Centre hopeful of facilitating Meitei-Kuki talks to establish peace

After six rounds of talks each with Meitei and Kuki groups the Centre is hopeful of bringing them to the table for a joint meeting to stabilise the situation in Manipur and prevent further bloodshed and violence.

There have been no deaths since July 18 and the Centre is cautiously hopeful that the situation will return to normalcy. In an encouraging development, 82 percent attendance has been recorded in schools and administrative offices have begun to function too with a 72 percent attendance, according to official sources.

The video detailing the heinous assault on two Kuki women that surfaced just ahead of the monsoon session of Parliament is being investigated. While persons responsible for the attacks are being arrested, the youth who shot the video has been traced and his mobile recovered. The Centre is hopeful that the chain of events and motives behind the release of the video will be established.

The account that the women were being escorted by the police and were snatched by a Meitei mob is also being denied by those in the know. Two other videos that made the rounds of social media have been detected as fake and relate to events that happened a year ago in Myanmar and not in India.

The Centre will also request the Supreme Court on Friday to move the trial of the cases relating to the video depicting graphic violence to outside of Manipur to ensure a neutral atmosphere.

The efforts of the Centre to bring peace to Manipur stand in contrast to the actions of the Congress government in 1993 when minister of state for home Rajesh Pilot spent three and a half hours in Imphal have serious ethnic violence gripped the state. Of this time, he had lunch with the chief minister for an hour.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has monitored the situation closely in contrast to claims of the Opposition. He has often spoken to home minister Amit Shah twice a day and directly with the home secretary as well. The Opposition has been briefed of the situation by the home minister but has insisted on claiming that the state is “burning” and remains out of control, said sources.

The discussions involving retired judges and officials from both communities who have acted as intermediaries have made progress even though there are recalcitrant elements on both sides. Some Kuki leaders for example continue to insist on the carving out of a separate administrative unit for their areas. There are others who feel such issues can wait and the focus should be on restoration of peace.

The Centre is working on ensuring a neutral administration and tackling the trust deficit with a unified command under the security advisor Kuldeep Singh. Chief Minister Biren Singh is also working through the unified command with the objective of ensuring that more flare ups do not happen.

The Centre’s talks with Meiteis and Kukis seem to have made progress, the sources said, adding that the narrative put forward by certain groups that Manipur is in a state of lawlessness is not correct. Tensions between the two communities are high and there are small incidents but not on a scale that would suggest a collapse of law and order.

Recognising that the infiltration of people from Myanmar is adding to tensions in the state – in some instances the new arrivals have cut forest lands and villages have sprung up – the Centre has decided to gather the biometrics of persons coming in from the neighbouring country. These details will become part of a “negative list” for Aadhar and election commission rolls.

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Rajeev Deshpande

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