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Front Page >> Editorials > Story

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Rallying Point
Peace talk in New Delhi between the top leadership of the NSCN (IM) and the Government of India, represented by no less a person than the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister and a massive peace rally at Imphal pledging to protect the territorial integrity of Manipur, perhaps sums up the shadow over the ongoing dialogue between New Delhi and the Naga rebel group which has been waging a bush war against the Indian Government for the last five decades or so. 

The stand of the people of Manipur has been clear from the day the NSCN (IM) agreed to a cease fire with the Indian security forces on August 1, 1997 and the mood of the people was amply demonstrated during the massive rally organized by the All Manipur United Clubs' Organization on August 4, 1997 to oppose any designs to compromise with the territorial integrity of Manipur. Another rally followed suit on September 4, 2000 jointly organized by the AMKIL, NIPCO and AMSU and a wave against any designs to tamper with the boundary of Manipur was born and given shape. 

The rally of January 8, 2003 organized by Solidarity Committee on Territorial Ethnic Integrity, Manipur also followed the same spirit of the two earlier rallies and what is note worthy was that the rally took place even as the NSCN (IM) leaderships are scheduled to touch down at Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi late in the evening of the same day.

In between these three historic rallies was the Bangkok Declaration of June 14, 2001 that extended the geographical coverage of the cease fire between the Centre and the NSCN (IM) to all Naga inhabited areas. What followed in the days after the Bangkok Declaration is there for all to see and the June 18 uprising which led to the loss of many precious young lives and the torching of the State Assembly and numerous political offices and Government quarters go to proof that to the people of Manipur, the territorial integrity of the State is sacrosanct. 

The days that followed, until the Centre rolled back the cease fire extension, will surely find a place in any history of a people. Women folks defying curfew and staging a torch march, students braving the security bandobast and the hot, humid July sun to surrender their text books to the Governor to protest the cease fire extension, are stuffs that revolutions are made up of. The State saw all these and more. After the cease fire extension was rolled back, numerous civil societies, notably AMUCO, UCM and a host of other voluntary organizations came to the fore to extend that healing touch and bridge the differences that arose amongst different communities in the State. 

The process of applying the healing touch is still on and we pray and hope that the soothing balm will have the desired results. We hark back to the past events because these are still very relevant today. Though the Centre has been crying hoarse that the territory of Manipur would not be compromised, the apprehension in the minds of the people still refuse to go away and fittingly any peace talk should result only in peace and not sow seeds of mutual distrust and suspicion.

(Courtesy: The Sangai Express)

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