New Delhi: Members of the legislative assembly or MLAs from both the Meitei and Kuki communities in Manipur are expected to join a peace session in New Delhi on Tuesday, which will be the first of its kind ever since the ethnic violence began in May 2023. Informed officials reveal that the talks would be monitored by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) Naga MLAs, who have been brokering parallel dialogues with both the communities in third-party neutral territories such as Kolkata and Guwahati for the past year.
This upcoming meeting is important as it will be the first time that Kuki and Meitei MLAs will sit together in one platform with the intent of healing and understanding. Most of the MLAs are already included in Delhi, while others will join them on Monday. But even then, the number of Kuki MLAs who will attend the conference is still unknown, though there is a promise that representatives from all concerned communities are to be there.
Basically, due to security reasons, tribal MLAs, including Ministers, have migrated from Imphal, the state capital, after the start of the violence. These types of MLAs said that people threatened to kill them if they came back to Imphal, where they would attend their offices or state assembly sessions. The few times they returned to the state, they flowed to Aizawl, Mizoram, before having to travel overland to Manipur’s hill districts.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah declared on September 17 that the MHA is now working closely with representatives of the Meitei and Kuki ethnic groups to help bring about stability in the troubled area. The ethnic tensions are persistent; today, most Meiteis live in the valley districts, while most Kukis live in the hill districts.
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