Opinion: Manipur and the North-East

Manipur is abutted by Chin state of Myanmar where armed Chin ethnic organisations, backed by China, hold sway

By Amitava Mukherjee

Biren (N Biren Singh, Chief Minister of Manipur) is a minor player in the conflict”. This statement from Bimol Akoijam, the Inner Manipur MP needs serious consideration. It should also be food for thought for those who demand the resignation of Biren Singh as the first sine qua non for resolving the Manipur logjam because there may be forces and ideologies which are beyond Biren Singh’s control or even comprehension.

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However, a solution, though difficult to reach at this juncture, is necessary. Unfortunately, the State witnessed a new spate of violence in September. The nation’s lulled conscience has been rudely jolted by the use of drones by militants and reports were floated that that 900 Kuki militants would infiltrate the State from Myanmar. This claim was rubbished by the Kuki Students’ Organization (KSO). The KSO has been proved right as there has been an official acknowledgement that the report about militant infiltration may not be correct.

Chin state of Myanmar

However, the most dangerous part of the imbroglio lies in the fact that Manipur is abutted by the Chin state of Myanmar where the armed Chin ethnic organisations, enjoying backing from China, hold sway. There may be two objectives harboured by some stakeholders — carving out an ethnicity-based independent country comprising parts of Manipur and Burma and secondly stymieing India’s Look East policy initiatives where Manipur occupies a central part by becoming a neighbour of Burma through which passes the Moreh (Manipur)-Burma-Thailand Trilateral Highway. If Manipur can be made a permanently disturbed region then India’s Look East policy may become stillborn.

But the scenario needs some urgent actions — both security-related and statesmanlike. Meiteis control the Imphal valley while the Kukis are in the hill districts. Both the communities have dug bunkers in their respective approach areas. Both sides have arms and ammunition. Neutral zones or no man’s lands separate the combatants. These neutral zones are patrolled mostly by central paramilitary forces. The situation is such that one can easily ask whether any government exists there. Knowledgeable circles think that the Kuki side is receiving arms supply from the Chin state of Burma. If that is true, then the other side’s reality is that the Meiteis are also flush with arms.

Root cause of Conflict

Biren Singh, the chief minister, is just a figurehead now. The whole show from the government side is being run by Kuldip Singh, the security adviser, who heads the unified command. Both he and the Director General of Manipur police, report directly to Amit Shah, union Home Minister, bypassing Biren Singh totally. Does the central leadership of the BJP consider Biren dispensable now? Outwardly it seems so. The national-level media is also baffled. It wonders why the BJP is still continuing with Biren Singh. For peace in Manipur, Biren Singh’s removal is urgently necessary, so runs the general thinking of the media pundits.

They commit a fundamental mistake here. Biren Singh stands at the very central position of the grand design that the BJP and the RSS are trying to push through in northeastern India and that is the reason why the BJP thinks twice before entertaining any idea of replacing Biren in spite of the fact that results of the last parliamentary election in Manipur have not gone the BJP way. The grand design is to bring the various location-specific tribal identities of the northeastern people into the Hindutva-dominated national discourse. This is the root cause behind the prolongation of the Meitei-Kuki conflict in Manipur.

While the Meiteis, largely followers of Vaishnavism, easily fit into this Hindutva concept-aligned identity pattern, the Kukis, mostly Christian by faith, do not. It will not be an overstatement to say that the BJP/RSS is experimenting with a new ideological tool, right or wrong, to spread a concept of pan-Indian oneness in the variegated tribal mosaic of northeastern India.

For getting a thorough idea about it we may turn to Sanjib Baruah, a former Professor of Political Studies at the Bard College, New York, and a reputed commentator too. According to his interview with a portal last year, the Manipur crisis is only an unfolding chapter in the politics of ‘indigenous revivalism’ being experimented in northeastern Indian soil. Quoting another expert on the subject, Baruah thinks that the failure of the RSS/VHP to reconvert Christians of the region in the 1990s has made them fix their gaze on the non-Christian people of indigenous faith tradition for befriending and motivating the latter in a particular direction. Here the Meitei revivalism of the late 20th century fits in.

Injecting Hindu Sentiments

Very deftly the RSS has injected Hindu symbols and sentiments into the Manipuri society through the good number of schools they run here and it must be admitted that the Sangh Parivar has found many takers even among the Christian Kukis some of whom have become BJP MLAs from predominantly Christian- dominated constituencies. Rational estimates cannot fault the BJP/RSS objective here which aims to bind the ‘self-determination and autonomy-centric’ identity consciousness of some of northeastern India’s tribal-based cultures into a ‘sacred geographical landscape’ ie India. In doing so, it harps on the epic traditions where Arjun marries Ulupi and Chitrangada, the first one being a Naga and the second one a Manipuri girl. Many such instances are floated to stress that these societal structures solidly form parts of a pan-Indian discourse.

There are 25 Lok Sabha seats from all the northeastern States and the BJP is trying to spread its influence all over these constituencies and bring a large mass of the northeastern Indian citizens under the fold of a unified Indian concept through the propagation of ‘indigenous traditions’ which is synonymous with folk cultures and local traditions. As a large swath of the region is imbued with the concept of self-determination with the existence of several separatist militant organisations from among the Meiteis themselves, the best way to integrate them into the Indian mainstream is to bestow a scheduled tribe status to the Meiteis which is just a one step forward from the idea of indigenousness.

On the whole, the idea may not be bad altogether. But it has two sides. On the one hand, it can foster the idea of integration. But on the other, there is always the possibility that it can hurt the sentiments of sections of the population here. That is what has happened in Manipur. The BJP and the central government must find a syncretic approach to bring back normalcy.

The problem is multi-dimensional. There are reports that some separatist Meitei organisations are supporting the Burmese military junta in the latter’s fight against Chin ethnic armed organisations. This may have spurred the Chin militant organisations in Burma to support the Manipuri Kuki militants who are ethnically their brethren. For bringing peace in Manipur, it is now necessary and practical also to establish some sort of communication channels in Burma’s Chin state as well as with the military junta in the Naypydaw so that the Burmese refugees who have taken shelter in Manipur and Mizoram can go back in due course.

(The author is a senior journalist and commentator)