GUWAHATI: Yumnam Khemchand Singh moves with discipline. On the mat and in politics. A taekwondo master and Manipur's next CM, his two lives dovetail at a moment the state badly needs balance.
Elected Tuesday as the leader of BJP's legislature party, the 62-year-old MLA from Singjamei in Imphal West district is set to take charge after nearly a year of President's rule in the state scarred by ethnic conflict.
He arrives with a rare credential: first Indian awarded a 5th Dan black belt in traditional South Korean taekwondo - a rank reserved for senior masters and custodians of the art.
The honour came late last year in Seoul, where Global Traditional Taekwondo Federation vice president Mayong Suk handed him a certificate signed by six grandmasters led by federation president Jun Lee. Khemchand had cleared the promotion test in Oct 2024 but could not travel earlier due to the violence in Manipur.
"Grateful to the Global Traditional Taekwondo Federation for conferring upon me the Certificate of 5th Dan in Traditional Taekwondo - the first of its kind in India," he wrote on social media.
Korea, he has said, holds a near-spiritual pull. "Every Meitei elder feels that Hinduism is not complete without visiting Vrindavan during their lifetime," he told a public gathering in Singjamei last month. "Likewise, I also felt that learning taekwondo art is incomplete without visiting Korea."
Long before politics, there was dojang - the training hall. Khemchand's martial arts journey began at the age of 16, soon after clearing his class 10 exams from Imphal's Ram Lal Paul High School in 1978. He went to Korea in 1990, graduating from Kukkiwon, the World Taekwondo Academy.
Even before his graduation, he had carried the Korean martial art into Assam and Manipur, founding the All Assam Taekwondo Association in 1982, at the height of the anti-foreigner agitation. He later rose to vice president of the Taekwondo Federation of India.
His imprint in Assam was deep. After the 1985 Assam Accord ushered Asom Gana Parishad to office, several ministers counted among his students. He later trained Assam police personnel in the discipline.
Politics followed. Since 2017, he has represented Singjamei. He served as assembly speaker from 2017 to 2022, then as cabinet minister in the second N Biren Singh govt, holding MAHUD, rural development, panchayati raj and education. Biren Singh, his predecessor, was himself a former footballer with BSF.
In Dec last year, Khemchand crossed another line - literal and political - visiting Kuki-Zo villages in Ukhrul and Kamjong. It was the first outreach by a Meitei politician across ethnic lines since violence erupted on May 3, 2023, a gesture that quietly recast him as a reconciler. More than 260 people have been killed and thousands displaced in clashes between Meiteis and Kukis.
As Manipur searches for equilibrium, a black-belt chief minister steps forward - trained to absorb force, not amplify it. Khemchand knows the lesson by heart: control first and strike last.
Prabin Kalita is a journalist at The Times of India and is curren...
Read MorePrabin Kalita is a journalist at The Times of India and is currently the Chief of Bureau (northeast). He has been reporting in mainstream Indian national media since 2001. He has been a field journalist reporting gamut of issues from India’s northeastern region and major developments in neighbouring countries like Myanmar, China, Bhutan and Bangladesh concerning India and northeastern region. He has been covering insurgency—internal and cross-border, politics, natural calamities, environment etc. He is a post-graduate in Geological Sciences from Gauhati University.
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