It has been more than a month since what many have now termed the ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Kuki-Zomi tribals in Imphal took place on 3rd May, and subsequent state-wide violence erupted across Manipur. The internet has remained shut down, the army has been sent to enforce law and order, and the Union Home Minister made a 3-day visit, appealing for peace and has initiated a Commission of Inquiry.
The scale and intensity of conflict makes it explicit that it is more than just a law and order problem. It is a political problem. A pertinent question that remains when it comes to matters related to conflicts and security in northeast India is the supposed role of ‘shadow governments’ in the region. The best way to understand the complex cycle of violence in Manipur is by understanding it via the frame of ‘Durable Disorder’.
The Kuki-Zomi insurgent groups
‘Durable Disorder’ is a term that refers to the prevalence of non-state elements that influence the function of the state as well as societal relations. The current conflict has brought to the forefront of every conversation the ongoing presence of SOO (Suspension of Operation): a political tripartite agreement between the Zomi-Kuki insurgent groups and the central and state government since 2008.
Valley-based organizations have been pushing for the abrogation of the SOO, following the narrative pushed by the chief minister, which blames the ‘separatist’ insurgent groups for instigating the current violence. Combined with this is the narrative that the Kuki-Zomi tribes are involved in ‘poppy cultivation’ and ‘encroaching’ on reserved forests.
Adding to this and the demand for ST status by the Meiteis is the narrative that the Kuki-Zomi tribes are mostly ‘illegal immigrants’, which has affected the demographic balance of the state. Many of these claims have been debunked. (For example, the census data regarding the historical population growth of Kuki-Zomis in Manipur has been clearly debunked repeatedly).
However, doesn’t it bring to the fore the pertinent role played by such insurgent groups? What is being left out of the conversation around the present crisis in Manipur?
The Kuki-Zomi insurgent groups under UPF-KNO indeed are armed groups that have in the past fought for a separate ‘homeland’ for the Kuki-Zomis. Many of these groups were formed in specific historical contexts, not all justified, with sometimes contradicting motivations. Sanjib Baruah, an Indian professor of Political Studies at Bard College in New York, and an author and commentator specializing in the politics of Northeast India, termed these sporadic formations as the attempt to fill the ‘security gap’ felt by many smaller communities in a region that has historically been full of inter-ethnic conflicts. This is true not just for Kuki-Zomi groups but also across the entire northeast.
However, by 2008, most of these various groups were brought together under the umbrella of the UPF-KNO and had been having talks with both the central and state government for a settlement under the Indian constitution. It is this Suspension of Operation (SOO) agreement that seeks to work out a constitutional framework for the political settlement of Kuki-Zomi issues in Manipur. It is also this agreement that has come under accusations by the state’s CM as well as valley-based organizations as facilitating the current conflict.
However, does that complete the nexus that propels the current violence?
The nexus of armed groups and violence
In northeast India, there are approximately 15 proscribed, outlawed, terrorist or extremist groups, 35 active insurgent groups, 72 inactive insurgent groups, and 18 groups currently in peace talks or ceasefire agreements with the government. In the context of the current violence, there has been a profound silence on the role played by valley-based insurgent groups. Of the 15 outlawed terrorist groups, 7 are in Manipur, of which 6 belong to the Meitei community, functioning under the umbrella of CORCOM. Unlike the Naga and the Kuki-Zomi groups, these groups have not arrived at a single agreement or talks with the Government of India.
From the security point of view, it is surprising that the murder of Col. Viplav Tripathi and his entire family on November 2021 by the People’s Liberation Army (a member organization of CORCOM) was immediately followed by the state’s removal of AFSPA from the valley districts the very next month. What was left unsaid, however, was that the Assam Rifles’ camps in the Churachandpur and Pherzawl districts, the region in where that attack took place, were removed from their stations.
The Zomi-Kuki tribal people had requested that the Assam Rifles be made to stay, but to little avail. Since the signing of the SOO in 2008, these central forces have on many occasions provided security to the tribals against valley-based incursions, which paradoxically take place from camps located across the border in Myanmar. The current chief minister has had a history of connections with these groups. In 2000, the current CM ,who was then working as a journalist, was even arrested on sedition charges for supporting these extremists.
Radical revivalist groups and patronage
Since 3rd May, almost 50,000 Kuki-Zomis and a smaller Meitei population have been reciprocally displaced. On both 2nd and 3rd May, a valley-based organization known as the Meitei Leepun, known to have connections with the current chief minister, had organized blockades of the main roads connecting the hill districts to Imphal.
When the violence started in Imphal, there was no possibility for the tribals to escape to the hills. Tens of thousands of trapped tribals were forced to seek shelter in the nearby army camps; many were caught, lynched, and tortured to death by attacking mobs as police stations located next to these localities remained spectators.
Survivors from Imphal have also pointed out the involvement of another organization, the ‘Arambai Tengol’, in leading these mobs and unfurling the ‘Salai Taret’ flag in various tribal localities after having ‘successfully cleansed them’ of Kuki-Zomi tribals. The specificity with which Kuki-Zomi tribes were targeted in mixed localities leaves one questioning how this was possible.
Many survivors from Imphal have claimed that their houses had been marked with a red dot weeks before the current violence erupted, while pictures of Arambai cadres with both the current CM, as well as the titular king and inner Manipur MP Sanajaoba Leishemba, have long since surfaced on media.
A recent news report by India Today NE has noted that these groups consist of ex-valley based insurgents that had supposedly “surrendered” and “re-integrated” into the valley society. When the article came out, the journalist who wrote the report was immediately threatened by mobs around her hotel, and had to be removed, until she was safely escorted out of the state.
As the conflict continues, the supposed “terrorist” and “Kuki militants” are made the object of blame even as a deafening silence remains on the manner in which more than 50 people were killed and 30,000 displaced on the first few days of the conflict, or on who had supposedly “looted” 2000+ arms from police and army centres in the valley on 28th & 29th May.
The CM himself had to disprove the former claim after a Joint Monitoring Committee was sent to inspect their designated camps by 15th May. There remains a deafening silence on the long delay in the deployment of RAF forces in Imphal early into the conflict, or the information leaks that allowed the ambush of a BSF convoy that carried tribal officers on 24th May.
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What about peace?
Despite the Union Home Minister’s call for 15 days of peace, conflicts continue to take place, especially in hill-valley border areas. The narrative of the state continues to put the blame on supposed “Kuki terrorists” while the Kuki-Zomi tribes blame the state police forces assisting Meitei militants to attack their villages. What is clear, however, is the complete loss of trust in the state government among the Kuki-Zomi tribes, and a cry for the Inquiry Commission to be unhindered by communal influences, even if they may be from the state. Any lasting semblance of peace and security can be worked out only outside the nexus of state and separatist insurgent groups that have never been brought to the table for constitutional dialogue.
Tawna Valte is a Phd scholar at the University of Hyderabad. Views expressed are personal.
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This is a sorry state of India. People like you will be awarded Ph.D and will be treated as academician or expert. Future society looks grim!!!