One Year of Manipur Violence

Even as the entire nation is busy with the Lok Sabha election 2024, far away in a corner in India(Manipur), the conflict has reached one year. The war that broke out between the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zo on May 3, 2023, is still raging with no end in sight. The high decibels of Lok Sabha campaigning have muted the noise of guns that are fired in Manipur- guns that kill fellow Indians. The star campaigners from both the ruling and opposition parties have also largely forgotten the tragic human disaster in Manipur. As we mourn this one year of apocalyptic war, few hard questions must be asked: Firstly, what is so different about Manipur that the Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi has decided not to visit even once? Since Biren Singh could not stop the conflict, why wasn’t he asked to step down even now? Since elections were held in Manipur even when the situation was not conducive, and since Armed Forces were pulled out from buffer zones for election duty elsewhere in India, is election more important than human lives?

When the results are out on June 4, election results of Manipur would also be shown and the world would be told that peace has returned. The question is, would a situation like Manipur be allowed to continue even for a month if it had happened in mainland India? There is a gradual feeling in Manipur that, there is even a racial bias in this neglect and the sounds of silence is loud enough on whose lives matter more in India.

Meanwhile, Biren Singh still sits in his high chair stained with blood. In his usual self, he is still active in social media posts. Many accuse him for spreading the flames of hatred that started this war which has killed precious Meitei and Kuki lives. According to his latest post, the war has not even started. It seems like this whole year would be the same stories of last year with only a different narrative to shoot.

While people from both the Meitei and Kuki communities look forward for the conflict to end, Manipur state government has bought many bullet proof vehicles which were hitherto used only by the Indian Army. The fact that the Manipur Police is already polarised is an open secret. The script seems ready for the show for this year. Can’t a rising power like India stop this?

The fact that the Prime Minister of India has not even visited once even after the violence has raged for one year speaks a lot about today’s India. One expected that the same passion he showed about women welfare in Sandeshkhali be also shown to women in Manipur. Somewhere deep down, the soul of India has died and even the torrential rains in Northeast cannot wash away this air of pain and abandonment.