Nearly two months after a bloody feud between two of Manipur’s major ethnic communities – Meiteis and Kukis – broke out, the state remains tense and on the edge. Although no longer widespread, sporadic incidents of violence and mayhem at the foothills where villages of the two communities rub shoulders – once in friendship and now in bitter enmity – are still reported.
An estimated 45,000 people have been displaced on both sides of the divide and are now living in community-run relief camps. For many of them now, given the impression the state is unable to restore normalcy, an initial respite from immediate fear of violence has given way to despair at the thought of an uncertain future for themselves. This despair is now beginning to transform into anger, which, if allowed to simmer without any safety valve, can become the fuel for further escalation of the conflict. Or else, it can also end up vented on the establishment. The emerging popular impression is, the state government is clueless and the Central government lacks commitment.
Quite dangerously, the two warring sides now perceive government forces as partisan. While Kukis think the state police constabularies, including the armed Manipur Rifles, favour Meiteis, the latter are convinced Central paramilitary forces, in particular the Assam Rifles, support Kukis. Adding to this perception is a completely avoidable ugly confrontation on June 2 between Manipur police commandos and a unit of the 37-Assam Rifles which almost resulted in a gunfight.
In this incident, a detachment of the AR unit arrived at the Sugnu office of the Sub-Divisional Police Officer, SDPO, and provocatively blocked off its gateway by parking two armoured personnel carriers there. When things were poised to get out of hand, the AR detachment relented and retreated. In all likelihood, this was just localised friction created by an overzealous post commander, but nonetheless it left in its wake very damaging optics, particularly because this happened just two days after Union home minister, Amit Shah’s three-day visit to the state beginning May 28.
As promised by Shah during his visit, in a welcome step, a 3-member enquiry committee headed by retired Gauhati High Court chief justice, Ajai Lamba, has been formed to establish the causes of the crisis and fix responsibilities. However, another initiative of setting up a 51-member peace committee headed by the state Governor, Anusuiya Uikey, is running into early but expected hiccups, and many in the list are withdrawing. The allegations are, there are too many ministers, MLAs and people of known political affiliations in it. Apparently, prior consent of those included were also not sought.
Kuki members named in the committee have also objected to the inclusion of the state chief minister, N. Biren Singh, who they charge is anti-Kuki and a mastermind of the present crisis. The inclusion of the CM and his ministers in this committee however indicates the Centre is not inclined to replace him or impose President’s Rule in the state, quite contrary to anticipations by many, probably because this is a BJP state.
The present crisis is also revealing the complex matrix of relationships between the state’s many communities, particularly between its three major ethnic groups – the Nagas, Kukis and Meiteis. What is clear is the faultlines are not just along ethnic boundaries. For instance, there is also a hill-valley divide which corresponds roughly with the tribal-nontribal divide, in which Nagas and Kukis are on one side and the Meiteis on the other. The hills form 90 per cent of the state’s land mass and are deemed exclusive for those recognized as Scheduled Tribes. The 10 per cent valley is where the non-tribal Meiteis are confined, and is open to settlement by any Indian, including hill tribes. A growing section of the Meiteis are now demanding ST status for Meiteis as well, claiming this would level out perceived discrepancies like this.
Both Nagas and Kukis are opposed to this demand, but this has not given the two any closer fraternal ties. In the May 3 rally to oppose the Meitei demand, Nagas did not cross the red line in their relationship with Meiteis as did Kukis in Churachandpur district, going on an arson rampage on Meitei settlements after a rumour spread that a Kuki war memorial site had been burnt down by Meiteis. The state is now in a raging inferno from the fire that spread that afternoon. Despite “feelers” from Kukis for alliance in making this a hill versus valley conflict, it is apparent Nagas have decided to remain neutral.
However, even this neutrality is nuanced. On June 9, Manipur’s 10 Naga legislators, met the Union home minister for consultations. They assured him of their service in bringing back normalcy in the state, but also added if any concession were to be made to the Kuki demand for a separate administration, no land Nagas consider as theirs must be touched.
Since Kuki villages are spread across all the state’s hill districts, and because Nagas consider all hill districts except Churachandpur as their ancestral domain, this assertion obviously will be a wet blanket to dampen the Kuki demand, even in the very unlikely circumstance of Meiteis agreeing to the proposal. It may be recalled here that in the 1990s, a decision of the United Naga Council to evict Kukis villages which they consider as tenants in their land, resulted in a bloody conflict costing more than 800 lives.
This neutrality indeed reminds of Herbert B. Swope’s Pulitzer Prize-winning articles written from Germany in 1916 for The World, New York, reproduced in the first volume of Outstanding International Press Reporting edited by Heinz-Dietrich Fischer de Gruyter, describing why Germans at the time were bitter about America’s proclaimed neutrality, a year before the country too joined the ongoing World War-I. The Germans felt, Swope said, with regards to Germans, American neutrality came from the head, while with the Allies, it was determined by the heart.
If Manipur’s Nagas have indicated they are not ready to side with the Kukis in the current conflict, it does not mean they have no differences with the Meiteis. Hence, as and when this trouble ends, the sane challenge before the state and its people is to work for a consensus on structural administrative adjustments. For now however, the most urgent need is for this insane hostility to end.
PRADIP PHANJOUBAM
Editor of Imphal Review of Arts and Politics