Observation of India’s recent electoral landscape marks polarised trends across campaigns, strategies, slogans, voting patterns, etc. Predominantly, it riddles around communal (caste & religious) politics, ‘competitive welfarism’, neo-liberal development agendas, safeguarding and fracturing of constitutional values and principles, structures and pillars of Indian democracy, re-defining India’s foreign policy, party alliances, etc.
Conversely, Manipur has its dynamics deeply shaped by the historical, social, economic, cultural, and geopolitical intricacies of the state.
The gambit of electoral campaigns in states like Manipur has primarily been organised around ethno-political terrain over the decades. Imbued in such discourse, it assembles a complex process of ethnic assertions, contestation and alliances to secure their respective ethno-politicking goals.
For Meiteis, it is majorly concerned with safeguarding “Manipur territorial integrity” – a contested doctrine to the hill counterparts. For the Nagas, it is vital concerns on affirming the idea of Nagalim, and for the Kuki-Zos it is directed towards carving a state-like autonomous entity (Kukiland), both of which are constitutionally tied under the category of ‘Schedule Tribes’ & Hills (a relative category of valley).
Each of these varying yet intersecting aspirations has several ethnocentric projects and mobilisation in myriad forms, while also permeating with the discourse of exclusion, injustice, equity for hill communities, and counter sermons from the valley.
These include mobilisation over the long pending ‘delimitation exercise’ in the hill areas to consolidate their contested ethno-territorial boundaries and to redistribute an equitable share of electoral seats in the state, and within their territorial boundaries to channelise welfare & development packages.
Electoral representation in the legislature is also seen as a tool to leverage political negotiation for their long pending self-determination movement for Nagas and demands for a ‘Kuki state’ for the Kuki-Zos.
In the case of Meiteis, it centres around safeguarding Manipur’s “Territorial Integrity” that privileges them over the ‘other’ (hill counterparts) and craft windows to access land and resources in the tribal hill areas. One such is the current demand for ‘Scheduled Tribe’ status reversely from ‘Scheduled Caste’ standing. A similar policy has also been employed in the past by extending the MLR & LR Act in the hills by negating Hills administrative Laws (371c), while also denying the extension of Sixth Scheduled provision in the past decades.
Utilising these polarized political agendas, strategies and narratives as a modus operandi for electioneering is not viewed as inherently problematic, irrespective of the parties (NCP, BJP, NPF, KPA etc.) and candidates one belongs (Kuki-Zo, Naga, Meitei). History has demonstrated that such campaigns and mobilisation have successfully elected representatives in Lok Sabha and state assembly elections.
However, a lingering question persists: to what extent these ethnopolitical manoeuvrings truly benefited the ordinary citizens remains elusive. Under such electoral schemas, citizens’ primary concerns like unemployment, fund allocation, welfare rights and benefits, improving socio-infrastructures, sustainable development, removal of AFSPA, fighting corruption etc., rarely feature at the public limelight and continue to remain subordinated at the margin.
It also demonstrates a marginal score on people’s choice for representatives in the ticketing toolbox of political parties, ethnic representation, and voting rights – often dictated by ‘command and obey’ electioneering methods. In many cases, the experiences of the masses tell the story of otherwise (arguably).
The upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha electoral campaigns continue to escort this trend, which is, in fact, even more polarised given the ongoing Meitei-Kuki conflict in the state. The long centre stage template of hills and valley, tribes and non tribes dichotomy seems to have halted at the back seat, this time reverberating around the issues of determining citizenship & ‘indigenous people’, threat of ‘Burmese immigration’, ‘poppy plantation’, ‘environmental’ concerns etc. in Manipur mirroring the ideological patterns of the ruling government at the centre.
However, the rationale and motivation behind these issues [in both real and manufactured sense] remains the same, re-introducing its Machiavellian character in a slightly altered fashion. In this extremely ethno-polarised rallies and campaign that continues to remain the chorus of electoral mobilisation, presented as an indisputable viable strategy for the upcoming 2024 Lok Sabha election, it is worthwhile to invite for a fresh political twist, perhaps a broadening of its horizon and look into some unfeigned issues and concerns of the people (irrespective of communities) – beyond these compartmentalised narratives.
Looking beyond this suffocating development, it is crucial for the democratic citizens of the state (irrespective of communities) to collectively instead imagine, persuade and navigate the oversight of the incumbent state government and work out institutional modalities around these delicate issues: citizenship, tackling illegal immigrants, governance of forestland, hills-valley divide etc., which has long kept Manipur under indisposed condition.
This ailing condition has been further besieged by several laws of “national interest” like the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019, Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023, scrapping of Free Movement Regimes (FMR), etc., approaching like a ‘Swords of Damocles’ to the people of the region. How is the Manipur state going to respond and address this distressing path that lies ahead? Surprisingly, none of these issues have had electoral appeal in the 2024 Lok Sabha campaign so far.
It raises questions about whether the BJP-led state government would absorb as it is given or would leverage its federal power to institutionally redesign its policy, at least for the “common good” of all. In this given labyrinth, the ongoing Meitei-Kuki strife is one archetype that offers an intelligible lesson to foresee (at least) a clearer path forward. Having said this, one must take cognisance of how the incumbent state government is handling the ongoing Meitei-Kuki conflict in collusion with the ideological contraption of the BJP is retreating to the same vicious cycle of ethnic hostilities of the past.
Careful reading of the history of violence in the Northeast region and in Manipur in both colonial and post-colonial India tells us the complicit role of state and non-state external agents in the eruption of any ethnic strife.
Therefore, it is climacteric for the Manipur state to craft out its own status quo space to address some of these delicate issues rather than recasting ethnocentric approaches by forging a collusive alliance with the ruling centre. This raises the question of whether the state’s people should overlook the motive and ‘governmentality’ of CAA and leave it to the political disposition of New Delhi’s administration.
Isn’t the Assam-like National Register of Citizens (NRC) a viable approach to protect the land and people of Manipur from illegal immigrants from Myanmar and other places? The blatant support of CM Biren Singh to India’s Home Minister’s announcement for the scrapping of FMR is irresponsible and myopic as far as the borderland communities are concerned.
Having said this, one must not inadvertently read FMR policy through the lens of Meitei-Kuki strife alone, as the centre portrays it. FMR has much more significance for the borderland communities whose socio-cultural, economic and territorial rights were whimsically snatched away by colonial cartographies and borders. It contains at least an element of recognising the rights and partial justice for the Nagas and Kuki-Zo communities.
The alternative modus operandi that addresses these categorical concerns could have been by devising an institutional mechanism and feasibilities of NRC in the state rather than taking an ethnocentric turn in collusion with the centre’s callous “national interest”.
It is again surprising that FCA 2023 doesn’t gather any electoral appeal in the current political sermons and campaigns of the 2024 Lok Sabha general election, or at least in the hill areas. Even the states of Nagaland (371A) and Mizoram (371G), which have special constitutional protection, have felt threatened by the Act. Under Sec 4 – Cl. 2, any foreland “situated within a distance of one hundred kilometres along international borders or Line of Control or Line of Actual Control, as the case may be, proposed to be used for construction of a strategic linear project of national importance and concerning national security” can be acquired by the centre.
This covers the entire geographical area of Manipur, which would greatly affect the hill communities if taken its shape. Given the legal and constitutional protection of hill areas under 371C, which has been under crippling status by the ethnocentric functioning of the state government, the hill communities are at a vulnerable end hanging on the tail of legal protection. This begs attention in the politico-electoral mobilisation of the candidates contesting from the hill areas.
The ambitious incoming of Act East Policy (AEP) that extensively emphasises infrastructures of ‘security’ & ‘national importance’, resource extraction (oil drilling, mining, palm oil plantation) and bureaucratisation of forestland coupled with the recent scrapping of the FMR regime (the lifeline of borderland communities) should not be subjected to the backseat in the political campaign and lobbies for representation in the central legislative body
In this seemingly uneven trajectory, it is critical for the hill communities to re-centre their position on the long impending structural injustice that has been weighted upon them for decades. It is even more crucial for the state government to give serious attention to some of the long unaddressed structural inequities if Manipur state integrity has to be safeguarded and restored meaningfully.
The long unresolved issues like disproportionate representation (20/40 in state assembly), implementation of ‘delimitation exercise’ in hill areas, and strengthening the existing Autonomous (hill areas) District Councils deserve an unequivocal space on the negotiating table and in making of electoral alliances across parties. This will help the state government condense the growing polarisation of ethnocentric political fervours and render the crusading hill community justice.
A cosmetic Machiavellian attempt will only stabilise the cycle of ethnic polarisation and mobilisation in the state. The recent emerging discontentment of valley settlers is only the ramifications of the long setbacks and insincerity of the state government in addressing the structural disparities between hills and valley communities.
Attending the long-accumulated trust deficit of hill communities might only offer a democratic path forward in addressing the plight of the valley communities.
Today, Manipur stands at a crossroads. Traditionally polarised ethnocentric approaches seem to suggest a deficient role in tackling the varying issues plaguing the state of Manipur. As long as the state’s citizens remain complicit or continue to sing in the tune of such complicit exclusionary politics, the long-ailing Manipur might take a long journey of healing, and scars would remain open to “rub salt on the wound” from New Delhi.
Understandably, a status quo is more convenient than the non-soothing dissenting facts clanking on the margins to be heard at the core.
More so if the status quo is challenged in unravelling injustice, discrimination, antagonisation and exclusion based on facts, it must also be noted here that a state of status quo is a state of imbalanced power distributions, where the dominant holds sway over important matters and structural designs.
Exclusive governance and ethnocentric politicking are not the way forward for any conscience keeper. In the 2024 Lok Sabha general election, irrespective of the political party and community the candidates represent, for the Manipur state, there is a genuine call to prioritise fostering meaningful dialogues and healings, creating democratic spaces, bridging divides & disparities towards a respectful, equitable and peaceful co-existence among ethnic communities.
Ramachan A. Shimray is a PhD Scholar at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. His research focuses on the development of the India-Myanmar borderland. Somingam PS is a PhD candidate at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He is researching on Anthropology of Tribes in India, Political Ecology, and Anthropology of Public Policy on Forest in Northeast India.