Akhu Chingangbam

#Manipur is witnessing violence again. Civilians being kidnapped, people being killed. Armed conflict ramping up. Strains between Kuki and Naga groups are bringing the state to a violent edge again. This is subsequent to BJP cutting a deal again with some in the Kuki leaderships to claw back power in the state at the cost of a more durable social and political settlement. BJP's political settlement, with unverified claims that the Union government will provide some kind of autonomy to Kuki Zo-dominated territories is likely to have caused the building of Kuki-Naga group strains. Claims of identity-based homelands in Manipur have always overlapped and have required a more dexterous Union gov't to establish a 'durable disorder', as Dr Sanjib Baruah put it. It is not the first time that a party in power in Centre has used the State's resources to bring itself to power in a northeastern state. But the current BJP as the govt and the party seems to have not found the dexterity and sagacity needed to stitch even such superficial political settlements in Manipur. Citizens of Manipur will continue to pay the cost for this, with their lives and livelihoods, if the Union gov't does not act to arrange a political and social truce, without preconditioning it to fit BJP's political ambitions. Mainland India's media-mounted public persons, from right and left, who had largely wrongly portrayed the conflict in Manipur earlier are now mostly silent or mealy-mouthed because the emerging 'story' does not fit the need of their politics. I say this often. The 'story' of Manipur is the 'story' of the hypocrisy, ignorance, structural racism and callousness collectively of the State, of those in power, the powerful and the influential in mainland India's public spaces. It requires us to look more closely at how Indian democracy has dealt with and continues to deal with the region and its citizens.

Friends, a brilliant movie from Manipur is being screened in Delhi and some other cities. BOONG Directed by Lakshmipriya Devi Original score by @Akhucha. Go watch it. It doesn't need Manipur's cultural and historical context to be enjoyed. If you do have references to get the subtext it's even more brilliant. Gooo watch