To weaken China, Modi must strengthen Manipur
The enduring travesty of colonialism is not the blood that has been spilt of indigenous populations, but the festering wounds of identity politics the invaders left unhealed. The British may have packed their bags in 1947, but their lethal legacy occupies the Northeast’s ethos where any non-tribal is considered an outsider, and nationalism an alien belief.
Home Minister Amit Shah was compelled last week to leave election meetings in Maharashtra to fly to Manipur and turn down the heat. Last year he had ordered 10 km of the Manipur-Myanmar border—which has both Hindu Meitei and predominantly Christian Kuki-Naga-dominated regions—to be fenced, with an additional 80 km to follow. A survey to close off the rest of the Manipur-Myanmar border has been initiated. Land can be fenced, but minds cannot.
To understand conflict, especially religious or ethnic, interlocutors must intuit native pride and its turbulent history. Until 1826, Manipur was under Burmese rule, which it overthrew with the help of the East India Company. To cut a long story short, there were many palace coups, and in the 1891 Anglo-Manipuri War, Manipur lost. Manipur’s Prince Tikendrajit and Thangal General were hanged; the general had ordered the beheading of unarmed Company officers visiting the king.
The Manipuri hostility to central governance stems from past distrust. During the 1957 Mutiny, Manipuris objected to the formation of an Indo-Manipuri Regiment because they felt “(Hindustani rebels) are coreligionist, they (Manipuri Masses) can meet no harm from them and that all mutineers want is the Sahib’s life and why sacrifice lives for the Feerunghees”. (William McCulloch, Political Agent, Manipur Kingdom).
Metei, Kuki and Naga, that patriotic fervour of 1857 could be revived through the politics of sectarian egalitarianism and practical compromise. Citizenship is not just a passport; it is an emotional bond of loyalty and belonging. Old hostilities must be forgotten in new India. The prime minister must act at Mach Speed to diffuse the violence; a Mann ki Baat metaphor of the Northeast and what it is to be Indian.
The internationalist he is, Modi must be aware that China intends to keep India edgy using drug smugglers, human traffickers and native insurgents operating on the Myanmar-Bangladesh border. China’s troubled Belt and Road Initiative corridors run through Myanmar and Bangladesh; now, with Sheikh Hasina deposed, and Manipur burning, it hopes to weaken regional Indian authority and diplomacy.
In 2012, construction began on the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral (IMTT) Highway which will join Manipur and Myanmar, and then Thailand, from where Malaysia and Singapore will be connected by rail to take Indian goods to Southeast Asian markets. Modi has been planning to extend IMTT to Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, which will economically weaken China to India’s benefit.
Confucius imagined a final human and a perfect state, with China as the future. His perfect state is not an abstract version. It is the 789-year-old Zhou dynasty whose achievements seeded today’s China. The Confucian vision is to guide humans back to that past; a perfect paradise of totalitarianism. By moving forward, Xi is returning to that Confucian past.
In this context, the Xi-Modi bonhomie is collaterally cosmetic. Should the prime minister reassure Manipuris that he is there for them as he is for all Indians, it will be the first step to ending the carnage and psychologically integrating the Northeast. Silence may be golden, but the silver lining is the speech Manipur is waiting to hear.
Ravi Shankar
ravi@newindianexpress.com