This story first appeared in epaper.timesgroup.com
Why is Manipur burning? The government has put the death toll due to the recent ethnic clashes at 60, with 230 people being injured. But thousands of houses and public institutions have been torched throughout the past week. Violence first erupted on May 3 at Churachandpur district during a solidarity march by ATSUM, the All Tribal Students’ Union, Manipur.
Internet services have been suspended since, and the state put under curfew. Around 26,000 people have been evacuated from different districts of Manipur in the past seven days, a good chunk of them being students. The state is limping back to normalcy and the curfew is slowly being eased out. But the bigger questions still remain.
Is the proposed Scheduled Tribe status for the Meiteis the real trigger for violence or just the tip of the iceberg? Does it stoke bigger issues of loss of territory and loss of identity? Are extremist organisations fanning the fire? How can the tribes find an amicable closure to this conflict?
To answer all these questions and more, we have with us Patricia Mukhim, the editor of Shillong Times and our expert on the Manipur crisis. A veteran journalist and social activist, she has received the Padma Shri and several other prestigious awards for her social pursuits over the decades.
What have the Kukis, Nagas and Meiteis been fighting over for decades now?
Patricia says that at the root of all conflicts is a fight for resources, and how equitably those resources are shared. Manipur is a perfect case for a conflict because 90 per cent of the land in the hills is occupied only by the tribes, and 10 per cent of the valley land is occupied by the Meiteis. The Meiteis are constitutionally seen as non-tribes as they are Hindus. They make about 57 per cent of the population. The Meiteis can’t buy land on the hills, but the hill tribes can buy land in the valley.
Half of the fertile Imphal valley is kept aside for agriculture. So, there is immense land-related pressure. The upcoming Asian highway is also going to pass through the valley. These inconsistencies of history have sown the seeds of division between the hills and the valleys. The hill tribes feel that all the development is concentrated in the valley. All the best educational, medical and sports institutions are located in the valley and very little is happening in the hills. There is a huge developmental divide.
The state assembly has sixty members, out of which 40 are from the valley and only 20 are from the hills. Patricia feels the most conflicting point is that the tribes of Manipur are not brought under the 6th Schedule of the Constitution, unlike the tribes of Meghalaya, Assam and Tripura. The 6th Schedule makes way for autonomous district councils which are institutions of self-governance. But Manipur only has a Hill Area Council made up of those 20 MLAs, who are supposed to design the development framework. But the tribes have been demanding for governance autonomy for long and a denial of that is causing a lot of grouse in them.
Moreover, about 67.6 per cent of Manipur is forested, and only 8 per cent of that are reserved forests. All the forest cover is in the hills. The Biren Singh government has been wanting to convert a lot of those forests that are lying with the tribes into reserve forests and wildlife sanctuaries. Patricia says one of the reasons for wanting to convert open forests into reserved forests is that it makes it easier for the state if it wants to alienate land for anything. It then doesn’t have to contend with the tribes and their institutions, their headmen and their overlords. All these factors have accentuated the faultlines and led to the present conflict.
Did the British sow the seeds of a hill-valley divide that still triggers violence?
Patricia couldn’t agree more, saying that the British are at the root of all this conflict. The Burmese and the Manipuris have been at each other’s throats for as long as we can remember. It started right from the 1700s, when the Burmese were constantly coming to Manipur and causing havoc. For seven years, between 1819 and 1825, the Burmese reigned over Manipur. Those seven years are called the seven-year devastation.
After the Anglo Manipur War in 1891, which the Manipuris lost, there was an administrative system called Native Rule. Manipur was essentially controlled by a British representative who then decided that he was going to create the hills as a buffer between the Burmese and the valley. The British fought the Burmese and the Treaty of Yandabo was signed in 1826. In that treaty, the Burmese and the British agreed for perpetual peace and friendship. But the British also gave the very fertile Kabaw Valley to Burma without any consultation as a quid pro quo that they will not invade Manipur anymore.
The British also created rules for general administration of the state, which was a very strategic move to separate the hills from the valley. This sowed the seeds of deep-rooted alienation. Then there are the Nagas, who believe they are indigenous to the hills of Manipur and the Kukis are migrants from the Chin Hills of Burma. That is the backdrop to the long decade of Naga-Kuki conflict in the 1990s.
Besides, the Kukis have this habit of creating villages. The moment they grew in number, they would create new villages and they also intruded into Naga territories. These deeply embedded conflicts need a lot of statesmanship to be resolved, stresses Patricia, adding that politicians can seldom resolve these crises because they are the ones who benefit from them most often.
Do the clashes trigger bigger questions about loss of territory, loss of identity?
It’s a fact that there is too much pressure on land in the valley, shares Patricia. If the Meiteis get the Scheduled Tribe status, they will be able to buy land in the hills. That’s perhaps the reason they want it. Otherwise, the Meiteis are known to be progressive, much more educated and have more access to resources because they are located in the valley. Also, the Meiteis have largely moved out from Manipur and are well placed employees in the rest of the country. But, one can say the same about the Kukis and the Nagas. Everyone is looking for opportunities outside Manipur because it’s a region of conflict, resources are limited and demands are high.
Are extremist groups that have terrorized the hills for years fanning this fire?
We can never say that for sure, believes Patricia, because the insurgent outfits from the hills, especially the Kuki outfits, are on a suspension of operation mode. But when they had the Solidarity March on May 3, apparently some of them had come out and even brandished their AK-47, which is what triggered the violence, she says. Then the Meiteis also raided several police stations, got hold of weapons and brandished them in a show of power.
What is very distressing is the burning of homes, properties, churches, temples and institutions. The Kukis say the immediate trigger was that the Meiteis in Churachandpur burnt the Anglo Kuki War Memorial, which is a sign of great pride for them. That burning was an insult to their community pride. From then on, things just escalated. Law enforcers didn’t come to restore order or take any action on the troublemakers, whichever sides they were from. It seems they were allowed to go on a rampage, believes Patricia.
How can the tribes find an amicable closure? How can the state, centre help?
The immediate need is to curb the violence and ensure there are no fresh outbreaks. And for that, you need a completely dispassionate Central force, perhaps even the army, to assist, declares Patricia, saying people have lost faith in the state police.
But for long term peace and understanding, we do not seem to have institutions for peace building in the region or even the in the country. There is a great need for peace education. We always say that tribals have lived in brotherhood with the non tribes. But we are yet to see any concrete platform where those groups that are talking to each other can be called to stem the crisis, douse the flames of communal tension.
So, it has to be a work initiated by civil society itself. But, the civil society in the region is still too ethnocentric, concedes Patricia. If people speak against their own tribe, it is seen as a betrayal. So, how do you bring people to speak to each other? Faith-based institutions like the church and others should have come out to take the reins because, at the moment, those out on the streets are all young people. Should we leave every agitation to the youth? Should the elders not be there to guide and bring some sanity?
Patricia says there is still a lot of work to do and people have not even started thinking along those lines.
