Now he says it. That 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 are 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 the 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.
In the past months, sympathetic comments like that of the chief minister not being given a free hand in dealing with the situation or of removing him the chairmanship of the Unified Command were there among sections of the people. Even calls for resignation of the security advisor or for removing him from the chairmanship of the Unified Command would follow. But, not all CSOs or women groups are voicing the said demand. Therein lies the paradox of the Meitei public opinion or postures.
Some might say, Meiteis are not united and it would be their ultimate undoing. There is no ‘Hoi-laoba’ culture among the Meiteis where everyone blindly follows the leader or majority opinion. A democratic spirit runs deep in the veins of the Meitei society and it is a ‘core value system’ which has withstood the wear and tear of time and history.
Question is, would things have been different if Chief Minister N Biren Singh was in charge of the law and order affairs of the state and still be the chairman of the Unified Command? If one remembers correctly, the first response of the Centre after violence broke out was parachuting a Security Advisor to the state ‘without’ officially invoking Article 355 of the Indian Constitution and vesting all security related affairs to him. In short, the Home portfolio was wrested from the state Chief Minister N Biren Singh and a ‘security advisor’ was put in charge.
Even now, the Chief Minister had not been able to categorically say that Article 355 is officially in operation in the state. The first thing that Security Advisor Kuldeip Singh did was to clarify that Article 355 is not being revoked in the state. Here we must understand that the Security Advisor Kuldeip Singh does not act on his own and the Union Home Ministry always takes the final call on everything. Again, the Defence ministry works on a different level and perspective. It is true of the External Affairs ministry as well. So far, Chief Minister N Biren has not been able to align the different perspectives and trajectories of the concerned ministries.
