New Delhi: Manipur governor Anusuiya Uikey’s speech on February 28 put out official data on the damage and destruction in Manipur since ethnic strife broke out on May 3, 2023.
Uikey presented the figures as a sign of ‘good governance’ by the ‘double-engine sarkar’ of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Official data
- The governor said that 219 persons have so far lost lives in the state due to the violence.
- At least 187,143 persons have been rounded up so far under preventive detention. They were released after legal formalities were carried out.
- At least 10,000 FIRs till date have been lodged in connection with the ongoing violence.
- The N. Biren Singh government has so far handed over 29 cases to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Four other FIRs are in the process of being transferred to the central agency.
- Five other FIRs have been transferred to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
- An ex-gratia payment of Rs 10 lakh is being disbursed to the affected families, “after due verification and mortal remains of victims have been handed over to the next of kins and last rites performed,” wrote Imphal Free Press.
- “To cater to clothing and other needs of the displaced persons, till date, she asserted that an amount of Rs 1,000 had been distributed twice to every displaced individual and the third time distribution has also begun,” the news report said.
- Till date, the state government has spent Rs 200 crore on relief operations and is hoping that the Ministry of Home Affairs would reimburse the amount to the cash-starved state.
- The governor also said that aside from the state security forces, 198 companies of the CAPF (Central Armed Police Forces) and 140 columns of the Army have been deployed in Manipur to assist “in area domination, sanitisation and maintenance of law and order situation.”
Manipur versus Kashmir
To comprehend better what these figures cited by the governor say about the law and order situation in Manipur, let’s look at similar figures drawn from some other states which are considered disturbed, or, have seen disturbance of considerable gamut in the recent past. Better still, let’s look at some corresponding official figures from Kashmir which is oft-considered the benchmark of internal disturbance in the country.
First, the figures on civilian deaths in Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir. In less than a year’s time, while Manipur had seen 219 deaths (almost all, civilian deaths), Jammu and Kashmir — between January and November 15, 2023 — saw 13 civilian killings. The data on Kashmir was supplied to Parliament by the minister of state for home affairs Nityanand Rai in December 2023.
Just to set the record straight here, in the 2020 Delhi violence, 53 lives were lost.
As per the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), prior to the reading down of Article 370 in Kashmir, 126 civilian deaths were counted in three years cumulatively. After August 5, 2019, that number dropped to 116.
The official figure of arrests since May 3, 2023 stands at 1,87,143 persons. That the violence seen during the Delhi riots led to 2,174 arrests gives us a clue, not just about the scale of the violence in Manipur but also the duration of the time it lasted.
As per the governor’s speech, a whopping 10,000 FIRs related to the ethnic violence were lodged in Manipur in the last nine months. The Delhi riots with a total of 785 FIRs clearly pale in comparison.
Also, FIRs are only about filing of FIRs by the police, not delivery of justice to the victims.
Glass half full or half empty?
Add to this colossal figure of FIRs in Manipur the governor’s data that 33 cases in all (after adding the four FIRs in process) are to be probed by the CBI, and five others by the NIA. It makes a total of 38 cases – all linked to arms-related violence – transferred by the state government in less than a year’s time, a record of sorts.
Had the governor acted only as the constitutional authority as the governors are supposed to, analysts ask if the Raj Bhawan at Imphal would have likely recommended Manipur as ‘a fit case’ for implementing Article 356 to the President of India, or dismissing the state government.
These sets of data can be seen through two prisms.
One, that lodging such a large number of FIRs on the ongoing strife, and transfer of such a record-breaking number of cases to the central agencies, only indicate that the state machinery is ticking.
Two, that the state machinery was first of all not functioning sufficiently enough for such a spike in cases, and civilian deaths. Mind you, Manipur is a state where the MHA had partially lifted the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act or AFSPA to hammer on the point that peace has come to the state under the Modi regime. The latest official data certainly counters the illusion of having restored ‘normalcy’ in the beleaguered state.
On February 28, the Manipur governor chose to see the official data only from the first prism.
Unfortunately though, with hundreds of innocents dead, and thousands having lost their property and livelihood, with violence and public unrest continuing, it is no more a situation where one has the choice to look at the glass half full or half empty, particularly if one is a constitutional authority. Only time will judge her action, and that of the Centre in the still unfolding Manipur story.
About the transfer of cases to the central agencies, it is also worth noting here what the Supreme Court had said in January 2024. A bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, while hearing a plea on January 3 to transfer the investigation into Hindenburg Research’s allegations against the Adani group from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to the CBI, had stated that such a power should be exercised sparingly and in extraordinary situations.
It is then an extraordinary situation in Manipur as such a fat bundle of cases have been transferred to the CBI in such a short time.
Furthermore, the Supreme Court, in August, had also allowed the CBI to transfer a bulk of the cases related to the ethnic strife from Manipur to Assam so that the poor law and order situation doesn’t come in its way to carry out the pre-trial investigations. That permission was due to a prayer to the apex court by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Manipur government, saying that there were “certain concerns” about judges in the state belonging to specific communities. It indicates a situation where public trust even in the judiciary is at a sub-zero level.
“Mehta also highlighted security risks in bringing the witnesses and accused to the courts in Manipur,” reported India Today.
Here is another data set to help fathom the precarious situation in Manipur. While in J&K, only three cases were registered by the NIA during 2023, in just last nine months, five cases have been transferred to the agency by the Manipur government.
Also read: Arambai’s Political Sway Is Not Only in Imphal but Far Beyond It. Yet the State Turns a Blind Eye
When we observe that the Union government, despite claiming an improved situation in J&K through data, has refrained from announcing elections there, the Manipur story which has poorer data than Kashmir on some counts, becomes more conspicuous. It begs the question, why no President’s Rule in Manipur then? But we are not going there anyway.
What the governor didn’t say
On February 28, while governor Uikey was delivering her speech at the House, additional superintendent of police for the Imphal West district, Moirangthem Amit Singh, was barely recovering from an attack launched on him and his family by a pack of 200 armed men. The state police had to launch a special operation to free Singh from the clutches of those non-state actors under the banner of a radical outfit, Arambai Tenggol. Singh’s house was also set on fire. The attack was because Singh dared to arrest some of the Arambai Tenggol men.
What went unmentioned by the governor in her speech was also that a number of attacks and kidnappings of student leaders, journalists and others had been carried out by armed non-state actors from the capital city itself in the run-up to the assembly session. Offices of several Meitei civil society groups were also burned down. No one has been identified for those acts of arson and kidnappings. The kidnapping of a senior police officer from the capital city itself sends out a message to the public that not police but an armed radical group with a strength of 50,000 men is more powerful in Imphal valley.
Add to it the burning down last week of the Churachandpur deputy commissioner and the superintendent of police’s offices (also the DC’s residence) by an angry mob from the Kuki community for action taken against a Kuki police personnel by the state administration. This happened after a video clip of him hobnobbing with armed non-state actors went viral. These incidents give a clearer picture of the dreary Manipur story.
What is perhaps not noted even in Kashmir recently is also a day like this: barely hours after the governor’s speech, Manipur Police commando personnel across five districts laid down their arms as part of a strike against ASP Singh’s kidnapping by Aramabi Tenggol.
In January, the Meitei nationalist outfit had commanded all the 37 Meitei MLAs and two MPs to reach the Kangla Fort in Imphal to take an oath to maintain Manipur’s territorial integrity. Their leaders also physically assaulted two of the MLAs. The Fort was the seat of the Manipur kings till 1891.
Significantly, the chief of the outfit came to the Fort that day in a police vehicle. How did he access a police vehicle? Does it indicate that the outfit enjoys the backing of the chief minister who is also the state home minister?
An MP who took part in that act of a ‘parallel state’ set up by Arambai Tenggol from within the Kangla Fort (a news report showed that it also guards the fort) was Raj Kumar Ranjan Singh, minister of state for external affairs in the Modi government.
The other MP, L. Sanajouba, who is the titular head of Manipur and resides within the Kangla Fort premises, was sent to the Rajya Sabha in 2020 with BJP’s support. Sanajouba is the founding leader of Arambai Tenggol. In January, a Ministry of Home Affairs team had two meetings with the radical outfit at Sanajaouba’s residence, underlining the close links the MP has with the armed outfit engaged in kidnapping and assault of a senior police official.
In effect, missing parts from the governor’s speech at the assembly Wednesday say as much a story as the data she gave out.
