The newly reconfigured Niti Aayog meets [today] under the aegis of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The chief ministers of all Opposition-ruled states [except Bengal] are boycotting the meeting, arguing that there is no point attending a fiscal planning meeting when the Centre has so openly discriminated against them in the Union Budget. Among other things, the total boycott signals that Centre vs States is likely to be a running firefight in the NDA government’s third term.
But the most bizarre item of news surrounding the meeting is this: It will be the first time Modi and Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh will be in the same room after ethnic conflict broke out in the state on 3 May last year.
Biren Singh had, way back in January, sought a meeting with Modi, but the PM had no time for him. In June, three delegations from Manipur camped in Delhi hoping for a meeting with the PM, but with no luck.
Now Biren Singh is reportedly hoping — hoping! — for one-on-one time with the PM on the sidelines of the Niti Aayog meeting, to “brief the PM” on Manipur’s critical issues. Why would he need to do that, when he also says that he is in touch with the PM 24/7?
All of this is part of Modi’s ‘Teflon PM’ playbook. Whenever something goes wrong, Modi takes great care to distance himself from it — crumbling infrastructure, civil war in Manipur, China’s transgressions along the LAC, a collapsing railway ecosystem, whatever, he doesn’t want to know, because what he doesn’t know about, he can’t be held accountable for.
The state, meanwhile, continues to simmer. The latest development is that the Naga rebel group NSCN-IM has taken a hand, terming the ongoing violence an attack on Christian Kukis by Meitei armed group Arambai Tenggol. In a statement to the media, the group says:
“It is, therefore, natural that NSCN should take a stand to guard the interest and safety of the Christians in Manipur, given the fact that Arambai Tenggol bears a strong animosity towards the Christians, both in spirit and action”
Just what the troubled state needs — an armed Naga rebel group threatening to take a hand in the conflict.
Meanwhile the Manipur police reports problems with its wireless handsets, hampering communications even as sporadic acts of violence continue in various parts of the state.
In Parliament the Congress, which won both Lok Sabha seats from Manipur, has called out the Union government for making no special provisions for the state. The party points out that while the Finance Minister has provided financial assistance to flood-hit Assam, Manipur, despite suffering the twin blows of a catastrophic hailstorm and two successive floods for the first time in over 20 years, did not even merit a mention, far less special aid, in the Budget speech.
How does a Central government, whose motto is supposedly sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas, get away with so casually, callously, ignoring a state where a civil war has been raging for 452 days now, and counting?
This week, the US State Department updated its travel advisory to include Manipur, warning of terrorism and rape (emphasis mine):
Revising its travel advisory to include the northeastern states in India, the United States has asked its nationals to not travel to Manipur, Jammu and Kashmir, the India-Pakistan border, and areas in the country where Naxalites are active. In its advisory, the State Department has mentioned that “rape is one of the fastest growing crimes in India, sexual assault at tourist sites and terrorist attacks with little or no warning” to discourage travel to the country.
In this connection, note that the tourism sector’s outlay has been increased in the 2024 Budget “to achieve ‘Amrit Kaal’ vision”, whatever that is. Sitharaman in her speech said:
Tourism has always been a part of our civilisation. Our efforts in to positioning India as a global tourist destination will also create jobs, stimulate investment and unlock economic opportunity for other sectors
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It reminds me of Shashi Tharoor’s speech in Parliament this week, in course of which he said the Union Budget reminds him of the mechanic in the garage who told his customer “I couldn’t fix your brakes, but I have increased the volume of your horn.”
The above was is an excerpt from a post that was first published on Prem Panicker’s Substack, Smoke Signals. Read the original here.
