Stirring up a hornet's nest
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: March 04 , 2014 -

If one is asked to single out one of the hottest current issues that is burning the heart and mind of everyone on either side of the Lim divide, then, without even batting their eyelid, he or she would surely zero in on to the sometime blow hot and sometime cold demand of the United Naga Council (UNC) for an alternative arrangement of the Nagas in Manipur outside the Government of Manipur.

Like the proverbial calm before the storm, a day after the New Delhi-based news network, Vision Communications filed a report on February 24 about the sudden decision of the Government of India to constitute a High Power Committee (HPC) armed with the mandate to study in details the demand of UNC and recommend practical measures to settle the issue in ten days’ time, there was an ominous sign of silence everywhere.

But by February 26, the stage was once again set for yet another round of showdown among all those on either side of the Lim divide.

Even as the upbeat UNC leaders, who had just returned home after a series of meetings few days earlier, rushed back to New Delhi for further rounds of meetings with officials of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), back home alerted United Committee Manipur (UCM) cautioned the people of Manipur to be ready for any eventuality.

Not to be left behind, Kuki Inpi Manipur and Kuki Organisation for Human Rights (KOHR) jointly dispatched yet another memorandum to the Union Home Minister reiterating that justice should be ensured to the victimized Kukis before any settlement is arrived at with the UNC.

Regardless of the uproar back home against the supposedly ‘imminent creation’ of an alternative arrangement of the Nagas in Manipur, elated leaders of UNC and officials of MHA were continuing what they described as their ‘joint exercise’ of picking out names of those who should and shouldn’t be included in the proposed HPC when All Manipur United Clubs Organisation (AMUCO) came out with its ‘avowed’ stand to safeguard the territorial integrity of Manipur at any cost.

As expected, this did not go down well with the UNC leaders, who retorted blaming both UCM and AMUCO for all ails afflicting Manipur today.

While accusing the Meiteis of trying to usurp the rights of the Nagas, UNC also played its trump card of ‘peaceful parting of the Nagas and the Meiteis’.

Meanwhile, taking the showdown to a higher political level, Opposition MLA L Ibomcha denounced the statement of the UNC on the impossibility of Naga-Meitei Union in Manipur as communal.

Raising the matter during the zero-hour of the last sitting of 7th Session of Manipur Legislative Assembly on March 3, the MLA demanded the Government Government of Manipur to declare UNC as an unlawful organisation.

On the other hand, Manipur People’s Party (MPP) has done what is always good at, condemning both the State and the Central Governments for letting UNC to come up with such alleged communal and provocative statement and pointed out that Manipur is not just the land of Meiteis but it is also the home of more than 33 tribes besides Meitei Pangal, Nepali, Sikh, Jain and other communities.

Well, we have nothing to comment on the stand points of all these active participants in the ongoing fiery showdown, which is not likely to be at rest so soon, but one thing we can assure is that New Delhi definitely knows to choose the right timing for stirring up a hornet’s nest.

Let us just wait and see how everything disappears after the Lok Sabha elections, leaving nothing but more bitterness among all the people whose destiny is tied together, whether they like it or not.