What really transpired in the meeting between Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and the Chief Ministers of Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh? This somehow has become the million dollar question today in Manipur. If newspaper reports are to be believed, the Centre has secured a written commitment from the NSCN (IM) that it will accept the Indian Constitution and that the Naga group has also recognized the impracticality of redrawing state boundaries in the interest of peace in the Northeast. Meanwhile, 60 Nagaland MLAs irrespective of political affiliations have paraded in New Delhi and expressed their desire to resign if that would pave the way for a settlement. If we read between the lines one could predict the solution or ‘honourable settlement’ whatever that may be lies within the state of Nagaland and of course separate arrangements in the other states like Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. There lies the reason for summoning the chief ministers of Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh. Somebody was suggesting the other day that the Union Home Minister would not dare summon the Chief Minister of Assam Tarun Gogoi as he is too powerful. We cannot speak for Arunachal Pradesh. But it seems Manipur’s Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh seems to have a weak spot or that he is too eager to please the Centre at this time. Imagine the clouds of doom looming over his head with the latest scam on Loktak Lake exposed by Tehelka magazine. And, the latest scandal has come up at a time when the Congress High Command is on the lookout for sacrificial lambs in order to refurbish its image. Yet, one must understand that Okram Ibobi Singh has always an ace up his sleeve. He might resort to his typical counter-strike by championing the cause of Manipur’s territorial integrity and anti-Muivah stance to nullify the aftershocks of the Loktak expose. And he is bidding his time. One remembers the time when Okram Ibobi Singh had managed to erase the ghosts of fake encounters from public memory by a singular act of stopping NSCN (IM) General Secretary Thuingaleng Muivah in his tracks at Mao gate. The calculative Chief Minister certainly knows his public and he also knows how to play up public sentiment to suit him and his interests. On the other hand, the Mao gate incident had sparked off another movement of sorts with a host of Naga civil society organisations crying for alternative arrangement. It has long been predicted by knowledgeable persons that Thuingaleng Muivah’s dream would ultimately come down to such a situation. Fifteen years of talks is too much and too tiring. And India seems to have succeeded in smothering that dream. If media reports are to be believed, Sushil Kumar Shinde is very lucky person in what he has been able achieve which his predecessors had tried and failed. NSCN-IM might have begun the political talks without any preconditions, but India’s statecraft mostly based on Chanakya’s principles is without parallel. Once you are caught in a vise-like grip of Indian statecraft, it is very difficult to escape from its clutches. As the Naga civil society pressed alarm bells when Mamata Banerjee walked out of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) groups, the new Home Minister Shinde moved in to clinch the issue. Shinde must have given enough pressure to Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh to work out an arrangement with the Naga civil society groups based in Manipur. And it is time for Okram Ibobi to come clean on the issue. But before he or the state government takes any decision, he should take into confidence the various civil society groups active in the state and initiate widespread consultations to forge an arrangement of sorts within the territorial limits of the state of Manipur. And he must even be ready to step down, if the costs of bridging the hill-valley divide demands it or if new arrangements demand it.
