Everybody wants a chief minister who is firm and resolute in governance, fair and impartial in dealings with the common populace and deliverance of law and justice. Nobody wants a weak chief minister, who hesitates in taking decisions and always look over the shoulder before taking any decision pertaining to the state, at this particular juncture of crisis in the state (Manipur).
Seventeen months is a long time for any ethnic crisis with several thousand internally displaced persons including women and children languishing in relief camps and other temporary shelters with no hope in sight of returning to their original home and hearth. Whatever be his utterances on his attempts for upkeep of the territorial integrity of the state and preserving the indigenous communities besides the fight against narco-terrorism, a sense of fair-play and resolute action against violence had been found lacking in the actions of the chief minister all along.
All along, he had been playing the Meitei card and its existential crisis in the wake of limited living space and political aspirations in quandary. Whether the Meitei community is facing an existential crisis or not is a matter of debate as well as the reasons cited for such a situation in the backdrop of demands for conversion into Scheduled Tribe and lack of self-determination space. But, one thing is certain.
Chief Minister N Biren Singh is not acting like we want him to in defence of our territorial integrity or in the interest of the Meitei community and historical compulsions of communal harmony and ethnic diversity. He needs to understand that he is the chief minister of a state inhabited by diverse communities and that an inclusive approach in every policy is a must to bind the diverse communities together. Sadly, it has been otherwise all along through the 17-month long crisis.
While violence had come down in most parts of the state, the border district of Jiribam in the west is burning once again. The day Home ministry hosted a joint meeting of legislators cutting across communities in New Delhi, violence broke out in Jiribam where the state administration had supposedly brought Meiteis and Hmars together in negotiations. The real issue is that, central leaders are not giving him the leeway that he needs. He is he is no longer in command of the security architecture popularly known as the Unified Command and he is stripped of the powers to oversee the functioning of the Unified Command as he is a Meitei and the clashes is between Meiteis and Kukis. He has no issue and he does not mind Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s decision.
One might say, who are we to lament or criticize the Home Minister when the person himself chooses to lamely accept the decision? Do we need to remind him that he holds the post of chief minister by virtue of being elected as the leader of the BJP parliamentary party and not because he is a Meitei, which also mandates him to act as a Chief Executive of the state who acts only in the interests of the state and not in the interest of a community inhabiting the state?
So, everyone expects him to act as a chief minister who is also in charge of Home department, and not at the beck and call of central leaders as law and order happens to be a state subject in case he has forgotten about it. When he says there is no harm in him not being the chairman of the Unified Command he is in fact agreeing to the notion held by his own party leaders that he would not do justice to other communities other than the community he belongs to.
So where does that leave him? Is he the Chief Minister of Manipur or a Meitei leader? He should have the guts to assert his leadership and put his foot down. He may not mind his present predicament, but the proud Meiteis do mind.
