and it is this quality which has seen him emerge as a leader of the Nagas.

That he has concentrated his energy and time to being a leader of only the Nagas and not of the North East, encompassing other communities, could have been dictated by certain realisation which is only visible to him from the side of his fence.

The Sangai Express is more than certain that what is written here will not reach him or shake his belief, but it would be so much better if he can try to see things from the other side of the fence too.

Whatever one may say, the fact remains that the Nagas and the other communities will have to co-exist as neighbours and it would serve no purpose to further drive in the nail of division.

Here it would be wrong to say that it is only under his leadership that the seeds of division were sown amongst different communities for all have in one way or the other contributed their mite to the air of suspicion amongst the different communities.

Standing tall as the leader of the Nagas but one hopes that the wind of history will blow in such a way that there will come a time when Th Muivah will be recognised and acknowledged as a leader who stood tall for all, irrespective of community divide.

And this is where the Naga people too need to contribute what they can to take the persona of Th Muivah beyond their community.

The important question is whether the Naga civil society organisations have it in them to be called worthy followers of a leader like Th Muivah.

It also stands that Th Muivah needs to acknowledge that given the history of the land, particularly the history of Manipur, one cannot be the leader of only a particular community, for that will have the potential to be portrayed as the leader of only one community against the interest of the others.

This can be the most negative brush to paint a leader like Thuingaleng Muivah.