Manipur: Why Is Peace Elusive?

Abhijan Das

When and how will there be peace in Manipur? This is an open question in the minds of every Indian who is concerned about the extreme level of violence that is ongoing in the northeastern state. Increasingly, it is grabbing international attention too.

The current violence in Manipur started with a Tribal Solidarity March on May 3rd this year, in protest against a Manipur High Court Order on April 19. The order directed the state government to petition the Union government to grant Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to the majority Meitei community. The STs, who form about 40% of the state’s population, are a diverse grouping representing 33 groups who either fall under the Kuki or Naga ambit. If the Union government were to accede to this demand, the Meiteis would gain rights equal to other STs when it comes to land ownership. The High Court order triggered large-scale protests by both Kuki-led ST groups and Meiteis. As of date, over 60,000 people have been internally displaced, more than 150 killed, and incidents of arson are rampant. The law-and-order situation has deteriorated to the extent that houses of senior ministers and legislators have been burnt down even as the Indian Army has been deployed to maintain peace.

The question here is how could the situation decline so rapidly in a state which has been slowly but steadily marching towards peace and normalcy after over six decades of insurgencies and secessionist movements. To answer this question, we need to look at Manipur from several different lenses. Historically, both the Meiteis and the Kukis migrated from Myanmar several centuries ago. While the Meiteis have mostly been settlers, moving into the administration of the region, the Kukis have been semi-nomadic in nature. A key consideration here is that the Kuki community has a fluid sense of domicile. The former Director General of Police of Assam, Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta says in this regard, “The Kukis, while they move from place to place, still have a sense of ownership for their previous dwellings. This has led to inter-tribal conflicts not just in Manipur but also in other places, including Assam.” He argues that instead of condemning this nature, one has to take into consideration the deep-rooted psyche of the Kuki people in order to deploy effective conflict management strategies.

As with any conflict, geography plays a key role. Manipur can be generally divided into two regions, the hills and the Imphal Valley. The hills cover over 90% of the state’s area and surround the valley, which covers the remaining area and forms a bowl at the heart of the state. The majority of the fertile land is in the valley. As such, the population density is disproportionately high in the valley, with more than ten times the density of the hill areas. While the STs, including the Kukis, can acquire land all across the state, the Meiteis, who do not have the ST status, are forbidden by law to acquire land and resources in the hills. This has led to immense pressure on the existing resources in the valley, which only began developing in the past decade or so. Thus, the Meiteis who had previously rejected the ST status, even when offered, have been lobbying and agitating for it in recent past while the STs felt threatened by such activism.

The next point to consider is politics, both internal and external. In the current state assembly, the Meiteis have an overwhelming majority, headed by Chief Minister (CM) N Biren Singh. With 54 of the 60 seats in the assembly going to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led alliance in the 2022 elections, the ST faction feels under-represented with only two seats going to the Kuki People’s Alliance. The government has used its majority to push forward the Meitei agenda through both rhetoric and administrative actions. The statements by the CM have created a feeling of “othering” among the ST populace when he uses labels like “outsiders” and “illegal immigrants.” The invoking of a 1966 eviction order to evict tribal homes in the hill districts did not help either. The violence in Myanmar’s Sagaing and Chin, which borders India, has led to mass migration into the Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur. While the Meiteis have severed their ties with their Burmese roots, the Kukis in Manipur hold this relationship close to their heart. They have extended refuge to their brethren from across the border against the wishes of both the state and Union government. This has further increased the tension as the limited resources of the valley are tested to their limits.

Most crucial is the state of secessionist movements in Manipur. One of northeast India’s oldest insurgent groups has its roots in Manipur’s Ukhrul district: the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN). Its leader, Thuingaleng Muivah, is a Tangkhul Naga from Ukhrul. While there have been clashes in the past among the NSCN and Kuki groups, the NSCN ostensibly backs the Kuki rebels now. The NSCN has been negotiating a protracted peace accord with the Union government since 1997. Yet, they have not surrendered their weapons. Reports suggests that their current headquarter, Camp Hebron, near Dimapur in the state of Nagaland has over 2,000 armed cadres with automatic weapons, hand grenades, rocket launchers, and more. With this kind of firepower backing them, the Kuki insurgents feel emboldened. Though it should be noted that there is no clear indication of such logistical support by the NSCN yet. The presence of Kuki insurgent groups like the Kuki Revolutionary Army (KRA) was confirmed earlier in June when the Indian Army conducted operations in Kangpokpi district of the state and KRA cadres were apprehended with a large cache of arms and ammunition. On the other hand, media reports suggest that wanted perpetrators of the 2015 ambush on an Indian Army convoy by the Meitei groups Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL) and the Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP), which resulted in the martyrdom 18 Indian soldiers, are back in Manipur. Primary among them is Moirangthem Tamba, alias Uttam, the mastermind behind the attack according to the National Investigation Agency. Although the Indian forces went to apprehend the terrorist in June, such is the support for these insurgents that the Army had to abort the operation to avoid civilian casualties when hundreds of Meitei women blocked the Army’s convoys to protect him. To them, these terrorists are heroes who help plan and execute attacks on the Kuki communities who are also well armed. The most worrisome sign is the presence of the Meitei insurgents from the United National Liberation Front (UNLF), the oldest of its kind, operational since 1964. Mahanta suggested that the UNLF is the most heavily armed militant group in the northeastern region. As it would happen, members of UNLF were in Imphal in late April to discuss surrender terms with the government when the violence broke out. As the violence spread, these members served as “area commanders” of the Meitei vigilantes, providing them with operational and tactical guidance, apart from weaponry. Official records also suggest that over 4,500 automatic weapons and several hundred thousand rounds of assorted ammunition have been looted by both sides from police armories across the state. From an external perspective, it is well-documented that China has trained and provided logistical support to north-east India’s insurgent groups. This is especially germane if the border tensions with India escalate. It would be in China’s interest to fuel these fires in India’s northeast, thus keeping the Indian security apparatus preoccupied.

The question of religion is also relevant here, though tangentially. The Meiteis are predominantly Hindu whereas the majority of the Kukis are Christians. In the ongoing violence, over 200 churches have fallen prey to arson in the Meitei-dominated Imphal Valley. It is important to note that most of these churches are nondescript houses and to surgically target them requires specific and localized intelligence. Similarly, close to 20 Hindu temples have been destroyed in Kuki-dominated hill areas, including Churachandpur, Kangpokipi, and Tengnupal.

Given the layers of complexities, the lack of credible democratic institutions and the political unwillingness at the Union government level to take decisive action against factional politics by the ruling state government, the end to the suffering seems like a distant dream. With years of unrelenting counter-insurgency operation by Indian security forces and bold political interventions to mainstream the insurgents into the political process, the Indian establishment had managed to usher relative tranquillity to the state which at one point had over 40 insurgent groups operating. Hope was high that Manipur would be reaping its share of the peace dividend because of its general commitment to the peaceful political processes. However, with limited consensus building and dialogue between the warring parties, the open question remains: when and how will there be peace in Manipur?