Apathy or strategy?

Manipur has been burning since May 3, 2023 when an ethnic violence erupted in this north-eastern land-locked state of 3.2 million people which shares 390 km of porous border with Myanmar. Over the last nineteen months, violence in Manipur’s Meitei and Kuki groups has resulted in the deaths of nearly 300 people and rendered around 1 lakh people homeless.

In May last year, the ethnic violence broke out between the Hindu Meiteis, who mostly fall under the scheduled caste (SC) and other backward class (OBC) categories, and tribes—mostly Kuki and Naga—who usually live in hills and make up to 40 per cent of Manipur’s population. These tribes are mostly Christians.

The Meiteis make up 53 per cent of the population and live in the Imphal valley. The fertile valley makes up about a tenth of the total landmass of the state while the hills account for 90 per cent. The government in Manipur, regardless of which party comes to power including the present BJP government, has always been dominated by Meiteis. The current chief minister N Biren Singh belongs to the Meitei community.

Recent cycle of violence

The recent cycle of the Meitei-Kuki ethnic violence began on November 7 when a woman from the Hmar tribe, mother of three little children and school teacher, was allegedly raped, shot in the leg, killed and set on fire by suspected Meitei militants in Zairawn village in Jiribam district, 220 km from the state capital Imphal, on the interstate border with Assam.

In retaliation, suspected Kuki militants in Jiribam murdered six members of a Meitei family, including an eight month old infant, a two-year-old boy, his 60-year-old grandmother and an eight-year-old girl, who were taken hostage by suspected Kuki militants. In less than two weeks, at least 19 people have died, including 10 Kuki men who the police have called “militants”. However, the Kuki tribes claim the 10 men were “village volunteers”, reports NDTV.

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Thursday (November 14, 2024) re-imposed the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) declaring six police station limits in five districts of Manipur as “disturbed areas”, in the wake of the ongoing ethnic violence in the State. At a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, on Monday (November 18, 2024), the MLAs demanded “mass operations against Kuki militants responsible for” the abduction and killing of women and children in Jiribam during November 11 violence. Manipur’s ruling alliance MLAs also passed a resolution urging the Centre to “review the imposition of AFSPA” and declare the Kuki militants responsible for the killing as an “unlawful organisation” within seven days.

Recently a mob targeted the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) office at Haraorok in Imphal East. Later, another mob attacked the BJP and Congress offices in Jiribam town, prompting the police to reportedly open fire. The violence targeting political figures laid bare the public’s disillusionment not just with the state leadership but with the entire system of governance.

In a significant move, the National Council of Churches in India (NCCI), the official representative body for around 14 million members of the country’s Protestant and Orthodox churches, issued a strongly worded statement, on Tuesday (November 19, 2024), expressing anguish and concern over the current escalation of violence in Manipur’s on-going ethnic conflict. It alleged that the failure to restore peace in Manipur was a “national tragedy” that reflected “systematic breakdown of governance and the rule of law in the State”, reports The Hindu.

Earlier, on Monday, the state unit of the RSS urged the Centre and the state government to “sincerely” resolve the on-going ethnic conflict at the earliest. The Sangh’s student wing ABVP went a step further, saying “the state and Central governments have failed to ensure safety and normalcy in Manipur”. It also said that authorities be held accountable for failing to protect lives, reports The Indian Express.

Ethnic cleansing

It is suspected that BJP is enabling ethnic cleansing in Manipur which has been a critical part of its political strategy in the region. The party has made significant inroads into the area over the past decade, and the Chief Minister N Biren Singh, a Meitei with considerable sway over the community, has been a key architect in this. Of the 60 seats in the Manipur assembly, 40 are in the Meitei-concentrated Imphal valley. Though senior Congress leader and former Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday morning demanded that Manipur Chief Minister Biren Singh be removed “immediately,” he still  enjoys support from his community.

BJP does not have a competent alternative to Biren Singh, claims Khuraijam Athouba, spokesperson of the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), a Meitei civil society group. It has asked the state government and the legislators to fix responsibility on all SoO groups and carry out operations against them. SoO groups refer to Kuki insurgent groups with which the Centre has a Suspension of Operation (SoO) pact.

Although 32 Kuki insurgent groups operate in Manipur, 25 of them participated in a tripartite SoO agreement with the Government of India and Manipur. On August 22, 2008, the suspension of operations (SoO) agreement was sealed with the aim of starting a political dialogue with the militant groups. Under SoO agreement, insurgents are to stay in designated camps and their weapons kept in locked storage to be jointly monitored by the forces and the Kuki militants. The latest extension of SoO lapsed in February, 2024. The Meitei civil society group COCOMI has demanded that all SoO groups be declared unlawful organisations and their agreement with the Centre are junked.

Eluding peace

The history of ethnic clashes in Northeast India, home to at least 220 tribes with over 400 dialects and each community having unique cultural identities, is always about ‘indigenous communities’ protecting their land from ‘outsiders’. Manipur’s population includes people from 34 Scheduled Tribes, including the Kuki-Zo-Hmar people and the Nagas. The political vacuum in the state has intensified the conflict and invigorated many of the dormant insurgent groups. Although the recent Peace Agreement with the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) in November 2023 is noteworthy, the escalating tensions suggest that peace may remain elusive.

Meiteis, the major ethnic group in the State, embraced Hinduism in the 17th century. There are different tribes inhabiting Manipur. Some of the larger tribes include Nagas, Kukis, Paites, Thadous, Simtes, Vaipheis, Raltes, Gangtes and Hmars.

According to the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), though Manipur was merged fully with the Indian Union on October 15, 1949, it became a full-fledged State more than two decades later, in 1972. This delay in granting statehood caused discontent among the Meiteis who felt that their identification with ‘Hindu India’ brought them no political or economic benefits. This gave rise to secessionist tendencies among a section of the Meiteis and a number of separatist groups emerged thereafter.

• On November 24, 1964, Samarendra Singh founded the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) to achieve independence and establish a socialist society. But the Meitei secessionist movement received a serious jolt when most of its leaders were arrested during the Bangladesh liberation war in 1971. The movement gradually fizzled out with the rest of the leaders accepting the amnesty offered by the then chief minister of the state, RK Dorendro Singh.
• On September 25, 1978, Bisheswar formed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to achieve independence through armed struggle. Apart from the formation of the PLA, Manipur witnessed the growth of a number of Meitei underground organisations with similar objectives in the late 1970s and early 1980s: People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) led by R.K. Tulachandra in 1977 and Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP) in 1980. Meitei insurgents stepped up their activities during 1979-81. In order to tackle the situation, the entire Imphal Valley was declared a disturbed area and the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, was imposed on the Valley in September 1980.
• By the end of the 1980s, the PLA formed a united front of Meitei extremists called the Revolutionary Joint Committee (RJC) along with PREPAK and KCP. Moreover, Meitei insurgent groups sought to project a pan-Mongoloid identity. They rejected the Bengali script, which they believed suppressed their language and culture. To assert their separate identity, they revived the practices of the old Meitei religion – ‘Senamahi’.
• The insurgents also began to raise their voice against the Mayangs (outsiders) settled in Manipur. They perceived that domination by outsiders was largely responsible for their economic and social backwardness. The Pangals or Manipuri Muslims who constitute over seven per cent of the population had been considered as Mayangs. In May, 1993, more than 90 people, including women and children, were killed in a series of clashes between the Meiteis and Pangals, in Thoubal and Imphal districts.
• While Meitei outfits remained active in the Imphal Valley, the major Naga insurgent group— National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM)—unleashed a reign of terror in the Naga-inhabited areas in four of Manipur’s five hill districts, namely, Ukhrul, Senapati, Tamenglong and Chandel.
• Since the late 1980s, the ethnic conflict between the Nagas and the Kukis—a major tribal group in Manipur—constituted another problem of the state. A number of Kuki outfits like Kuki National Army (KNA), Kuki National Front (KNF) and many others had been struggling for a separate state within the Indian Union since the late 1980s.
• In addition to Meitei, Kuki and Naga rebel groups, and several other tribes, such as the Paite, Vaiphei and Hmars had also launched their own terrorist groups in recent years. There had also been frequent internecine conflicts, particularly between the Kukis and the Paites. Violence between the Kukis and the Paites had peaked in 1997-98, when clashes claimed over 1,000 lives, with 4,600 houses torched and hundreds of thousands of rupees-worth of property destroyed. However, there were no violent incidents between these two tribes since the signing of an agreement between their leaders in October 1998.
• The controversial AFSPA, which gives unbridled power to the armed forces, was withdrawn in April 2022 by the Manipur government amid an improved security situation and a “large sense of security among the general public”. Now it is being re-imposed again.

Moreh: one of India’s biggest drug hubs

Moreh, a town in the Indian state of Manipur, is located on the Indo-Myanmar border and a trade centre infamous for smuggling — including of drugs, Burmese teak and arms. Situated in Tengnoupal district of Manipur bordering Myanmar, it could be India’s gateway to the East. The Moreh-Tamu (Myanmar) land route is a key link to Asian Highways connecting both Singapore and Ho Chi Minh City in Southeast Asia

In Manipur, the last violence on this scale had occurred in 1992 in Moreh, when there were clashes between the NSCN (IM), representing Naga interests, and the Kukis in Manipur’s Moreh town.  It quickly turned into ethnic clashes between the two main tribal communities of Manipur, and spread across the state like wildfire. Over 100 Kukis are believed to have been killed and over a lakh displaced from hundreds of villages that were razed to the ground.

The ethnic conflict had an added dimension as a result of a bitter struggle to control drug trafficking and smuggling of contraband through the border town of Moreh. The NSCN-IM controlled this illegal commerce till Kuki-Naga clashes erupted in 1992. The Kukis captured it from the Nagas, but the NSCN-IM remained determined to drive its rival out of Moreh, as well as out of Kuki settlements in the Naga-dominated hill districts.

A big parallel economy of drugs worth Rs 60,000 crore is flourishing in Manipur against the state budget of Rs 35,000 crore, reports CNN News 18. According to this report, on the drug trafficking map, Manipur is close to the tri-junction of opium-production regions of Tiddim, Kachin, and the Shan hills in Myanmar. “From this area, they send drugs to other parts of India via Manipur. In Manipur, their entry points are Behiang and Moreh…From these areas, they go to Kohima and Dimapur by train and then are sent to other parts of India,” says the report.

Observations

Manipur has a long history of conflicts among various ethnic groups residing in the state and also in bordering states of Nagaland, Mizoram and in the neighbouring country of Myanmar which is immersed in civil war since the military junta has overthrown a democratically elected government.  Moreover, Moreh—the border town—located on the Manipur-Myanmar border, has emerged as a major narcotic hub which are supplied from the ‘Golden Triangle’ (situated in the north eastern Myanmar, north western Thailand and northern Laos—one of the largest opium-producing areas of the world since the 1950s). Meities, Nagas and Kukis fight to take control of the lucrative hub which is mostly inhabited by the Kuki tribes.

It appears that Manipur has slipped from the nation’s consciousness. Though the state is considered as India’s gateway to East Asia, it doesn’t get even half the political focus as Kashmir. The figures for weapons that were declared stolen or seized by mobs in Manipur is more than a hundred times the number of militants in Jammu and Kashmir, observes The Print. The possible reasons for this dispiritedness could be, one, Unlike Kashmir, Manipur is far off from the power centres of Indian politics—Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad. It’s a peripheral state. Second reason could be the Modi government’s reluctance to pursue the ‘Look East policy’ of the previous regime.   

The Union Government’s striking indifference to Manipur’s ethnic conflict is very clearly visible. The government’s demonisation of the Kuki-Zo and support for radical Meitei groups has driven a permanent wedge between the two communities. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not visited the state in the 19 months since the violence began, and prefers to avoid commenting on the crisis. His aide, Home Minister Amit Shah, has not done any better. The BJP-led Union government has persistently refused to replace Biren Singh or impose President’s Rule, a move some believe could stabilise the situation. 

Reacting to the pathetic apathy of the Modi government towards Manipur, Mahua Moitra, one of the opposition members of the Parliament, commented: “If we let this BJP government turn a blind eye and let Manipur burn yet again, then each of us, every Indian has blood on their hands. Is Manipur not part of our Union”, she asked.

Peace activist Irom Chanu Sharmila, who conducted a 16-year-old fast demanding withdrawal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, argues that the re-imposition of AFSPA would further aggravate the situation. Reflecting on her activism, she said, “AFSPA has brought nothing but suffering to the people of Manipur. It’s time we moved beyond such colonial laws to find real solutions. The Centre must recognise that the northeast is part of India, not just in words but in practice.”

Meanwhile, call for autonomous regions for Meitei, Kuki-Zo and the Naga are getting louder. The Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum has demanded a political separation from Manipur in the form of a Union Territory (UT) with legislature under Article 239A of the Constitution.

Is the Government of India contemplating to implement the controversial Jammu & Kashmir model of converting a state into Union Territory (UT) where the Union government enjoys much more administrative power? Considering the re-established geo-strategic importance of Manipur, after the recent improvement in relations with China, this possibility cannot be ruled out.

Views expressed are personal