When will the violence in Manipur end?

Peace will not come without acknowledging state complicity and making reparations, all while ensuring safety for the Zo community.

Outside a morgue in Imphal, family members mourn a man killed during a clash between militant groups in a village in Manipur’s Tengnoupal district. | Photo Credit: Reuters

Seven months have passed since May 3 when the preplanned State-sanctioned pogrom first began against the Zo ethnic tribes (also referred to as “Kuki-Zomi” tribes). Manipur is ethnically divided, psychologically separated, geographically partitioned, and remains at constant risk of conflagration.

LISTEN: The human and security costs of the mass violence enabled by a complicit State gauged from publicly available data alone is unprecedented.

The human and security costs of the mass violence enabled by a complicit State gauged from publicly available data alone is unprecedented: 175 people killed and 45,000 displaced, with the majority of the deceased and displaced of Zo tribal ethnicity; 4,786 houses set on fire; 386 religious structures demolished; and 4,000 sophisticated weapons, along with five lakh rounds of ammunition, looted from armouries and police stations mostly in the valley districts. There are numerous stories of sexual violence perpetrated by armed Meitei mobs against Zo tribal women; their use of rape as a weapon of war and collective punishment came to light after a video of two tribal women being paraded naked went viral on social media. Moreover, the Supreme Court’s interventions have failed to enforce State accountability and generate confidence in the justice delivery system.

Yet, the Zo ethnic tribes do not seem to figure in the Centre’s scheme for the State except for some closed-door talks between Suspension of Operations insurgent groups and the interlocutor. As such, the Zo community was explicitly acknowledged by the power centres in Delhi only once, when Union Home Minister Amit Shah used his address in Parliament to repeat the false and hateful narratives, propagated by the Meitei, that “Kuki immigrants” from Myanmar were responsible for the ethnic violence in Manipur.

Lack of moral clarity and courage

In general, there has been no true recognition of the Kuki-Zomi tribes, and public commentary on the ethnic violence has lacked moral clarity and courage, trying for the most part to obfuscate reality and play up a false balance between the two communities. This is done either through the use of euphemisms like “civil war” in an attempt to whitewash the orchestrated violence in which the State government was seen to be complicit, or by suggesting that historical and current grievances can be resolved through dialogue driven by mutual recognition of facile “similarities” of race or of being racial minorities. It merits clarifying that the grievances of the Kuki-Zomis were never against the Meitei community but against the discriminatory policies of successive State governments.

Heavy security, including Rapid Action Force personnel, is deployed outside Churachandpur Medical College in Lamka, Manipur, as the bodies of deceased Zo tribal members arrive from morgues in Imphal on December 14. | Photo Credit: Zomi Students’ Federation Media/IT Cell

The demands put forth by the Zo tribal people, for the most part, related to greater devolution of powers, like granting Sixth Schedule status to Autonomous District Councils, bridging the development disparity, or for the fulfilment of their constitutional entitlements and guarantees under Article 371C of the Constitution. In fact, the National Commission on Scheduled Tribes in a recent report took cognisance of State actions to encroach on tribal lands in the hill villages. It observed inter alia that several hill villages were wrongly included under the valley districts in Census 2011, and Reserved Forests, including pocket settlements in hill district Kangpokpi, were transferred to Imphal East in the valley without the approval of the Hills Area Committee, which is the constitutionally mandated procedure.

In other words, an uncritical and flawed framework of moral equivalence has been adopted repeatedly to explain and respond to what is arguably the bloodiest episode of government-approved ethnic violence in Manipur.

Levels of truth

There is a fragment of the truth and there is also the whole truth. The fragment is that some innocent Meitei people have lost their lives and some more have been displaced due to a mass transfer of the population on ethnic lines between the hills and the valley. But the cardinal sin many commit is to uncritically extend this fragment of truth as the complete truth.

At the funeral, in Imphal East on December 5, of the 13 people who were killed in a gunfight between armed groups in Manipur. The coffins are placed on vehicles with mourning relatives alongside. | Photo Credit: AFP

The corollary to this is an alarming denial (often couched as nuance) of justice to the Kuki-Zomis at this initial stage, even if we ignore for a moment the cries of selective justice that grew louder in the hill districts after a CBI team of 81 forensic experts led by a Special Director was sent to Imphal to investigate the alleged deaths of two Meitei teenagers. It arrested four Zo tribal people merely on grounds of suspicion. Questions were raised then and now: why was the investigation of only this case (of the 27 FIRs transferred to the CBI) fast-tracked when the majority of the transferred cases relate to crimes against the Zo? Is it because the victims were Meitei and Imphal had erupted in widespread protests?

Not admitting the whole truth also means a conscious failure to recognise the grave precarity, vulnerability, and neglect of a constitutionally protected minority tribal group. As a result, Zo tribes, forced to flee their homes in the valley and the foothills, continue to face coordinated attacks by Arambai Tenggol, a radical armed militia, and by proscribed valley-based insurgent groups, conceivably with the objective of forcibly dispossessing them of their ancestral lands.

Zo tribes’ heightened insecurity

The heightened insecurity of the Zo tribes can be evidenced from the brutal killing of nine Zo tribal people, including two elderly women, in just two months when they were travelling on the arterial supply road connecting the hill districts of Kangpokpi and Churachandpur. This is despite the deployment of the Army, the Assam Rifles (AR), and the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) to man the buffer zones between the Meitei-dominated valley districts and the hill areas inhabited by the Zo tribes.

Significantly, and in spite of a Unified Command headed by the Security Adviser trusted by the Home Ministry, the Army, the AR, and the CAPF have had to face reprisals from several quarters of Meitei society for rendering yeoman service to protect the Kuki-Zomi tribes. Some notable and alarming occurrences: FIRs were filed by the Manipur Police against the AR for purported “obstruction of duty” and “criminal intimidation”; AR rations rotted because they were not allowed to pass through Meitei-inhabited areas; a Border Security Force convoy en route to Imphal from Churachandpur was waylaid by a mob. Also, Kuki-Zomi officials were assaulted and abducted briefly before being rescued. Not to mention that all Central Industrial Security Force officials who were Zo and deputed at Imphal Airport have been transferred outside Manipur for their safety and security.

In addition, between May and June, reports indicated that there was an attempt to disrupt medical and essential supplies and dismantle power and mobile phone network infrastructure used by Kuki-Zomis. Trucks carrying medical and other essential supplies like baby food were blocked from the arterial roads connecting Churachandpur district.

For nearly six days in June, Churachandpur district reportedly suffered a major power crisis when a 132 kV electricity transmission tower became non-functional after many of its stabilising nuts and bolts went missing. Jio and Vodafone cellular services were restored only after the petitioners in Zomi Students’ Federation vs State of Manipur sought the intervention of the Supreme Court. It is worth mentioning here that Israel’s blockades of humanitarian aid to Gaza have been assessed as fulfilling one of the conditions of genocide under the Genocide Convention, namely, to calculatedly impose conditions for the destruction of a group.

A banner deployed outside the Churachandpur Medical College in Lamka, Manipur, as the bodies of deceased Zo tribal members arrive from morgues on December 14.. | Photo Credit: Zomi Students’ Federation Media/IT Cell

The fact is that even though the Zo tribal people constitute a mere 16 per cent of the population, according to government data reviewed by Reuters, 77 of them were killed in the first week of the violence. The number of looted weapons available with Meitei groups in July was 2,780, while 156 weapons were with Zo groups. Moreover, the Archbishop of Imphal claimed that 249 churches were burned down in the first 36 hours alone. It was also reported that the Churachandpur district hospital treated 288 bullet injuries in the first two months after May 3.

Unequal distribution of power

The tangible costs of such “balance” are that it can often trivialise and obviate the impact of unequal distribution of social and political power in hierarchical societies that are deeply divided along ethnic lines, particularly in Manipur where a dominant ethnic majority community wields overwhelming control over the State apparatus and resources. The formal (and budgetary) as well as lived reality is that social and political power is predominantly vested in the Meitei community. Of 60 legislators, 40, including the Chief Minister, belong to the Meitei community and only 10 to the Kuki-Zomi tribes.

Highlights

• Seven months have passed since the preplanned State-sanctioned pogrom against the Zo ethnic tribes began on May 3.
• Public commentary on the ethnic violence has lacked moral clarity and courage, trying to obfuscate reality and play up a false balance between the two communities.
• The grievances of the Kuki-Zomis were never against the Meitei community but against the discriminatory policies of successive State governments.

Public statements repeatedly made by constitutional functionaries and Meitei civil society organisations (CSOs) have confirmed a genocidal intention. One of the most disturbing manifestations was the open call by several lakh Meitei people for the extermination of “illegal migrants” and “Chin-Kuki Narco Terrorism in Manipur” in a mega rally held on July 29, which was organised by the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity, an umbrella body of Meitei CSOs. On numerous occasions, Chief Minister N. Biren Singh has demonised the entire Kuki-Zomi tribal community. He said in a press conference on May 28 that this was a “fight between the State and Central forces against the terrorists”.

Students from ethnic strife areas of Manipur, who arrived at Kannur University to join various courses on December 5. | Photo Credit: Sajit C.P.

It would appear that for Biren Singh, and for much of the majority ethnic community, now fused into the State’s institutions, the Kuki-Zomis or anyone they suspect to be of Zo tribal ethnicity have ceased to be people with individual agency and identity. They are to be identified only as “narco-terrorists”, “poppy cultivators”, or “illegal migrants” fomenting violence.

No end to mindless cycle of violence?

There is now an urgent need to end the mindless cycle of violence in Manipur. An attempt to retrofit solutions that have worked in other conflict zones of India have failed. More than 200 days on, Manipur is at a critical juncture for three reasons: the regression of the Meitei community into an almost monolithic structure with little or no room for internal dissent; the stalemate over the demand for a separate administration for the Zo people within the constitutional framework; and the signing of a ceasefire agreement with a much smaller faction of the United National Liberation Front, namely the Kh Pambei group (UNLF-P), a valley-based insurgent group. The internal contradictions emerged only later, when the acting UNLF-P declared it would not surrender weapons until “Manipur’s sovereignty” was achieved.

As a result, seeking a negotiated peace in Manipur throws up a set of complex and disturbing questions. First and foremost, who will negotiate and with whom? A multiplicity of political actors from both ethnic communities presents challenges, with some like Arambai Tenggol, the Meitei revivalist and radical armed militia (disbanded on paper), almost always present wherever violence has broken out.

Secondly, how long can armed forces personnel sustain the role of forcible peace enforcement? In other words, will the buffer zone between the hills and the valley be a permanent feature for the foreseeable future?

Thirdly, are there viable alternatives that the Centre is working on to guarantee security and dignity for the Kuki-Zomi tribes and protect them against a potential existential threat? Are such alternatives being planned at an all-party level?

Finally, is any admission of guilt and political accountability for State complicity and criminal neglect forthcoming? If not, how will the State regenerate confidence in the administration of justice and create meaningful conditions for the restoration of law and order? Unless these questions are addressed with sincerity and understanding, no peace is possible.

John Simte is an advocate based in New Delhi.