Northeastern View | Why is Manipur still on the boil?

On February 15, a mob stormed the office of the Superintendent of Police (SP) in Manipur’s Kuki-dominated Churachandpur district and set it on fire, proceeding then to barge into the mini-secretariat. The attack came after the Churachandpur SP, Shivanand Surve, suspended a head constable from the Kuki-Zo tribe after a video of him with “armed men” and “village volunteers” went viral. Two persons were killed, including a Class IX student reportedly, while at least 30 were injured in the subsequent police firing.

Just two days earlier, a mob barged into Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) camps in the Meitei-dominated Imphal East district and reportedly looted a large cache of weapons. An hour later, another mob attempted to storm the Manipur Police Training College located at Pangei in the same district. The Manipur police have arrested six people for the attacks so far, and chief minister Biren Singh has said that the looted weapons have been recovered.

Just these two instances of mob attacks in the last week show how the state of Manipur is struggling to maintain its credibility and uphold its authority. It is alarming that after nearly nine months since the ethnic conflict between the majority Meitei and the tribal Kuki-Zo communities began, there are little signs of the violence abating. Why is that so?

Lack of consensus-building

One, the state government led by chief minister Biren Singh has failed to create a framework for consensus-building between the two communities. The hills-based Kuki-Zo community feels slighted by the state government’s refusal to listen to and honour its social, economic and political grievances. It feels robbed of political agency.

Kuki-Zo groups accuse the state administration of punishing police officers from its community for colluding with non-state armed entities but not doing much against Meitei officers who allegedly joined hands with Meitei militias, such as Arambai Tenggol, to attack the tribal community. Last October, the Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum, an umbrella group of Churachandpur’ tribal bodies, accused the CM of acting swiftly after the killing of a Meitei policeman in Moreh, while ignoring the murder of a Kuki policeman in Churachandpur one month earlier.

ITLF Press Release October 31, 2023

Add to this the government’s ethnopolitical rhetoric. Earlier this week, the CM announced that all those who entered Manipur after 1961 would be identified and deported. This is a demand that directly emanates from the sweeping belief of the Meitei civil society that Manipur is inundated with Kuki-Zo “illegal immigrants” from Myanmar. The CM has cast the ongoing ethnic strife as a result of illegal immigrants from Myanmar, who indulge in weapon trafficking and drug trade. However, to the state’s tribal community, Singh’s deportation announcement would have sounded like a threat. This image of the state government as an ethnically biased administration has hindered the process of conflict resolution.

The Kuki-Zo population is now more psychologically distanced from Imphal’s political orbit than ever before. This alienation has strengthened demands for a separate Kuki-Zo administration, which has further provoked the Meiteis. Consequently, reconciliation has become exceedingly difficult.

Impunity for armed militias

On January 24, the Arambai Tenggol, a heavily armed Meitei militia that stands accused of attacking the Kuki-Zo population and even Central forces, administered an “oath” to at least 36 Meitei lawmakers, including a Union minister, in Imphal’s iconic Kangla Fort. Media reports revealed that the militia forced state security forces to stand down and roughed up some of the recalcitrant legislators.

Despite the unconstitutional act of vigilantism, no Arambai member has so far been arrested. By such acts of commission-by-omission, the state government has allowed armed Meitei groups to grow stronger and chip away at the state’s constitutional authority to enforce law and order. This has, in turn, strengthened the raison d’etre for the Kuki-Zo to maintain and expand their own armed volunteer forces.

The net outcome has been the dramatic proliferation of non-state armed entities and greater circulation of small arms (including sophisticated weapons like automatic rifles, snipers and even mortars) across Manipur.

Ideally, by now, the state should have reclaimed its authority by forcefully imposing its writ to disarm and disengage all militias. In fact, there is reason to believe that once the state disbands Meitei militias, like the Arambai, that are reportedly close to the Meitei political elite, most of the Kuki-Zo armed volunteers would stand down. This hasn’t happened.

What is Delhi doing?

The Central government is already in talks with the Kuki groups that are signatories of the Suspension of Operations (SoO), who could be convinced to join a new peace process. But, that won’t be possible until the state government sheds its ethnic proclivities and operates as an unprejudiced entity. In the face of ethnicised governance in Manipur, the Narendra Modi government at the Centre should be a neutral arbiter and work towards bridging the gap between the two warring communities. Nine months on, the gap remains wide open.

By now, it has become clear that the political leadership in Imphal has lost the trust of large sections of Manipur’s population. This calls for potential reshuffling. But, despite unending cycles of violence, the Modi government appears unwilling to take tough political decisions that could restore people’s faith in the state and bring the Kuki-Zo community back into the political mainstream.

Instead, the Centre recently announced its decision to fence the India-Myanmar border and withdraw the Free Movement Regime (FMR), which allows local tribal communities, including the Kuki-Zo, to maintain their cherished familial ties across the international boundary line.

Such drastic measures won’t heal Manipur’s wounds or restore the state’s credibility. Instead, they will only widen the ethnic fissures at the heart of the tragic conflict, which in turn, could well impact India’s larger geopolitical outreach to Southeast Asia.

Angshuman Choudhury is an Associate Fellow with the Centre for Policy Research and focuses on Northeast India and Myanmar. The views expressed are personal.

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