Let things not slip any further in the conflict in the state between the Kuki-Zo group and the Meiteis. This is in everybody’s interest. If this conflict situation is allowed to escalate, let nobody have any doubt the denouement can be disaster for everybody, turning the clock back to take the state to the medieval ages once again. There will be no winners either, only losers. Already relations between the different ethnic communities have been poisoned so sadly and dangerously, but if sanity returns, the situation may still be retrievable. The bitterness probably will remain and take time to wash away, but if a path to reproachment becomes visible, at least an immediate disaster would have been avoided. Let the obdurate, temperamental and short-sighted outlook of blaming others, including by the government of the day end. Nobody should buy these arguments anymore. Let those prone to do this learn to grow up and take responsibility for the harms they are causing.
Begin by acknowledging the limits of antagonism that have been pushed beyond the acceptable on either side. Everything else will become negotiable thereafter. If and when this negotiation becomes a reality, let it also be known that rationality must be the criteria for arriving at any resolution, not the upkeep of selfish interest of any party which does not see beyond own self-interest and forgets there are as many different interests at stake as there are negotiating parties. Some of these parties, not just the larger ones such as the Nagas, are silent now, but if pushed against the wall, they too will not, and therefore add more dimensions to the crisis.
No need for any reminder that democratic parleys and debates is about arriving at a consensus on a common denominator on which all the different interests can rest on with the least possible friction amongst them and the best possible benefit for each of them. No single party can have it all and still hope for a lasting resolution to the problem at hand. Let the smokescreens of political correctness be banished in spelling out the issue too. At the core of the current problem are certain very basic concerns, such as development, poverty, employment etc. One of the most important of these is the perception of land ownership, defined not by any modern law or accepted democratic practice, but by archaic, even atavistic, notions of ethnic exclusive homelands. All this would have been very fine, if not for the many problems they bring, especially when viewed against the context of modern lifestyles of even those who claim these notional and redundant land ownership patterns.
What decides the ownership of uninhabited tracks of mountain territories or lakes or rivers or plains? In modern land tenure system, and by the principle of Eminent Domain, they would all first belong to the Nation State at its most primary. Individuals would then lease plots considered theirs from the State. But in the ethnic world yet to be moderated by the modern, different ethnic groups claim all these as part of their homelands. Invariably there would be overlaps between the claims of these different ethnic groups too, sometimes totally, therefore the conflicts.
A settlement does not necessarily mean an unthinking application of the modern law. The premium however will have to remain on opening up an avenue to a resolution that takes care of the interests of all stakeholders, and this probably will have to be a consensus on a new notion of shared homeland and shared sovereignty. No one party can have it all. Not in the era of democracy when the powerful and the weak are entitled to the same rights accorded by the modern State. Even if concessions were to be made to allow the continuance of ethnic homeland notions, democratic value cannot be allowed to be compromised at any cost and homelands would have to accommodate it mandatorily.
Quite atrociously, there are also those who cite the laws and the protections they give them when it suits them, but almost in the same breath justify breaking the same laws when they do not suit their interest, all in the name of politics, and sometimes in the name of ancestral rights. Nothing can be more hypocritical. Therefore let there also be a consensus on rule of law. This should entail respecting any law so long as it remains a law. If any particular law at any point of time becomes out of sync with the changed reality, the need is to work to have them changed or abrogated by due parliamentary processes to suit the new reality.
Liberal democratic laws indeed are not rigid and they can be amended, dropped or else replaced from time to time, according to evolving needs. No point reasserting or arguing that things do continually change. As for instance laws that were perfect when the population was small, may not work in the changed environment of expanded population. Laws are aimed at providing stability to the society, but they are not intended to be permanent in a democracy, which is also why in a democracy the institution of legislature is vital. Its function is to ensure that the laws of the land remain current to the needs of the time.
The writings on the wall indicate the need for a creative changes to outlooks, including in the land tenure system in the hills. This is especially so because different ethnic groups have different notion of land ownership. Amongst the Kuki-Zo group it is probably the autocratic hold of village chiefs on land which must be done away with, as it happened amongst their kindred tribes in neighbouring Mizoram. As Samrat Choudhury notes in his new book “Northeast India: A Political History”. When it was still the Lushai Hills District of Assam, and when some district level autonomy was set to be introduced under the mandate of the newly created constitutional provision of 6h Schedule, a power struggle ensued between the chiefs who wanted to hold on to the old oppressive tradition, and the commoners who were no more than serfs under the chieftainship practice.
The latter and more democratic outlook prevailed, and the chief’s right to impose rent/tax on village households was done away with by the Lushai Hills District (Reduction of Fathang) Act, 1953. The next year, it went further and the institution of chieftainship itself was abolished altogether when the Assam government passed the Lushai Hills (Acquisition of Chiefs’ Rights) Act 1954. After this, rather than village chiefs, elected Village Councils, took over charge of village administration.
In the case of Manipur, land reforms should not necessarily mean extension to the hills the exact replica of the modern land law currently applicable to the valley, but one which can resolve such issues such as the state is facing today, taking care of new needs without discarding traditional ways altogether. Change, is an inevitable law of nature, and laws must strive to keep pace with this flux in order that the harmony of society – any society – is not put at jeopardy.
Editor, Imphal Review of Arts and Politics and author
