"Though this be madness, yet there is method in't."
(Hamlet, Polonius, Act 2 Scene 2)
This very famous quote from Shakespeare is very suitable for the present situation in Manipur. Earlier people used to fight for the nation and the religion, but now they are fighting for quotas.
Quotas have been a big apple for Discord. All rush to the streets to fight and grab for the quotas. It is impossible to please all the caste and religious groups fighting or grabbing quotas.
Hundreds of people have died in communal violence for the quotas. Scores of private buildings, government offices, and cars have been burnt down. There is fear and violence everywhere. Claiming that reservation for Meiteis goes against the interests of Kukies. They claimed that they stand to safeguard our crucial, inseparable and traditional rights. The court judgment is in direct conflict with the will and ambitions of the Kuki people.
Resenting the reservation for Kukies goes against the traditional affirmative justice pattern, Meiteis have been opposing this type of reservation. They have been agitating for a long to demand reservations. They were insisting on special provisions for reservation. Not only this, Kukies can buy the land of Meiteis but Meities cannot buy the land of Kukies. There is resentment against this unfair law.
The crisis over reservation has also brought to the forefront an unpleasant truth that many tribal societies in the Northeast, particularly the Meiteis have been ignored. Meiteis want reservation and equality. There are hundreds of castes and tribes in the region like Meiteis and the degree of one-sided empowerment of some tribes only.
The Meitieis are highly peaceful people. They are very honest and clear on one point: that there should be equality and peace in the state. So they are vehement that they should get equal opportunity and reservation like the Kuki tribe. Facing unprecedented backlash, N. Biren Singh eventually softened to the suggestion/judgment of Guwahati High. He almost decided to demand from the Meite community an amendment to the reservation rules.
Kuki people opposed this fiercely. For now, though, the fight for equal representation for the Meite community is in limbo. Violence has forced them to ignore the demand to give reservations to the Meite community. Maity activists will continue to "speak for the voiceless", and emboldened by the Guwahati high court ruling. But Kuki, always fighting for their upper hand very aggressively from the hills.
Going to any lengths to retain it -will have both their resolve and conviction tested like never before as they battle for their rights against Meite.
There was a time when the bureaucracy in Manipur was the monopoly of Bengalis who migrated from Sylhet in Bangladesh who made Manipur their home but kept aloof from the local population mainly the Meiteis and condescendingly behaved with them. They went to the extent of replacing the Meitei script with the Bengali script. This created resentment among the peace-loving Vaishnavite Meiteis. The Meiteis have all along been fighting for the revival of their ancient language which has a rich literary history dating back to 1400 BC. The general feeling was that their ancient language was on its way to a slow death due to the imposition of the Bengali language.
The Meitei Hindus expected a change for the better with the change of government in the state and the centre. They were disappointed when the BJP government turned a deaf ear to their long-standing demand and added fuel to the fire by giving preference to Hindi in schools. People there believe that Bengali chauvinism has been replaced by Hindi chauvinism. Similar was the case in Punjab. The Khalistan movement was a creation of the appeasement by the then Congress governments to the unreasonable demands of the Sikhs. The funds came from overseas Punjabis and Chinese arms came from Pakistan.
It is the same language issue that resulted in the BJP losing the battle in Karnataka recently. The BJP central leadership would do well to understand that no one is opposed to Hindi. The opposition is to Hindi imposition. The imposition of one language in a country as linguistically diverse as others will not guarantee unity. India is a strange nation where the majority community is persecuted by the minority communities. Kashmir, the Punjab, Bengal, Kerala and now Manipur, Meiteis by Kukies.
Urdu imposition in Pakistan resulted in the birth of Bangladesh. What the Sinhala imposition did to Sri Lanka is there for all to see. Wisdom is not wisdom if it dawns late. "Those that fail to learn from History are doomed to repeat it." - said Winston Churchill in a 1948 speech to the British House of Commons.
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