Editorial: Fiddling in Manipur

It has taken 16 months for the Narendra Modi Government to realise that the Manipur problem won’t go away if it just looks the other way and whistles a tune. The fresh eruption of violence in the past two weeks makes it clear that leaving the problem to the state government of N Biren Singh has made it infinitely worse and only turned what was an inter-tribal conflict into a full-blown insurgency. With the gunning down of 10 Kuki-Zo men by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at Jiribam on Nov 10, the Union Government has been squarely sucked into the vortex.

The signs of a breakdown have been evident in Manipur for months. They have now reached a point where the local administration can no longer bring the clashing groups to the negotiating table, nor can it restore order merely by appealing to the militants to surrender the arms they looted from police armouries. On Sunday, the entire Imphal Valley was placed under indefinite curfew with internet services suspended following violent protests by Meiteis triggered by the discovery of the bodies of six persons in a river. The protesters say these were the three women and three children allegedly abducted and later killed by Kuki-Zo militants during their alleged encounter with the CRPF in Jiribam earlier in the week. On Saturday, Meitei protestors attacked the residences of three state ministers and six MLAs, one of whom is a son-in-law of the Chief Minister.

If any more proof of breakdown was required, the Centre has reimposed the dreaded Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 in Manipur's six police station areas, including Jiribam. This is nothing but a backhanded admission that Manipur is now a hot potato in the hands of the central government.

However, the AFPSA is a failed instrument that brought no peace to any area it has been invoked in since 1958, and its unleashing now in Manipur is an augury that New Delhi’s options in the state have dwindled to just using the paramilitary forces to keep a semblance of civic order. That, we know from experience, is another way of saying peace is a far cry.

Arguably, Manipur is not a problem that can be solved through demarcation of territories between the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zos or through a defined distribution of socioeconomic opportunities within the existing arrangement. Manipur is a multi-ethnic state with the mainly Hindu Meiteis living in the Imphal Valley and the Kuki-Zos tribes occupying in the hills around. It’s not a state that can be bifurcated without leaving some pockets of ethnic territory surrounded by a rival hostile tribe.

The conflict in Manipur is rooted in historical competition over land and political power, which has been exacerbated by recent events, such as the demand for Scheduled Tribe status by the Meitei community, which has led to fears of marginalization among the Kukis. The Kuki-Zos are demanding the creation of a Union Territory straddling the hills surrounding Imphal Valley but that option must be squared with the possible isolation of Meitei pockets within the hill regions.

For the central government there are other concerns that complicate the situation. New Delhi is cautious about creating new states in the Northeast due to concerns over national integrity and potential demands from other ethnic groups in the region. Granting more statehoods in a region that is vulnerable to infiltration by armed ethic militias from neighbouring countries presents a serious security concern.

However, none of these concerns are new, and none of them has gotten any better despite 16 months of fiddling.