When you become the Chief Minister of Manipur, there is one thing you must never forget, even for a second: you are the Chief Minister of Manipur. You are not a businessman whose primary concern is calculating gains and losses. Politics is not about determining which community will gain and which will lose.
When dealing with the communities that constitute the people of Manipur, you are not expected to advise them on what they might gain by living together with other communities. Your responsibility is to ensure that every community can live together with dignity, security and equal rights. You are the Chief Minister of the State, not a political guru. At a time when peace has not been restored, the people expect leadership and concrete action—not lectures on who stands to gain or lose.
The failure to restore communal harmony in the State cannot simply be described as a failure of the people; it is fundamentally a failure of governance. Since both the Union and State Governments are led by the BJP, and since the State Government enjoys the support of a substantial majority of legislators, the responsibility for restoring peace rests squarely with the government and its political leadership. If the government has failed even to establish harmony among political colleagues and within its own broader political constituency, it has little justification for lecturing the people about the supposed gains and losses of coexistence.
The Chief Minister’s remarks about the “loss and gain” of the Meitei community are particularly unfortunate because they were made on an important occasion—Irabot Day. Hijam Irabot stood for the dignity, self-respect and political consciousness of the Manipuri people. He opposed subjugation and advocated collective struggle for social justice and equal opportunities for development without communal discrimination.
To invoke the question of a community’s “loss and gain” on a day commemorating such a leader projects a deeply troubling political message. At a time when people are looking for a path towards reconciliation, dignity and lasting peace, the language of communal gain and loss risks reducing a profound political and social crisis to a calculation of competing interests.
Restoring harmonious relations among the communities of Manipur is not merely a political promise; it is a fundamental responsibility of the government. Peace cannot be built through surrender to any group or submission to any political master. Peace without surrender is the peace people seek.
A peaceful life with dignity, security and freedom from fear of losing one’s identity, rights or future should be the essence of politics. The people do not need political rhetoric about who will gain and who will lose. They need a government capable of creating the conditions in which every community can live with dignity and without fear.
Mr Chief Minister, peace is not achieved through hollow promises or political rhetoric. It is built through justice, equal dignity, responsible governance and concrete action.