Since the rise of the BJP government in 2017, Manipur has seen a significant reduction in the number of bandhs, blockades, general strikes and counter-strikes between non-state actors and the state encounters, inferring the improved law-and-order situation of the state.
Despite claims by political analysts, the BJP-led coalition government under N Biren Singh has presented arguably the most citizen-oriented government the state has seen of late. The introduction of flagship policies like ‘Go to Village’ and ‘Go to Hills’ with the motto “chingmi-tammi amatani (hill and valley people are one)” as its clarion call for communal harmony to bridge the Hill-Valley divide in terms of development and infrastructure inequalities has significantly extended the relationship between hill people and the state.
However, when it comes to the question of autonomy that the government introduces, it reinstates the century-old unsolved problem between the hill and the valley. In August last year, the Hill Area Committee (HAC) of the Manipur Assembly recommended the new ADC Bill, maintaining that the existing autonomy had various deficiencies that resulted in the underdevelopment of the hill region.
The draft of the ADC Bill seeks to amend the Manipur (Hill Areas) District Councils Act, 1971, to provide more autonomy to the HAC and 6 ADCs. Some of the provisions of this Bill include an increase in the number of the ADC constituencies, the creation of the Hill Areas Secretariat for managing and coordinating the working of all the ADCs, the setting up of the ADC’s Executive Committee, more effective involvement of the HAC in development and economic planning, including budget allocations, for the entire hill areas, among other features.
In the recent assembly session, the N Biren Singh-led Manipur government did not bring this Bill, rather tabling two new Bills in the House where the 6th ADC amendment Bill has a financial aspect, but the 7th amendment Bill does not have it. This was responded to by an indefinite economic blockade by the All Tribal Students Union of Manipur (ATSUM).
The government responded by shutting down mobile internet instead of addressing the integral issue failing to find an alternative to solving the situation without violating the right to internet access which is codified in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
A comprehensive historical analysis of Manipur’s political history implicitly reveals a state of “seasonal autonomy”. By seasonal autonomy, we mean the seasonal interest of political elites in dropping Bills, policies, or talks between the state and non-state actors, typically during or around the state’s assembly session.
During these periods, it is normal for Manipur-based organisations to call for bandhs and strikes in response to the outcome, which reveals the complexities it creates for the common people, including both the valley and hill-based common people. Suppose one quickly revisits contentions over the past five years.
In that case, one can talk about bandhs and economic blockades such as the 48-hour bandh across the state spurred by the arrest of Ratan, former convenor of the Joint Committee on Inner Line Permit System, in Aug 2016, the Aug 2015 Anti-tribal protest that led to the killings of 9 hill people and the resulting 60-hour bandh called in Churachandpur, the 48-hour bandh called on September 14 by the Tribal student of Manipur, the 24-hour bandh called by ATSUM in Manipur in August 2021 against the government for not tabling the Manipur (Hill Areas) Autonomous District Councils Bill 2021 in the state Assembly election, the 48-hour statewide shutdown called by six students’ organisations in Manipur on the release of arrested teachers and students of Manipur University, and the Kuki Chief’s Association call for a 24-hour bandh in Tengnoupal District in Septemeber 2021, among others.
A closer analysis of the impact of such political underpinnings has revealed how much the common people have suffered in the name of autonomy. In the name of autonomy, the common people have been alienated from their rights. Such implication denotes how the elites have circularly looped the common people within their interests leading them to believe that autonomy is an external part of their lives.
It must be realised that autonomy is the common people’s integral right and not external to their everyday life. To attain autonomy in Manipur is to continue antagonising the common people. It only reflects the elitists’ way of circumventing autonomy as means to assemble their position, normally political, into the society while economically diluting their everyday life. Bandh and economic blockade as the means to attain autonomy do not meet the ends. The norms, normalised and internalised by the common people, have become the strategy to attain political positioning for the elites in the society.
The normalised means of attaining autonomy is another way to receive the common people’s attention and build their political careers. As much as their vested internal interest is served through this means, the concern to reach closer to the external and people’s interests is not revealed. What is revealed is the strengthening of their political positioning and their status to build their career around politics. Both the government and the community’s elites played an equal role in the substantialisation of bandhs and economic blockade as a strategy to receive the government’s attention. However, the bigger question is does this means serve its purpose.
Much to the vested normalisation of such actions, it becomes a culture to call for disrupting societal peace. The common people have suffered the most economically in these constraints, especially the daily bread earners.
For example, in the context of Churachandpur and Bishnupur, who share the Hill-Valley district boundary, vendors from Bishnupur district who sell their goods at Churachandpur are immobile due to the ongoing agitation. On the other side, Churachandpur, which depended on particular goods and daily needs from Bishnupur, suffered enough. This affects not only the hill people but also the valley people.
When it comes to the economy and market, communal cards cannot be played. Once news of blockage surfaced on social media, big traders from Churachandpur hiked the prices of their goods without valid reasons, without any responsible CSOs coming into the scene to check these reactions.
While the blockades are conducted in the name of autonomy, the same situation is interpreted differently by two categories of people: the elites and the common people.
It has always been bigger to question the response of the concerned organisation that claims to serve the people. It is high time to reconstruct the question. We must ask how far the strategy of the elites, such as bandh and economic blockades that turns into communal underpinnings, benefits the elites and further their career in politics.
Then we may only be able to visualise how society has been robbed off to create and shape a political aspirant’s career. But the question is, how far are we willing to do this at the cost of the common people’s agitation?
Also read | Manipur: How a Futsal league is uniting communities in Churachandpur
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