Peace By Peace

IT ALL BEGAN WITH A SINGLE WORD: DIRECTED. A group of aggrieved individuals belonging to the Meitei community in Manipur approached the high court in Imphal. Their request was simple: that the state govern­ment respond to an old letter dispatched by the Centre in 2013 that had asked the state government’s recom­mendation whether to classify the Meitei community as a Scheduled Tribe (ST).

What followed in the weeks and months after the judgment was mayhem in the state. Inter-ethnic relations—frayed at the best of times in Manipur—were inflamed to the point that largescale violence took place during this time. On May 30, Union Home Minister Amit Shah held a series of meetings with representatives of different communities in Imphal and Churachandpur. He met scores of civil society organisations, intellectuals and others in the state. While his message was conciliatory—he asked all com­munities to give peace a chance—he instructed security forces to be firm in handling law and order. May 30 was also the first day in weeks when the level of violence was at a minimum.

The high court’s judgment was delivered in late March but its contents became known only in mid-April. By late April, the situation in Manipur had ap­proached boiling point. On May 3, the All-Tribal Students Union (ATSUM) called for a “solidarity march” against the inclusion of Meiteis on the list of STs. The march, scheduled in Churachandpur town, at­tracted some 60,000 people. In no time, violence was reported from Torbung, a mixed popula­tion village in Churachandpur district, and from Moreh, a town in Tengnoupal district. Such was the fury of the reaction that the state government could do little. While it had imposed Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) on April 28, five days before violence started, the intensity of the agitation caught the administration by surprise. A month later, more than 80 people have died in ethnic violence.

One part of the problem in restoring peace is that some of the demands are couched in maximalist terms. The Kuki community wants “total separation” from Manipur and imposition of presi­dent’s rule in the state. This demand has been made even as there is ample evidence that the violence is not one-sided and against the Kuki community. Another part is a series of structural issues that defy any solution based on ‘separation’ of parts of the state into ethnic enclaves. The hill districts of Manipur have an area of 20,089 square kilometres while the valley districts account for a total area of 2,238 sq km, just above 10 per cent of the area under the hill districts. In population terms, the equation is reversed: a majority of the popula­tion resides in the densely populated Imphal Valley while the hill districts have a scattered and thinly distributed population.

Some of these issues and fears came to the fore in the high court’s judgment. The group of petitioners, mostly from the valley districts, demanded that the Meitei community be declared an ST. Legally, the claim was based on the assertion that Meiteis were a ‘tribe’ before the state joined the Indian Union in September 1949. The issue did not emerge out of thin air and had been pending for almost a decade. Usually, judicial intervention in such matters takes time. But in this case, the court took up the main writ petition for “final disposal at the admission stage itself”. This was done with the consent of the par­ties involved. The court had given the state government a month’s time to make the recommendation as demanded by the petition­ers. Later, it extended this period to a year. The Supreme Court had strong words against the court when the matter was brought to its attention in mid-May but did not stay the proceedings as an appeal had already been filed against the judgment.

From a Kuki perspective, the granting of ST status to the Meitei community will enable the latter to purchase land in the hill dis­tricts, something not allowed at the moment: only members of STs can purchase land in the hill districts. But the opposite is not true: any community can purchase land in the valley districts.

The land issue was not germane to the petition in the high court but lurks somewhere in the background. It also speaks of the un­fair and inequitable distribution of land in the state. The Imphal Valley is not just overcrowded but is also home to a large number of other communities. The fear of Meiteis being edged out in their own home is genuine. While every state in the Northeast is unique in its features and the problems it confronts, there are strong paral­lels between what is happening to the Meiteis in Manipur and the problems being faced by the Assamese in their state. In both cases, the land issue is salient even if rarely spoken about.

Manipur, like all other states in the Northeast, is home to a large set of communities. While the majority Meitei community is mostly concentrated in the valley districts of the state, the tribal communities—Kukis and Nagas among others—live in the hill districts surrounding the central valley. This is a simplification as these communities have mixed in different regions.

The current situation has parallels with the early 1990s when there was severe violence and conflict in the state. At that time, violence occurred between Kukis and Nagas in the hill districts of Manipur. Largescale migration of communities of the kind seen now was witnessed at that time, too, especially in the northern districts of Senapati, Ukhrul and Tamenglong. These districts have since been reorganised along territorial lines.

What is different now is the violence being seen in the inter­mediate zones between the hill districts and the Imphal Valley. The places that have seen a rash of violent incidents in late May, such as Phayeng (Imphal West district), Torbung (Bishnupur dis­trict), Sugnu (Kakching district) and Yaingangpokpi (Imphal East district), are located in a different zone from the sites of the origi­nal violence in Churachandpur and Imphal districts. These later zones are now witnessing violence in a bid to clear them, ethni­cally speaking. There are other factors at play in the current unrest: the presence of armed groups from across the border in Myanmar. But these issues are being handled by the security forces.

At the moment, the focus is on violence and the deterioration in ethnic relations between Kukis and Meiteis to such an extent that the former want a “separate administration” in Kuki-dominated areas. But this is not the first time Manipur’s territorial integrity has been challenged and successfully resisted.

Until very recently, a part of the demands made by Naga leaders, especially those from the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM), was for the creation of a “greater Nagaland” or “Nagalim”. If this had been acceded to, it would have entailed the separation of key hill districts of Manipur: Senapati, Ukhrul, Tamenglong and even Chandel. This did not go down well with the majority of the people in Manipur, including Kukis who have a significant population in the original districts that have now been split into newer ones. It is also not the first instance of Kukis demanding a separate territory for themselves. In October 1999, ATSUM had given a memorandum to the president wherein the demand for a Union territory to be carved out of Manipur had been made. In response, the state government had outright rejected any compromise with Manipur’s territorial integrity.

It is worth recalling the severe reaction to even the possibility of such detachment of these districts in the state’s history. Back in June 2001, Manipur was caught in one of its periodic bouts of political instability. The Radhabinod Koijam ministry had fallen on June 1. On June 14, when the state was under president’s rule, the Centre announced a ceasefire with NSCN(IM). The trouble for Manipur was that the ceasefire was operational not just in Nagaland but also extended to other neighbouring areas, includ­ing Manipur. As part of the agreement, NSCN(IM) cadres were allowed to move around freely in these areas. This was seen in Manipur as the first step towards detaching the state’s hill districts.

This led to a huge agitation in Manipur in which all ethnic groups, including Kukis and some Nagas, participated. The agi­tation turned violent as lakhs of people poured into the streets of Imphal. The state Assembly was set on fire and some ex-legislators were roughed up for not doing anything about the extension of the Naga ceasefire to Manipur. Just as with the current round of people moving away to the safety of ‘their’ districts, in June 2001, too, a large number of Nagas living in Imphal Valley had sought safety in the hill districts. An appeal was made to them to come back and safety was promised. Many had heeded the appeal and returned.

Since then, even a hint of ‘territorial adjustment’ evokes strong reactions in Manipur. It is a matter of record that the state legis­lative Assembly has passed resolutions in 1995, 1997, 1998 and 2001 that Manipur’s boundaries cannot be changed under any circumstances.

AS THE HISTORY of the last four decades shows, Manipur has seen ethnic conflict, demands for merging various dis­tricts of the state into Nagaland, creation of new ‘adminis­trative units’, and even across-the-board cooperation in preventing its dismemberment. Practically the entire spectrum of political demands—from safeguarding the state’s existing boundaries to separatism—has been made at different times. Even with such extreme political volatility, the state has survived. Seen from this historical vantage, the current bout of conflict is not unusual.

There are also practical considerations in conceding the demand for a new Union territory in Manipur. For one, the Churachandpur area, which now includes a new district called Pherzawl, has hardly any revenue that can enable the running of a separate administra­tion. The cost of running the new entity—if it is conceded—will fall on the Centre. For another, this will set off a chain reaction across the region with the demand for the merger of Naga-populated districts of Manipur with Nagaland. The latter demand has been downplayed with great difficulty by the Centre over time. Any ‘concession’ is thus likely to unravel Manipur’s territorial integrity.

India’s Northeast is a sensitive and volatile region where governments take care not to disturb existing boundaries and the political equilibrium. Changing boundaries by creating new states is rare. The new trend is for states to solve their boundary dis­putes by mutual agreement, as has been seen in the case of Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland. Limited autonomy in a very small set of issues by the creation of autonomous district councils is also accepted. This does not even require an extension of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution to these areas as there is adequate legal machinery available within Manipur for that purpose. The Manipur (Hill Areas) District Councils Act, 1971 and the Manipur (Village Authorities in Hill Areas) Act, 1956 have ample provisions to meet these demands. If necessary, these laws can be updated. It is unlikely that an ancient state like Manipur will be subjected to territorial changes. The priority of the Centre and the state government is to restore order.

Churachandpurethnic violenceImphal ValleyKukisManipurMeiteispolitics