Read parts one and two of the ‘Manipur Tapes’ series here and here.
New Delhi: Ever since the Meitei-Kuki ethnic conflict broke out in Manipur last year, both the national and state-based media have been awash with reports on the likely causes. Most accounts point an accusing finger at the controversial Manipur high court order recommending Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to the Meitei community. The Supreme Court transferred the judge who authored the judgment, Justice M.V. Muralidharan, to the Calcutta high court, citing “better administration of justice” – judicial-speak for a rap on the knuckles – and subsequently directed the high court to delete that part of his order.
While leaders of both the Kuki and Meitei communities have blamed each other for stoking the conflict that has since taken at least 226 lives and displaced thousands internally, it is clear that the High Court order itself is not the reason for the violence which erupted in May 2023 and which is yet to fully subside.
However, a 48-minute audio clip claimed to be of chief minister N. Biren Singh could change that.
In the audio recording – made at a meeting the CM allegedly addressed at his official residence late last year and now submitted to the Commission of Inquiry – a voice claimed by the maker/s of the recording to be that of Biren Singh can be heard taking credit for “how and why the conflict started”.
The audio in Meiteilon, translated into English, says:
“So, now…how has this issue started from/originated? I saw all of these…When I saw all of these, I started operations [unclear]. We started seeking governmental land over reserved forest land, protected forest land. The incidents that have followed…haven’t you seen on the map? Don’t you feel like crying? I have been studying all of these for the past 10-15 years now. Something like this was bound to happen…But the number of Naga villages have not increased…check the areas inhabited by the Naga indigenous people and even within Imphal. The areas in Imphal, Nagaram, Tangkhul avenue, there has been no increase in villages and they (Kuki) just spread through Veng…Veng (village or colony).
“At the secretariat, we don’t have our people because of their quota, they have filled up the IPS, IAS. They are all there in the IAS service. Our Naga brethren are not too interested in this side, they are concentrated on their independence. There might be just 5-10 out of a 100 and so, they [Kukis] have a total capture.
“In the Secretariat, there are 12 secretariat officers and of the 12, there are 11 of them [Kukis].”
While The Wire is unable to independently establish that the person who is heard speaking on the recording is indeed Biren Singh, we have confirmed the date, subject and contents of this meeting with some of the participants, none of whom was willing to be identified because of fears for their safety. Some persons claiming to have been participants at the meeting assert that the voice is indeed that of chief minister Biren Singh and that he did say all the things in the recording in their presence.
Some of these persons were also able to confirm to The Wire that the full audio clip has been submitted to the Commission of Inquiry headed by Justice (Retd) Ajai Lamba, a former chief justice of the Gauhati high court.
Given the compelling public interest involved in the contents of this recording, The Wire is placing key excerpts in the public domain.
In the audio, the voice that some of the persons who say they were present have identified as that of the chief minister’s can also be heard calling out to his cabinet minister, L. Susindro Yaima.
Separate administration demand
Since the violence between the two communities broke out, the Kuki leadership has been targeting the chief minister, accusing him of acting in a deeply partisan manner. That allegation against the chief minister appears to be the primary basis for the Kukis demanding that the Centre slice out a part of the state to grant them a ‘separate administration’. In other words, the belief that the chief minister has been acting in a ‘biased’ manner has triggered the Kuki demand for dividing the sensitive border state on ethnic lines. Prior to the 2023 conflict, there were no Kuki and Meitei ethnic fights.
However, the Narendra Modi-led Union government has been outrightly backing the chief minister.
The protracted silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the violence and his refusal to visit the state despite the enormity of the tragedy, were read across the state as a message to those pointing fingers at Biren Singh that he had the full backing of his party and its government in New Delhi. Even though the violence that broke out on May 3 2023 went on unabated, Union home minister Amit Shah told parliament in August last year that Singh “is cooperating” with the Union government to quell the inter-community conflict.
The audio clip submitted to the Commission of Inquiry, however, seems to make out a case that the Modi-led government has been shielding the chief minister at a time when he was taking partisan and communally divisive positions, despite holding a high elected office and having taken an oath on the Constitution.
The audio clip is likely to strengthen allegations that the chief minister’s partisan attitude at a time when the state is reeling under a delicate law and order situation has ensured continuation of the conflict.
More than a year after violence first broke out, nearly 60,000 people – Meitei and Kuki – remain displaced, forced to take shelter in relief camps.
Kuki residential colonies attacked at the time
During the first few days of the conflict, residences of several senior government officials belonging to the Kuki community were attacked by Meitei mobs in the valley areas, including in the state capital Imphal; some were killed at their official quarters. Even ambulances carrying people from the Kuki community were attacked and their occupants killed.
Most of those Kuki “veng” (villages/colonies) in Imphal that the chief minister can purportedly be heard referring to in the audio clip were attacked by mobs, and led to a substantial death toll among the Kukis. Residences, churches and commercial establishments owned by people from the community in the valley areas were targeted. In December 2023, the Supreme Court – which heard a bunch of petitions on the ethnic conflict – asked the state government to restore as many as 3,500 churches destroyed during the conflict, most of which belonged to the Kukis.
If established to be the voice of Biren Singh, the contents of the audio clip take on a chilling significance since the mob which targeted Kukis in the valley areas at the start of the conflict evidently shared the opinion expressed in the recording about the Kukis having “spread” their vengs in Imphal. Especially because the two armed Meitei radical outfits accused of participating in the attack on the Kukis — Arambai Tenggol and Meitei Lepun — are seen to be close to the chief minister.
While the BJP Rajya Sabha MP and Manipur’s titular king L. Sanajaoba is the founder head of Arambai Tenggol, the founder of the other, Meitei Leepun, is Pramot Singh, a former member of the RSS’s student wing – Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (AVBP) – and is admittedly close to Biren Singh. During the course of the conflict, the chief minister was seen coming out in support of Arambai Tenggol.
As per media reports, the members of these outfits, particularly those from Arambai Tenggol, were seen using police vehicles to move around with arms; also dictating orders to police personnel and elected leaders, engaging in physical assault on Opposition MLAs and police personnel, besides assaulting those from the Meitei community who dared to question their action including attacking their residences.
In Kuki areas like Churachandpur, all Meitei residents were forced to flee for their safety to the Imphal valley in the face of threats from Kuki militants, underscoring the fact that people from both communities have paid a terrible price for the conflict and the government’s failure to restore peace.
CM and allegations of ‘narco-terrorism’, ethnic bias of Kuki judges
In the audio recording, the chief minister purportedly questions the integrity of the judiciary, implicitly accusing Kuki judges of ethnic bias and boasting about how he had sounded an alarm about this over a decade ago:
“If you seize drugs, judge Haokip, Gangte, they are all there. It is this penetration program that I…10 years back…you would have seen my tweet…in 2013…”
In the audio recording, there is also an insinuation that the Kuki community is involved in the illegal drug trade in the state. A term often heard during the ethnic conflict was ‘cross border narco-terrorism’. It was given wind by none other than the chief minister to the media to indicate that the Kuki armed groups based out of Bangladesh and Myanmar, supposedly opposed to the Manipur government’s ‘war on drugs’ policy and on a “war against the Indian Union”, had fomented the ethnic conflict. This term found a mention in Shah’s statement in parliament too.
However, according to a July 2020 affidavit filed in the Manipur high court in relation to the arrest of Lukhosei Zou, a drug ‘kingpin’ belonging to the Kuki community, Thonoujam Brinda, a former officer of the state police’s narcotics department, stated that the chief minister had specifically asked her to release him. Biren Singh was also the state’s home minister at the time. He had then threatened to take legal action against her, though nothing came of it. The officer put in her papers soon after that face-off.
Interestingly, though the state police had caught Zou with drugs in a state that had declared a ‘war on drugs’, a local court granted him bail just four days later. Soon Zou disappeared from a local hospital and fled to Myanmar. [More on that case can be found in this detailed report filed by The Wire on July 16, 2020.]
Question to state minister L. Susindro Yaima
As stated earlier, the principal speaker in the meeting can be heard calling out to the minister for Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) Leishangthem Susindro Yaima, who is said to be extremely close to Biren Singh.
The Wire reached out to Yaima at his official email to ask if he had heard the chief minister at any time last year express his resentment at the Kuki community for settling down in the valley areas, and also for taking up jobs in the state administration through the ST quota.
Any response from the minister would be added here, if received.
As noted in The Wire’s extensive coverage of the Manipur tapes, the complete audio recording has been submitted to the Commission of Inquiry tasked with probing the Manipur violence, along with an affidavit attesting to its authenticity from the person/s who made the recording at the chief minister’s official residence.
It is now to be seen how the Commission proceeds with the material that has been placed before it.
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Based on the tapes mentioned in this report, The Wire has sent the following questions to the chief minister for a response:
A) Are you opposed to the fact that most officers at the secretariat in Imphal belong to the Kuki community?
B) Are you opposed to the fact that some judges in Manipur courts belong to the Kuki community?
C) Are you opposed to the Kuki community being included in the Scheduled Tribe list?
D) Do you take credit for the ethnic violence as a result of your government’s action to clear reserved forest land?
E) Do you think the Nagas are not interested in buying land in the valley areas of Manipur because they are fighting for Independence from India?
This story will be updated when he responds.