​Safety first: on Manipur and a healing touch Politics & News

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If a bruised and bleeding Manipur wants to heal, the words of its first woman Deputy Chief Minister, Nemcha Kipgen, must be heard. She wants the buffer zones between the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zo communities to remain for now, particularly in areas where the scars run deep, because safety comes first. Hailing from the Kuki-Zo community, Ms. Kipgen had to take oath virtually from New Delhi when a new government was installed in the State capital, Imphal, on February 4, after two years of violence and a long stint of President’s Rule. While Chief Minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh is a Meitei, in an attempt to represent the three major communities in the government, Ms. Kipgen and Losii Dikho, a Naga, were named Deputy Chief Ministers. But the complexity of the ground situation is such that Ms. Kipgen is stationed in Kuki-dominated Kangpokpi, and unable to attend the Assembly session in Imphal due to security concerns. In an interview to The Hindu, she described approaching the road to peace like a mother, with empathy and care. Her work is cut out because, at this juncture, there is an acute deficit of trust in the BJP government, and between the majority Meiteis, who dominate Imphal Valley, and the tribals, particularly the Kuki-Zo communities, of the hill districts.

More than 250 people have been killed and around 60,000 people were displaced after ethnic violence between the Kuki-Zo and Meitei people erupted in the northeastern State on May 3, 2023. What is worrying is that skirmishes have begun between the Kuki-Zo and Nagas as well, with the Manipur police having to evacuate Kuki students from a school in Naga-dominated Ukhrul district after a recent flare-up between the communities. Manipur is no stranger to violence, having witnessed waves of insurgencies ever since it attained full Statehood in 1972, and the three main communities must find a way to peaceful coexistence in the geographical space they live in. Ms. Kipgen wants to hear each community’s pain on their terms but she also drives home the point that every one must recognise the common ground that binds Manipuris — “our shared spaces, tribal heritage, cultural values, languages, faith traditions, social institutions, and our future, especially the future of our children”. Harmony, she says, does not mean sameness; “it means respecting distinct identities while strengthening the bonds that allow us to live together”. Her political masters too will do well to hear these words because the cycle of violence has to be broken. A rhetoric of hate has no winners. But first, Ms. Kipgen has to feel confident to travel to Imphal.