Manipur: BJP govt touched raw nerve

There is no end to the violence in Manipur over a quota dispute and the reason is that old ethnic fault lines running deep. An analysis of the chain of events shows that lapses in policy and administrative oversight of the ‘double-engine’ government, has led to this unsavoury situation with precious lives lost and property worth crores damaged or destroyed.

The tribal groups believe that the Meiteis have a demographic as well as political advantage as the community makes up for 40 of the total 60 MLAs in the state. They fear a loss of opportunities if the contentious ST status is granted to the Meiteis.

Since the language of the Meiteis is included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, many of them have benefits associated with the SC, OBC, or EWS status.

The demand for ST status of Meiteis, therefore, is seen as “a tacit strategy of the valley dwellers to make inroads into the hills areas of the state. The Biren Singh government while claiming that poppy cultivation is widespread in the hills, carried out large evictions of the Kukis in Churachandpur district.

On May 4, civilians, mainly Meiteis, stormed the Manipur Police Training College at Pangei and took out weapons from there. Some churches were demolished in Imphal, that too in a tight security zone – near the DGP’s residence and the state Assembly area. Was it so easy to ransack a high security premise without the hidden approval of the police or the administration?

It is worth mentioning here that the Centre, the erstwhile Manipur government and three Kuki militant outfits signed a tripartite agreement and an SoO (Suspension of Operation) in 2008.

However, the Biren Singh government withdrew from the tripartite agreement, and the So on March 10 this year following protests in Churachandpur, Kangpokpi, and Tengnoupal districts against the government’s crackdown on poppy cultivators. Several Meitei organisations held a demonstration at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi to press for implementation of a National Register of Citizens (NRC) with 1951 as the base year. They claimed that Manipur was witnessing a sudden population surge with a growth rate of 24.5 per cent, against the national average of 17.64 per cent.

Meiteis are the majority community, comprising 53% of the population, while tribal communities account for around 40%.

However, the Meiteis are limited to only around 10% of the land in the state, as the rest is classified as tribal. They live in small patches in the plains and in the Imphal Valley while the tribals reside in protected Hill Areas, exclusively reserved for them under Article 371C.

Being classified as nontribals, Meitei people can’t buy land in over 90% of the state. Union Home Minister has announced a judicial probe headed by a retired high court chief justice to inquire into the clashes and also a CBI probe to investigate criminal conspiracies behind the violence but it remains to be seen if the reports will be put in the public domain, since it might worsen the already volatile state of affairs.

A case in point is that even Shah’s visit failed to stop violence which was evident from the heavy exchange of fire in Chanung in Imphal East district. The majority Meitei group claim they are are at risk of “ethnic cleansing” in their own state while comparing their precarious situation with that of the Kashmiri Pandits.

They have also claimed that Meiteis and Nagas are the original people of Manipur, a veiled dig at the Kuki community as immigrants.

It is evident that a solution to the violence can be found only by taking leaders of the warring groups into confidence for this is a border area and unrest cannot be allowed to continue for long and jeopardise national security.