Anguished cries ring out loud amidst the horror, death, and destruction that has engulfed the sensitive border state of Manipur for 45 days, and the globe-trotting prime minister of the country has not uttered a word.
“Is Manipur part of India or not? If it is part of India, then why is the Indian Prime Minister not meeting us?” asked Okram Ibobi Singh, a former chief minister of that embattled state.
There is another voice in the wilderness which is more heart-rending. That of Binalakshmi Nepram, convener of Northeast India Women Initiative for Peace: “This is not the India of 1949 when the honour and integrity of our small territory was promised by the Indian Union…. This is the darkest moment in the history of Manipur and we, the women of Manipur, are crying…. How dare you keep silent Mr. Prime Minister? How can you keep silent? The PM’s silence shows he’s complicit. Why is he silent as the leader of the world’s largest democracy? This doesn’t behove his position…take moral responsibility and resign yourself.”
And then there is this poignant call of the veteran Lieutenant General L. Nishikant Singh from Ground Zero: “I am a simple Indian from Manipur, who is living a retired life. The state is now ‘stateless.’ Life and property can be destroyed by anyone at any time. Like it happens in Libya, Lebanon, Nigeria, and Syria. It seems that Manipur has been left to dissolve in its own juice. Is anyone listening?”
Collectively, these outcries convey two powerful messages: Governance at the Centre and in Manipur has totally collapsed with autocracy replacing democracy and the Delhi Sultans do not care whether India remains a “Union of States” or gets disintegrated as long as their side of the bread is buttered!
The tragedy is that since early May more than 130 people have died in the state and another 60,000 displaced from their homes. Militants have ransacked 4,573 weapons from police armouries with the active connivance of the state government, destroyed 250 churches, and slaughtered many Christians, some in cold blood. So grave is the situation that many residents have chosen to escape to neighbouring regions, including Myanmar, where the ruling military junta is conducting aerial bombings against its own citizens.
Fire and smoke are seen against a church in Manipur. Photo: Twitter/@MangteC
Manipur, a state of just 3.7 million people, bordering Myanmar, has a chequered history of ethnic clashes and militancy, which subsided in 2008 after a cease-fire agreement. Recently, the order notifying areas under several police stations as “disturbed areas” was rescinded, and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act was withdrawn. So, the current intense violence between two ethnic groups – Kukis and Meiteis – that erupted suddenly remains a mystery. More so because it involves not just militants but also civilians, and the state government headed by the chief minister is clearly playing a partisan role.
Also read: BJP’s Communal Politics Has Deepened Historical Conflicts in Manipur
The turmoil has international ramifications also. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not only indifferent but blind to the situation. And his government has treated the “Horror of Manipur” as a mere law and order breakdown to be handled by police, para-military, and armed forces rather than a complicated governance issue that has many dimensions.
Let’s briefly look at them:
1. Basically, it is a conflict between the majority Meitei community (53%) who reside in the plains, and the minority Kuki tribal people (16%) who live in the hills. The Meiteis control political power in Manipur, while the Kukis are protected in their own areas by constitutional provisions. This has resulted in a severe “land imbalance” which is the root cause of all the trouble. Whereas Kukis own land in the hills and can buy it in the plains, Meiteis are prohibited from owning land in the hills and are restricted to the plains. The ruling BJP government’s sinister move to give Scheduled Tribe status to the Meiteis actually triggered the crisis. A high court order on this subject was the “last straw on the camel’s back.”
2. The majority of Kukis are Christians and Meiteis are Hindus. What is happening in Manipur is a religious/communal flare-up and not a tribal versus non-tribal one. A venomous hate agenda is being pursued by the fanatic Hindutva forces in most parts of the country – which portray Christians as dangerous enemies in the tribal-dominated areas because they provide basic education and healthcare – lending credence to this theory.
3. There is intense propaganda that it is all because of what the Kukis are doing. In the hills, they are allegedly cutting down all the forests and planting poppy, and the chief minister’s orders to stop this is the “root cause” of the violence – which is considered “a classic case of narco-terrorism”. This theory has wide currency among Meitei academics, people from the community, and the officials in the security and civil machinery.
4. From the Kuki side, the theory is recently huge petroleum and cobalt reserves were discovered in the hilly areas of Manipur, which the crony capitalists aligned with the BJP government at the Centre are eyeing. Hence, they say, there are deliberate efforts to terrorise and chase away the tribals from their homes and hearths. They point out the inaction of the centre and complicity of the powers-that-be as proof of this!
5. Then there is this geo-political argument of Chinese hegemony over Myanmar and its military junta which has been directed to ferment trouble in the border state of Manipur. It is even stated that Myanmar is attempting to grab land in Indian territory all along its 1,600 km border in the four North Eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, and Mizoram. Taking advantage of the tense situation, Manipur is being used as the epicentre of anti-India operations with the Junta organising infiltration and arming insurgents in Manipur. This raises the question of India’s relationship with Myanmar and the reported supply of arms to the junta, which seems despicable.
There have been two disastrous fallouts of this unmitigated horror in Manipur. One, the Manipur Tribal Forum Delhi on May 15 urged the Supreme Court to direct the Centre to “immediately” deploy the Army in 85 villages where attacks are “likely to happen imminently” and 124 other villages “razed to the ground” to allow tribals to return to their homes for rebuilding. Virtually they are asking for militarisation whereas till recently Manipuris were strongly opposing the presence of the Army in their state!
The second is the revival of the demand for Kukiland with “a separate administration under the Constitution” because “our people can no longer exist under Manipur and to live amidst the Meiteis again is as good as death”.
All these are governance issues to be tackled at the highest level, and it is here Modi and his government have disastrously failed. In fact, Modi’s two maxims: “Minimum Government, Maximum Governance” and ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ have gone into reverse gear. In a democracy, governance should be society-oriented. It should include the government, which is its dominant part, but transcend it by taking in the voluntary (NGO) sector which is critical for conflict resolution. Here Modi and his minions have been on the rampage from the very beginning and have decimated the voluntary sector with a vengeance.
Along with suppressing dissent, the voluntary sector is being hounded, making even genuine NGOs run for cover! This has led to barrenness all over with the government losing the credibility and trust of the civil society as well as the warring factions, so critical for resolving the vexing issues. In such a context, no peace committee or something on those lines is taking off, leaving everything to the government which does not exist! This has grave implications for the unity and integrity of the country.
I am reminded of a conversation in 1975 with stalwarts like P.N. Haksar and T.N. Kaul, close confidants of prime minister Indira Gandhi. At that time, I was the district magistrate of Chandigarh and Jayaprakash Narayan (JP-the Enemy No: 1 of the State) was my prisoner in an Emergency Jail. So, the conversation drifted to JP and how he was being looked after by me.
Sensing that I was not happy with the Emergency and the incarceration of JP, Haksar asked me to be forthright. I told him that to me freedom and democracy are India’s most precious assets without which there could be neither unity nor integrity. With India becoming an autocracy under Emergency, these assets stand extinguished and the arrest and jailing of the 73-year-old JP, who was a fierce freedom fighter, was a cardinal sin. I also opined that if this kind of assault on freedom and democracy goes on, in six decades’ time India will disintegrate and I gave cogent reasons and a convincing chronology. We are in that sixth decade – 2020 to 2029 – now and what I stated then appears to be coming true, despite the delusions of some that the country is united and strong! Manipur is a clear pointer.
With the Modi government’s relentless attack on freedom and democracy, it looks as if after all these decades we are at square one, maybe even worse! There is no guarantee that the Manipur wildfire will not spread to the rest of the country. The question is with such an embarrassing collapse of governance can the Centre hold?
M.G. Devasahayam is a former Army and IAS officer and coordinator of the Citizen’s Commission on Elections.
