Where should the buck stop ?
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: January 22, 2024 -

NOTHING could be more ironic, nay, ludicrous, than to hear and listen to anyone speaking about peace and progress in the northeast region of Indian subcontinent at the moment.

One of the tiny but important state in the region, Manipur has been burning, literally, for the more than eight months now since May 3 last year following outbreak of an unprecedented violent conflict between people of two communities, namely, the Kuki-Chin, who live predominantly in the hills, and the Meitei/Meetei, who are concentrated mainly in the valley area.

Yet, while addressing the 71st plenary session of North Eastern Council (NEC) in Shillong, Meghalaya on Friday last, Union Home Minister Amit Shah stated that "the last 10 years under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi have been the most significant for development of the Northeast in the 75 years since independence".

He remarked that in these 10 years hot only the distance from Northeast to Delhi and the rest of India has reduced due to the creation of infrastructure, but the difference of hearts has also reduced".

Asserting that the Northeast, which was struggling with various ethnic, linguistic, border and extremist groups related problems, has also got the beginning of a fresh and durable era of peace in these 10 years, the Union Home Minister also contended that if these 10 years for the Northeast are compared with the 75 years after the country's independence, then this decade will definitely be considered as the Golden period of the Northeast, and went on to claim that the Government of India under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has "always considered the Northeast as an important part of India" and fresh impetus to the region by according priority to it in all the ministries of the Government of India along with implementation of the three mantras of "Act East, Act Fast and Act First".

These statements of the Union Home Minister sound so ironic and ludicrous if one has the guts to look beyond fudging of the data and look down to see what is happening on the ground without any political tinge.

It's true that after coming into power in May 2014, the BJP-led NDA Government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India has been able to bring some of the powerful insurgency groups operating in the northeast region to the negotiating table for dialogues and signing peace pacts.

But it's no secret to anyone that these peace dialogues or peace pacts have not been able to contain the problem of insurgency, other than compounding it.

In fact, after every peace pact signed, there has been more factional killings and the number of armed insurgent groups and their cadres only multiplying.

A case in point is the agreement of Suspension of Operation (SoO), which was signed formally between the Government of India and various Kuki militant groups in 2008.

At the time of signing the agreement, it was said that there were around 2,200 cadres of 24 Kuki insurgent groups that inked the ceasefire pact.

But today, 16 years down the line of signing the SoO agreement, the strength of Kuki militant groups and the number of their newly recruited armed cadres have increased so much so that they have no fear of taking on not only the now barely majority community Meitei/ Meetei but also the might of the Indian establishment and its security forces in their effort of realising the dream of Zale'ngam, a homeland to encompass Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Karbi-Anglong district of Assam in India; the Kabaw valley and parts of Sagaing Division and Chin state in Myanmar and. the Chittagong Hill tracts in Bangladesh.

By the way, as to the assertion of distance from Northeast to Delhi and the rest of India reduced, we would like to ask Union Home Minister Amit Shah why Manipur is still an unreachable place for Prime Minister Narendra Modi?

Does Mr Union Home Minister have an answer to this?

We doubt it, as he himself is yet to fulfil the promise of coming back in 15 days after his last visit to the strife-torn state at the end of May, 2023.