Manipur’s implosion offers a stern warning

There are far too many affected and aggrieved parties in Manipur and the administration seems to have misread the writing on the wall

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new temple of democracy last week, India was burning at the seams. It’s been a month since Manipur erupted. At least 80 people have died, tens of thousands have been displaced, the armed forces are struggling to contain spiraling violence in a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led state, and Myanmar-style civil defence forces are being raised in the face of an administrative failure to contain tensions. Why has the violence lasted this long, and what comes next?

Why has the violence lasted this long, and what comes next(HT_PRINT)

India may be witnessing a resuscitation of armed insurgencies in the North-East. To understand its causes, one needs to focus on N Biren Singh, Manipur’s chief minister (CM). To gauge the consequences, focus on home minister Amit Shah’s visit and the steps announced. Ever since Manipur’s implosion, thanks in part to Singh’s political miscalculations, his action-reaction cycle has come full-circle. His initial reaction was a call for peace to both Meitei and Kuki communities. Such statements were accompanied by opposite occurrences. In Imphal and elsewhere where the Meitei are in majority, Kuki communities were targeted, and vice versa in the hill districts, where the Kukis are in larger numbers.

The sudden rise of two Meitei groups, Arambai Tenggol and Meitei Leepun, raised questions. These groups are involved in anti-Kuki violence, according to local reports and submissions by Kuki groups to the home minister. Allied with the Meitei underground, and garnering sympathy from local police, these groups and their actions have sparked allegations of administrative collapse and even collusion. The presence of such outfits underscores ethnic divisions within Manipur Police, and how the Meitei underground is tangled with over-ground politics. The ongoing situation, in a way, is a homecoming for Meitei insurgents who’ve long advocated partisan communitarian causes grounded in historical grievances, and who the chief minister tried outdoing at their own game.

The Kuki underground, against whom Singh revoked Suspension of Operations (SoO) orders, adopted a similar tactic. Meitei people living in Kuki-dominated areas have been targeted by militant groups. A related aspect here is the leakage from police armouries. Just like Meitei groups found allies in police and insurgents, Kukis rely on their own underground outfits and police allies. If Meitei unity is driven by a sense of majoritarian homecoming, the desire for unity among Kukis is driven by fear of disenfranchisement. This is the lay of Manipur’s land today — Meitei and Kuki communities are at war with each other, and differences between civilians, police, and insurgents have eroded.

These binaries explain why the violence has lingered, and how an act of overreach transformed dormant insurgencies into armed inter-community violence. No wonder that by the third week, Singh publicly announced the unverified fact that the army killed 40 Kuki “terrorists”. It took an army spokesperson to bust the myth that the guarantors of India’s national security, territorial integrity, and constitutional sanctity don’t take partisan sides. Shah, during his visit, appeared to realise that Singh’s majoritarian zeal was dividing Manipur beyond repair; recall reports that quoted the home minister asking his ally “zyada rajneeti mat karo abhi (don’t do too much politics now)” or the fact that the CM didn’t accompany Shah to the hill districts, and you know that red lines have been crossed.

This brings us to where the situation is headed. In control of Manipur now, Shah visited the entire state, took stock of the security situation, and engaged with both communities. He’s adopted a conciliatory approach and promised an impartial inquiry coupled with additional relief, rehabilitation, and security. But the mistrust between Meitei and Kuki communities runs so deep that neither side is willing to compromise, and both are unlikely to disarm quickly. If one adds to this the fact that Tangkhul Nagas are also armed, the Naga accord has hit a roadblock, and that Mizoram parliamentarians have offered political support to Manipur’s Kuki-Chin communities, the scale of the problem becomes clearer.

Manipur’s implosion offers a wider warning. That Mizoram and Assam police forces recently faced each other off over a border dispute as if protecting sovereign territories should’ve offered pause. Instead of governing along secular, constitutionalist principles, these states are adopting majoritarian logics in a replication of national politics. Lubricated by cross-border drug profits, displacement, and faith in systemic corruption, these dynamics are reminiscent of the 1960s, when outbreak of the Mizo insurgency made Manipur’s Kuki-Chin to toy with the idea of unifying Churachandpur, Jiribam, Sadar Hills, and parts of Tamenglong with Mizoram. Their demands then, like today, were driven by alienation from Imphal.

For a government that takes pride in uniting the North-East, Manipur’s BJP administration seems to have misread a basic writing on the wall i.e., majoritarian formulae are bound to fail in the North-East. There are far too many aggrieved parties here, and all of them are armed. The Congress learnt this lesson the hard way and spent a good deal of the 1990s and 2000s rolling back its mistakes. The Look East policy masqueraded its political failures as economic ambition. After all, the best connectivity India has with its east is illicit in nature, and the one thing that unites this region are its ethnic divisions.

The last thing New India wants is to go back in time. If the government is serious about democracy, a statement of concern and holding the responsible parties accountable will go a long way.

Avinash Paliwal teaches at SOAS University of London and is the author of My Enemy’s Enemy: India in Afghanistan from the Soviet Invasion to the US Withdrawal (New York: Oxford University Press,2017) The views expressed are personal