The opening para from Irish poet W.B. Yeats’ ‘The Second Coming’, is almost prophetic of what is happening in Manipur today: Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, / The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned; / The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.
Fifty days after a bloody feud between two of its major communities – Meiteis and Kukis – broke out, there is still no sign of normalcy in sight. Although no longer widespread, sporadic violence and mayhem at the foothills where villages of the two communities rub shoulders – once in friendship and now in bitter enmity – are still reported.
The mayhem has claimed over 120 lives and an estimated 45,000 people are now living in community run relief camps. For many here, initial respite from fear of violence gave way to despair in the weeks that have gone by. Now this despair is turning into anger, not just among them, but the also the larger public. Dark portents that this anger can turn against the establishment was witnessed on June 15 night in a mob arson of Imphal residence of Union minister of state for foreign affairs, R.K. Ranjan. Indeed, the popular impression today is, the state is clueless and the Central lacks commitment.
In a disturbing development, the two warring sides now perceive government forces as partisan. Kukis think state police constabularies, including the armed Manipur Rifles, favour Meiteis, and the latter are convinced Central paramilitary forces, in particular the Assam Rifles, support Kukis. A completely avoidable ugly confrontation on June 2 between Manipur police commandos and a unit of the 37-Assam Rifles which almost resulted in a gunfight has made things worse.
In this incident, a detachment of the AR arrived and provocatively blocked off the office of the Sub-Divisional Police Officer, SDPO, Sugnu, parking two armoured personnel carriers at its gate. When things were poised to get out of hand, the AR team retreated. This sorry incident left in its wake very damaging optics, particularly because this happened just two days after Union home minster, Amit Shah’s three-day visit.
As Shah promised, a 3-member enquiry committee headed by retired Gauhati High Court chief justice, Ajai Lamba, has been formed to establish the causes of the crisis and fix responsibilities. However, another initiative of setting up a 51-member peace committee headed by state Governor, Anusuiya Uikey, is likely to be a nonstarter as many in the list are withdrawing. The allegation is, there are too many of known political affiliations in it.
Kuki members named in the committee have also objected to the inclusion of state chief minister, N. Biren Singh, who they claim is anti-Kuki and a mastermind of the present crisis. Biren’s inclusion in this committee however indicates the Centre is not inclined to replace him or impose President’s Rule in the state quite contrary to anticipations by many, probably because this is a BJP state.
The present crisis is also revealing the complex matrix of ethnic relationships in Manipur, particularly between its three major communities Nagas, Kukis and Meiteis. It is clear now the faultlines go beyond ethnic boundaries. Hence there is also a hill-valley divide which corresponds roughly with the tribal-nontribal divide, in which Nagas and Kukis are on one side and the Meiteis on the other. The hills form 90 percent of the state’s land mass and are deemed exclusive for those recognized as Scheduled Tribes. The remaining 10 percent valley land where the non-tribal Meiteis are confined, is open to settlement by any Indian, including hill tribes. A growing section of the Meiteis are now demanding ST status for Meiteis as well, claiming this would level out perceived discrepancies like this.
Both Nagas and Kukis are opposed to this demand, but this has not given the two any closer fraternal ties. In the May 3 rally to oppose the Meitei demand, Nagas did not cross the red line in their relationship with Meiteis as did Kukis in Churachandpur district, going on an arson rampage on Meitei settlements after a rumour spread that a Kuki war memorial site had been burnt down by Meiteis. The state is now in a raging inferno from the fire that spread from that afternoon. Despite “feelers” from Kukis for alliance to make this a hill versus valley conflict, it is apparent Nagas have decided to remain neutral.
But this neutrality is nuanced. On June 9, Manipur’s 10 Naga legislators, met the Union home minister for consultations. They assured him their service in bringing back normalcy in the state, but also added if any concession were to be made to the Kuki demand for a separate administration, no land Nagas consider as theirs must be touched.
Since Kuki villages are spread across all the state’s hill districts, and because Nagas consider all hill districts except Churachandpur as their ancestral domain, this assertion obviously will be a wet blanket to dampen the Kuki demand, even in the very unlikely circumstance of Meiteis agreeing to the proposal. Indeed, in the 1990s, a decision of the United Naga Council to evict Kukis villages who they consider as tenants in their land, resulted in a bloody conflict costing more than 800 lives.
This neutrality is reminiscent of what Herbert B. Swope wrote in his Pulitzer Prize winning articles from Germany in 1916 for The World, New York, reproduced in the first volume of Outstanding International Press Reporting edited by Heinz-Dietrich Fischer de Gruyter. Swope said Germans at the time were bitter about America’s proclaimed neutrality, a year before America too joined the World War-I, because they felt the American neutrality with Germans came from the head, while with the Allies, it was determined by the heart.
Nagas have indicated they are not ready to side with Kukis in this conflict, but this does not mean they have no differences with the Meiteis. The challenge before Manipur and its people therefore is to work for a consensus on administrative adjustments as and when this communal frenzy subsides. In a state with 34 plus communities, such a consensus on their shared geographical destiny is vital.
The article was first published in Asian Age. The original can be read HERE
Editor, Imphal Review of Arts and Politics and author
