Abstract:
The rejoinder reads the recent EPW piece on the Hindu right consolidation in Manipur. The article is evidence-based and carries a courageous articulation. However, it lacks nuances in its hurry to impose Hindu-minority discourse in Manipur. The rejoinder suggests ways to nuance their approach to a politically fragile state.
The article “Examining the Rhetorics of Hindutva and Explaining its Consolidation in Manipur,” dated 16th August, 2025, written by Amom Malemnganba and Mangoljao Maibam, is a timely intervention in the fragile and complicated political and ethnic landscape of the state of Manipur. The article’s impetus lies in its ability to chart a direction for examining the ongoing conflict between the Meeteis and the Kuki Zo community. It is also particularly significant because it initiates a discussion on the apparent yet less discussed political mobilisation and consolidation of the BJP/RSS-Hindu right in Manipur, especially among the Meetei community. What seemed an untouchable region for the Hindu right, northeast India, is gradually assimilated into Hindutva politics. Once considered its nemesis, the development in the region is both dangerous and challenging.
The two authors articulate their assessment of the Hindu-right consolidation in the state on two primary assumptions. One, exploitation of the Meeteis’ fear of the outsider by the Hindu-right and their appeasement policy of ‘Meetei majority’ brought the first Biren Singh’s BJP government in the state in 2017. Second, quite accurately, the assessment that the strong presence of the Vaishnavite-Hindu tradition since the 16th century prepared a fertile terrain for the Hindu Right to take root among the Meetei in Manipur. The article further attributes the electoral victory of the BJP to the latter’s ambition to establish an eastern Hindutva outpost in Manipur. It also claims the existence or in the making of a syncretic relationship between Sanatana Dharma and Sanamahi, reminding the falsity and the many claims of Meetei Hindu’s assertion that the encounter between the Vaishnavite Hindu tradition and Meetei faith in the eighteenth century created a syncretic culture.
However, the article falls short in its attempt to cramp Manipur’s fragile political landscape through a single perspective. Perhaps unintentionally, it frames Manipur into a Hindu versus Christian (minority) binary, overlooking the impossibility of fixing the state into the easy framework of a binary. The paper is also guilty of painting the entire Meetei as Hindu or at least, Hindu-influenced, including the Sanamahi, and conveniently whitewashes the history of anti-Hindu movements and sentiments of the Meeteis. The formation of the BJP government in 2017, according to them, was a result of the Hindu-Right influence among the Meetei and how the BJP had prioritised local issues such as the protection of the indigenous. However, the article conveniently forgets the anti-incumbency factors against Okram Ibobi of the Congress, who ruled the state for three consecutive terms. Over his three terms, Ibobi became the nemesis of both the Naga and the Kuki communities, which the article has rightly mentioned. Okram Ibobi also had various corruption charges against him. The article also goes against the very fact that a small state like Manipur always changes its government according to the party which is in power in Delhi. Therefore, to attribute the formation of the BJP government in the state in 2017 primarily to the Hindu right is a convenient explanation that overlooks other crucial factors, such as anti-incumbency. It would also be useful to remember that the BJP did not get the majority of seats and that they were not even the single largest party. The Congress, with twenty-eight seats out of sixty, was only three seats short of forming the government. It was a known fact that the BJP, with just twenty-one seats, was invited by the Governor of Manipur to form the government. It was because of the misuse of power by the BJP and the Governor that the Biren Singh-led BJP government came to power in 2017. These facts defeat the absolutist claim of the authors in the article.
In the last Lok Sabha election, the Congress won both the parliamentary seats of Manipur, defeating their nearest BJP candidates by margins that people did not expect. The Congress won both the seats despite the fear of booth capture and the use of force. The power and money of the Hindu right were defeated by the resistance of the people. A mere mention of such electoral defeats and the manner in which the BJP lost both the seats should complicate our own understanding of the state and bring out the everyday resistance to the fore. If the Meeteis were a toy in the hands of the Hindu right, and the Hindu right’s consistent negotiation and control of the Meetei was true, as the article claims, how have these factors not translated into electoral success in the Lok Sabha? I am afraid that the article assumes more and analyses less the performance of different variables of conflict of different actors playing out in the state. The article seems to have overlooked this aspect hastily for reasons they know best.
Furthermore, the authors assert that the Hindu right works in tandem with the Meetei to marginalise the tribal ethnic communities. However, the authors do not explain the presence of seven elected BJP MLAs from the Kuki-Chin community in the second term of Biren Singh’s government. Perhaps, it is not easy to see, and it is unethical to analyse the fragile, complicated political and ethnic terrain of the state along the Hindu and tribal minority binary. It is dangerous to see the fragmented political reality from the segmented binary of the Hindu-minority. The article gives us a sense that the authors were rushing to superimpose the Hindu-Muslim binary in the state to understand its ethnic relationship and the unfortunate events of violent clashes between Meetei and Kuki-Zo.
As noted earlier, the presence of the Vaishnavite tradition among the Meeteis created a fertile ground for the Hindu right influence. Yet, the article hastily concludes that there exists a syncretic assimilation between the Hindu-right and Sanamahi revivalists. While it draws from empirical evidence, including that of the Manipuri royal family and their symbiotic ties with the Hindu right, it overlooks everyday acts of resistance and opposition to the Hindu right among ordinary Meeteis. The authors seem to suggest, which might be true as well, that the Sanamahi revivalism emerged in the early twentieth century to revive the Sanamahi faith and counter Hindu dominance, but it has paradoxically become a movement that now plays into the very Hindu framework it once resisted. The authors devoted a section on Hinduization of Manipur and Meetei, but a brief mention of the resistance against the Hinduized narrative of the state is not just a disservice but a convenient amnesia to arrive at the uncomfortable binary of Hindu and minority. The article sets a dangerous precedent in its unacknowledgement of the everyday forms of resistance against the Hindu right and performance of Meetei in weddings, food habits, attire, rituals, conversation, social media, etc. The article says, “Like Hindus, Meeteis have a close connection with nature and soil and similarly claim their Leipak, a vernacularised term for bhoomi as Laipham, which loosely translates into punyabhoomi. The Meetis also practice ceremonies, rites, and rituals on land, making their bhoomi a punyambhoomi. Given these commonalities, the experimentation of “Hinduness” became influential among the Meeteis with the engineered threat perception from the possible influx of Kuki-Zo . . .” In these lines, the authors project an uncanny comparison between Hindu and Meetei/Sanamahi because they have words, rituals and sentiments which are easily translatable, like bhoomi and Laipak.
The article, despite its honest attempt, tends to blame the Meeteis for the ailments of the state without considering the geopolitical reality of the state. It reads the Kuki-Zo’s political consolidation and rhetoric as resistance, harmless, and innocent, while the same is denied to the Meeteis. The recent dissociation from the Kuki-Chin group by the Thadou community should perhaps make us rethink beyond the majority-minority binary studies of Indian academia. The article could be enriched by bringing in the unequal power relation between the centre and the small state, such as Manipur, and the history of everyday resistance. However, the article is a bold step towards initiating a dialogue on the consolidation of Hindutva politics. This rejoinder is a step towards a meaningful dialogue.
The author teaches at MECI Explorer Academy, Imphal. His research interest includes language and script debate, minority studies, literary theory. The article is extracted and reworked from his Ph.D. dissertation submitted to University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad. He can be reached at thongambipin@gmail.com
