FROZEN CONFLICTS: TIME BOMBS TICKING IN THE NORTHEAST

Left on their own, old hostilities can lead to frozen conflicts. Rather than treating them as legacy troubles that can erupt again, the need is to intervene and resolve

- PRADIP PHANJOUBAM

AUTUMN is a festive season in the Northeast. In the true sense of John Keats' immortal lines in his "To Autumn," here this is the "season of mist and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom-friend of the maturing sun." The rains have ceased, summer has eased to give way to mild hints of the approaching winter, prompting people to get their warm clothes ready. Hard labor at the rice paddy fields is over, with the paddies having fructified and awaiting a few more weeks before the seeds ripen enough for harvest.

For any traditionally agrarian community, this is a short interlude of restful bliss in the yearly cycle of life. In Manipur, the season opens with some of its most enchanting festivals. This year, however, they were celebrated in subdued ways. This is also the first time in two years since the outbreak of a bitter ethnic conflict between two of its major communities—Meiteis and Kuki-Zo group of tribes—that people, by intuitive consensus, decided to not completely forgo these festivals.

Hence, during October end and November beginning, in quick succession, Diwali, Kut, and Ningol Chakouba enlivened the state. Christmas and New Year are not too far away, and then traditional spring festivals. If Autumn is rest time, Spring is the start of another cycle of life. Therefore, though an occasion to celebrate, it comes with a measure of uncertainty. T.S. Eliot sums up this mood in his equally immortal line, "April is the cruellest month," in his "The Wasteland."