Manipur deserves top attention-and peace

It speaks of New Delhi's neglect and perhaps also a big media failure that this state remains wracked by violence more than a month after its eruption. We must aim for a better balance

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For over a month now, strife has afflicted people of the jewelled land' of Manipur, as its Sanskrit name goes. Violence began to convulse this northeastern state, one prone to ethnic divisions ever since it joined the Indian Union in 1949, after unrest over Scheduled Tribe status and quota benefits for its majority Meiteis recommended by the Manipur high court morphed into mob clashes. This decision, amid tensions wrought by the Bharatiya Janata Party state government's eviction of some hill Tribals from hilly parts around the Meitei-dominated Imphal valley, appeared to push Meitei and Kuki groups into battle in ways that indicate an alarming collapse of state authority. Last week saw a central minister's house in Imphal set on fire and arson attacks attempted at hes of other BJP leaders, raising fears of militancy embers having got fanned. Remedial efforts by the administration, or lack thereof, have been haunted by charges of a majoritarian push in local politics having shaken a delicate ethnic balance. The truth is more complex. Even so