The visit of the Home Secretary, G.K. Pillai and the GOI’s interlocutor with Muivah’s rebel outfit, R.S. Pandey to the state capital made welcome news as the state struggles to wriggle out of a tight situation brought about by an immature cabinet over-reaction to a person wanting to visit his village of birth. It
is more so as it perhaps signals an admission of the Centre’s less than tactful management of the whole affair in not taking the state government (which on an earlier occasion has demonstrably acted on and shown the irritability of the dominant community in the state to even oblique references to violation of Manipur’s borders) into confidence before allowing the rebel leader to proceed on his journey.
If anyone in the gawky Indian bureaucracy can be expected to have any depth of understanding
over the complexity of ethnic politics in the Northeast, it is Mr. Pillai. He had served quite a bit of a stint as Joint Secretary in-charge of Northeast India before being elevated to the present position of Home Secretary. If he has served these positions with any dedication and some sincerity of purpose, he would certainly be able to read between the loud lines in the present crisis. He would know that the decision to allow Muivah to visit his native village is, and likely to be read as a subtle testing of the waters for a possible ceding of some part of Manipur’s territory to Nagaland to seek an end to the decades long Naga insurgency. He would also know that the Naga claims on territory overlaps Kuki traditional lands held by Kuki chiefs under inheritance and that Kukis can never accept any part of their traditional territories to be snatched away by any entity. He would also know that creating a Kuki state out of the traditionally Kuki territories in the hills of Manipur and allowing Muivah to ‘integrate’ the rest of the Manipur Hills into Nagaland will secure lasting peace. But the question is, does he have the will to prescribe such a pill to his political bosses? Further, even if he has that courage of conviction, will the congress leadership have the political acumen and statesmanlike resolve to carry that through? These are hard questions that need honest and prompt answers for lasting peace in the state.

As for the state that is Manipur, all the state governments since statehood in 1972 have consistently been indifferent to the rights and interests of its tribal populace. Development has been biased, neglecting the Hill Districts. The constitutional protection for tribal land and tribal people under article 244, more commonly known as the Sixth Schedule, has been vehemently denied and still obstinately brushed
under the carpet despite loud demands for holding the current ADC elections in the state under the provisions of the Sixth Schedule. The tribal ADC of Sadar Hills has not been declared a full-fledged District till today with the government playing the fabled Cat (arbitrating the sharing of a fish between two mice) between the Kuki and Naga tribals on the issue. Murmurs of incorporating Sadar Hills within
Imphal West and Bishnupur districts being unleashed on the grapevines are yet another indicator of the dominant-community-dictated state government’s anti-tribal designs which could completely wreck any semblance of unity left today. The government of Manipur, therefore, does not have the moral authority to object to any possible plans of the center to devise some form of self-determination for the tribal Kukis and tribal Nagas of Manipur within the constitution and Union of India.

As a seasoned top bureaucrat and one with exceptional experience in the affairs of Manipur and its neighboring NE states, G.K. Pillai, the Home Secretary, would know these well. The question again is, will Pillai prescribe the pill, however bitter, for lasting peace? Or would he prefer to ride quietly into the sunset without any trace, like so many brilliant but gutless minds before him in the annals of the Steel frame of India? Or, even if he were to muster the honest courage to prescribe the pill, will the political masters have the wisdom to have it administered without turning to some tantric of electoral fortunes for a second and binding opinion?