Why Resolving Manipur Has Become Difficult? | Ajay K. Mehra

Manipur, one of the seven states in India’s northeast, is in the midst of a civil war since 3 May 2023. That the Prime Minister of India has not considered it necessary to visit this small state – 25th in the country in both territory and population – which has been in the midst of an extremely complex violent situation for two and a half years exposes convoluted politics being played out from the Raisina Hill. It is an understatement to say that the society in the state is perilously torn in fierce, brutalized conflict between its two main communities, Meiteis (53%) and Kuki-Zo (16%). Chief Minister N. Biren Singh leads a BJP government. He has been given a long rope by the national leadership, but since he has been fiddling ineffectively with the situation, the governor has assumed salience in administration.

The geography of the state has played a prominent role in drawing an indivisible line between the two communities. Geographically, Manipur is divided into two regions – the hill and the valley. Lying in the central part of the state, the valley is surrounded by the hills. The hill districts constitute nearly 90 per cent (20,089 km2) of the total area of the state and the valley the rest tenth (2,238 km2) part of its geography. Article 371 C of the Constitution of India gives the President special powers with regard to the hill areas, which are exercised by the governor of the state.

After the merger of Manipur with India on October 15, 1949, the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950 (PART III. – Rules and Orders under the Constitution) PART X. – Manipur created a structural division amongst the people in the state by categorising 33 ethnic groups as Scheduled Tribes. This further created two categories of people in the state – Scheduled Tribes, considered constitutionally privileged due to reservations in employment and scholarships in education and of ‘General’ category. The seed of the conflict lies in such a constitutional arrangement wherein people see discrimination.

Constitutionally, Manipur has a 60 member unicameral Legislative Assembly. It sends two members to Lok Sabha and one member to Rajya Sabha. Only three members in the Parliament reduce its electoral significance.

The ongoing crisis began on 14 April 2023, when the Manipur High Court on a writ petition ordered the state government to recommend to the central government to grant Scheduled Tribe status to Meitei community, which the Supreme Court criticized. This led to protest by the All Tribal Students’ Union on 3 May, which turned violent. Kuki and Meitei groups clashed near the border between the Churachandpur and Bishnupur districts, burning houses and attacking each other. On 4 May 2024, two Kuki women were paraded naked and the video circulated. Civil war ensued killing 250 people and displacing 6,000. The militants of both sides began attacking police and the security forces as well.

The Adjoining Myanmar border further complicated the matter, as aside from people drugs and arms are easily smuggled. Authorities in Manipur pushed back 4,300 Myanmar nationals from the Moreh area in September 2022. The question then is what is stopping the Union government and the national leadership to resolve the Manipur conflict.

Electorally, since the BJP’s reign will continue in Manipur till early 2027, Modi and Shah do not see any reason to change the status quo. True, the BJP lost both the Lok Sabha Seats in 2024 election, but as long as the party is in power at the Centre, these two seats matter little to them.

Modi’s brazen penchant for backing Hindu majority across the country, despite his statement that the day he indulged in Hindu-Muslim, he would be unfit for public life, is well-known. Since the majority Meitei community, largely Hindu, is well-ensconced in power, there is no reason for worry. The party’s majoritarian march continues. Both the Nagas (20%) and the Kukis (16%) even together cannot challenge the Meitei dominance. Even though the first chief minister of Manipur, when it became a state in 1972, was Mohammed Alimuddin, an active Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in the entire Northeast region neutralizes any threat to its majoritarianism.

An endemic huge illicit drug and narcotic trade in the region from the porous border abutting Myanmar and Thailand is also at the root of the current crisis. Since the proceeds of this illegal trade naturally go to any party ruling these northeastern states, the BJP in Manipur cannot be expected to be immune to this.

Though border fencing is virtually impossible due to the terrain and cost involved, the variegated factors discussed generate a demand for it, particularly between India and Myanmar. The mechanism and processes of political favours through contract allotment, which is also linked to political funding, an unsuspecting common man seldom understands.

I have been suggesting mechanisms of sharing sovereignty by the grant of autonomy in such multi-ethnic states to honour the sentiments of self-governance. However, the Modi government and the BJP are against such measures unless any political advantage accrues, which is absent in this case. In the case of the forest and natural resource-rich hill regions inhabited by the Kukis, autonomy would come in the way of doling these out to the greedy corporates. Modi’s network with some of India’s leading corporate giants is well-known.

Even though Modi’s usual alibi of putting all such crises created in a decade-long rule at the door of the Congress falls fallow in this case of BJP’s active acquiescence, he stopped at that in Rajya Sabha! 913 text words

(Author: Prof. Ajay K. Mehra is a political scientist. He was Atal Bihari Vajpayee Senior Fellow, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, 2019-21 and Principal, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Evening College, Delhi University (2018))