The emerald hills of Manipur have been quietly glowing with a flurry of political activities. Within a span of two months, the state has seen two "historic" visits.
The first was on 13 September when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Manipur for the first time since the deadly ethnic clashes began in May 2023. His visit may have ended in a fizzle, but, on 22 October, in what many considered an even bigger headline, Thuingaleng Muivah, the 91-year-old patriarch of the decades-old Naga insurgency, returned home to his ancestral village, Somdal, after over 50 years of exile.
Muivah—a name both revered and (once) feared—is the head of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim's Isak-Muivah faction, also called the NSCN-IM, and the key negotiator of the 28-year-long (and still ongoing) Naga peace process.
After spending a week in his village, Muivah made a stopover on 29 October at the Naga-dominated Senapati district headquarters before leaving for Nagaland, his current place of residence.
The "historic" visit of Muivah meant many things to many people. In his first stop at Ukhrul, Muivah was met not only by a large gathering of Nagas, Thangkhul elders, and church bodies, but also members of Meitei civil society groups. Kuki armed groups, too, extended support to the homecoming. This shift is significant.