State of Southasia #14: Patricia Mukhim on Manipur’s unending crisis
Manipur has been mired in an ethnic and political conflict since May 2023, primarily involving violent clashes between the Meitei community, which predominantly resides in the Imphal Valley, and the Kuki-Zomi-Hmars, which are tribal communities mostly living in the state's hilly areas. The violence, fueled by longstanding ethnic tensions, has resulted in hundreds of deaths, widespread displacement and the destruction of property. The state’s governance has collapsed and citizens have armed themselves against each other because of the failure of law and order. Several incidents of murder, rape, kidnapping, torture, sexual assault and arson have been reported on both sides.
At the heart of the crisis is a demand by the Meiteis for Scheduled Tribe status, which would grant them affirmative action benefits in education, employment, and political representation. This demand has been fiercely opposed by the Kuki and Naga tribes, who fear that such a move would undermine their own rights and lead to greater dominance by the Meitei community.
The state government has been accused of neglect and mismanagement and the central government has failed to intervene effectively. Manipur’s chief minister Biren Singh, of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, has been criticised for inflaming tensions, particularly after calling the Kuki people “narco-terrorists” and stoking ethnic divisions. Despite strong calls for his removal, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah have allowed him to keep his post.
In this episode of State of Southasia, Patricia Mukhim, a senior journalist from Shillong, highlights the state’s failure to address long-standing inequalities and warns of the current dangerous stalemate, with both communities disillusioned and no resolution in sight.
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Full Episode Transcript
This is an edited transcript from the podcast episode. Please listen to the corresponding audio before quoting from it.
NN:
Patricia Mukhim, senior journalist and editor of The Shillong Times, is on the podcast today, the 27th of November. She joins us from Shillong to discuss how this cycle of violence and tragedy came to pass and how the union and state governments have allowed the conflict to drag on for so long. Patricia, thank you so much for being here today.
PM:
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
NN:
Before we get into the discussion, I'd like to quickly remind our listeners to visit our website himalmag.com, click on Support Himal, become a paying patron of the magazine and help us in our mission to show you Southasia like no one else can.
Patricia, this conflict began in May 2023. In July 2023, a video surfaced of a sexual assault of two Kuki women. And this was when the national media really started paying attention. You had done interviews at the time pointing out that it had taken a month and a half, and it had taken this very terrible graphic video, for the rest of the country to start worrying about the situation and even for the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, to comment on anything that had happened in the state until then. It has now been 19 months of crisis. What is your assessment of the situation in Manipur now and how is it different from how you were thinking about it last year?
PM:
Nothing is different. You know, there is this sense of having been abandoned by the state. I'm feeling it and I know that up close and personal, the people who face this discrimination - I'm calling it discrimination because I'm sure if this had happened in any other part of India, it would not have been allowed to drift for so long. With people, you know, hanging on for their lives and livelihoods.
60,000 people in relief camps means that those 60,000 people have also been displaced from their jobs. Those who are in the hills can't go back to their jobs in the valley. And it's the same with Meiteis who are working in the hill districts. It works both ways. It's a state that is completely disrupted. And I stand to think that if, at this point, people were allowed a referendum, they would vote out this present government and its chief minister. I'm sure that both the Kukis and Meiteis are very disaffected by what's happening. It's not as if one group is for the government and the other is not. When there is, you know, inborn turmoil in a state, everyone suffers. It's not just one or the other group.
NN:
Right. Let's go back to how all of this actually began. In April 2023, the Manipur High Court had asked the state government to recommend Scheduled Tribe status for the Métis to the central government. And the tribes like the Kuki-Zomi-Hmars and the Nagas, they had long complained that development in the state had always unequally benefited the Meitei majority and that this step would further that skew.
So at that point, tribal students took out protest marches. It was during one of these marches that the first clash occurred that has since then spiraled completely out of control. There have always been these tensions between the Meiteis and the Kukis and other tribal groups, both along ethnic and the interlinked religious lines. But how has this conflict of the past year and a half changed or deepened that?
PM:
There are a number of issues that needed to be addressed because the Meiteis are reduced to living in the valley only. They are not allowed to buy land in the hills. The people from the hills are allowed to buy land in the valley. I think this is a very unequal situation and unequal arrangement and I think it should have been addressed at the proper time, but it was never done so because of political reasons. Nobody, no politician wants to shake up the status quo. No one wants to take corrective measures. And we, in fact, those of us who travel to Manipur frequently, we knew that one day this was going to come to a boil. You know, how can nine-tenths of the people live in one-tenth of the area? And vice-versa. So, that is one unequal arrangement and which is the reason why the Meiteis want Scheduled Tribe status. The reason why they can't buy land in the hills is because they're not Scheduled Tribes. But in the first instance, I think the High Court exceeded its brief. It's not the brief of the High Court to ask anyone to settle the Scheduled Tribe status. That was stated much later by the Supreme Court of India.
So, things are always on the boil because there is this demand for ethnic homelands which I've always said in my writings is difficult to achieve because if everyone has a homeland and you have little, sort of, principalities, how does the center manage? I mean, in the first place, many of the states or all of the states of the Northeast have been created despite not being economically viable. We are so dependent on the center for about 90% of our financial resources. We generate less than 10%. So with that kind of situation, then you want to further divide yourself. It becomes a difficult situation.
But now, what has happened in Manipur is a no-go situation. The Kukis will not accede to anything less than a separate sort of arrangement like what happened to Kashmir and Jammu, a union territory kind of status.
NN:
So it's almost a kind of stalemate right now that the crisis has led to. But coming to the role of the state government and Chief Minister Biren Singh, who belongs to the BJP, according to a news report in The Wire in August last year, the central government was all set to sign an accord with the Kukis that would supposedly have granted them autonomy under a territorial council. Much to the displeasure of Biren Singh, who belongs to the Meitei community. The violence then broke out that same month and this accord was supposedly put on the back burner. Now, Biren Singh himself has acted in a very partisan way during the conflict. He has called Kuki things like narco terrorists, poppy growers-
PM:
He still does. He still does.
NN:
And Kuki legislators themselves have, from his own party, spoken out against him in very strong terms. And yet, over these 19 months, neither Modi nor the Home Minister Amit Shah - I mean, they have allowed him to continue as Chief Minister. How much of the responsibility of the crisis lies with Biren Singh?
PM:
So Biren Singh is the agent provocateur here. And in a democracy like ours, when we have all these precedents from the past, where if there is conflict and that conflict is not brought down within about 48 hours, you have President's rule, because it means the failure of the rule of law in that state, failure of the state government. Now, if you do not have President's rule, you may send in any number of uniformed forces.
If they have to work within the ambit of the state government, they're not going to have a free hand. So it's pointless just sending in more and more uniformed personnel there. Already in the past, you know, Manipur had the highest number of uniformed personnel at about 55,000 at that time. And now they may be more, but what can they do if their hands are tied? They're not free agents.
So, there's everything that's gone wrong with Manipur. I saw an article written by former Home Secretary Mr GK Pillai saying that actually Biren Singh should be, he should have been arrested for crimes, you know. This is a huge humanitarian crisis that has been caused and that the country is sitting and doing nothing about it, tells you just how much they care about this region. They keep saying all kinds, they keep eulogizing the region and all that, but I think it's all lip service. And even Mr. Modi, the prime minister, it took him a long time before he uttered the word Manipur. And he literally had to be dragged to parliament, if you remember. And then Mr. Amit Shah came in just once after the conflict. After that, it's been like, very sort of parlays with people from the Kuki community going to Delhi and protesting and then MLAs wanting to meet the Union Home Minister. Him meeting them without any resolution whatsoever because for them Biren Singh is the man that they trust perhaps so they don't want to displace him.
NN:
Right, and there have been other kinds of obfuscation, right? In fact, ten Kuki legislators from Manipur have said that the union government had lied in the Supreme Court about Biren Singh meeting them to resolve the crisis.
PM:
There's no question of meeting. The situation is such that you cannot even have conversations anymore. There isn't a space for conversation. I mean, they're too, like you said, there's too much obfuscation, all meant to deceive. Nothing is going to happen. And in the first place, you know, those weapons that were looted from the police armory, they were allowed to be looted. Now they are saying that 3,000 weapons have been recovered. They have been recovered, but they have caused havoc. People have been killed with those weapons.
NN:
Patricia, you mentioned the kind of delay, the reluctance of Modi and Amit Shah to say anything about Manipur, to react to the situation. But what has the role of the central government been and why are they so reluctant to act, whether it is to impose President's rule or in such a way that it brings this immediate violence to an end?
PM:
See, I think it's because they don't have a second person like Biren who is the BJP flag bearer. There's nobody that they can trust. So they think he has delivered Manipur twice over to the BJP. So, why should they upset the upper cut? That's the only reason. And there's no second in command, so to say, after Biren.
NN:
Right, but given how the crisis has panned out, in the next assembly elections, is anyone going to vote for the BJP, do you think?
PM:
No, I don't think so. I don't think so. If people are rational and reasonable and are not tempted by other considerations, I don't think the BJP will ever come to power in Manipur again. Look at how strongly the Congress legislator - the Congress MP, he's the former professor from JNU - how strongly he spoke about Manipur in the parliament and yet there's still no response. I mean, there's never been a situation like this ever.
NN:
Right. So in April this year, Himal contributor Makepeace Sitlhou wrote about how under Modi, the Northeast is more united with India, but more divided within. You can find that story and more in the episode notes. Himal brings you important perspectives of conflict wherever it happens in Southasia. And it takes a lot to do this work. You can support our mission to show you the region like no one else can by becoming a paying patron of the magazine.
Click on the link in the episode notes or go to our website himalmag.com and click support Himal. You can also sign up to our newsletters to keep up with our latest stories, events and more. Now back to our conversation with Patricia Mukhim.
Patricia, I want to ask you about the role of other actors in this crisis. There are armed groups like the Arambai Tenggol, which is a Meitei group, which behaves like a militia. There are other insurgent groups that are extorting people during the crisis. How have these added to the tensions and the conflicts? How is it playing out on the ground?
PM:
They have virtually taken over the valley and the surrounding, you know, the area surrounding the hills. And the other day I was told that Arambai Tenggol has set up offices in Calcutta and Delhi. Now, what do you make of that? And on the one hand, Biren Singh says the militant outfits will be dealt with with all seriousness. So which militant groups is he referring to? Only the hill militants?
What about Arambai Tenggol and Meitei Leepun? Why are they allowed a free hand? They were even allowed to call the MLAs, tell them to vote in a certain way, to tell them to speak in a certain tone. What is that? I mean, you know, the more you think of Manipur, the more distressed you are, if not depressed, because everything is going wrong in that state. It shouldn't be like that. If you are against militants ruling the roost, then you should say the same about militants across the board. You shouldn't be allowing Arambai Tenggol to run riot.
NN:
You know, talking about the extortion of civilians, how does this actually work and how does it affect people's day-to-day lives? I mean, there is this atmosphere of tension, this fear anyway, and then you have insurgent groups coming back and taking advantage of it.
PM:
See, extortion has been the hallmark of Manipur, Nagaland. Later it came to Meghalaya, Assam. All militant outfits survive on extortion. They buy their arms and all that through extortion. And in Manipur and Nagaland, it's like the amounts are debited at source. Militants come to respective offices and collect it. That's how bad it is. And my Meitei friends used to tell me in those early days that they can't even buy a car. The moment they buy a car, they'll get an extortion note. You can't repair a home. You can't start to build a home because the moment militants see that, they think you have enough money to pay them as well. And this continues. It continues in Nagaland. The Nagas are so tired of extortion. The ordinary civilians, you know, they're tired because there are so many groups. It's not just one group, different groups and all surviving on extortion. Even when you think about the Northeast and what economic trajectory it should take, do you think anyone would feel the drive to come and invest here, to start a business here, although we have resources? Meghalaya has coal, limestone and everything. The other states have other resources. But why would anyone even want to come and invest in a state or in states that cannot assure the rule of law, cannot ensure that the rule of law prevails?
NN:
So after this flare up of violence in Jiribam district on November 11th, the government reintroduced the very controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act or AFSPA in some regions of Manipur. And there have already been protests with hundreds of people defying curfew orders. Given the history of AFSPA, the fact that the armed forces committed several atrocities under cover of this act, what are the ramifications of it being reintroduced even in a limited way now?
PM:
So it gives the armed forces a free hand, you know, in short. And we know from past history that the Meiteis were the most vociferous against Afspa, especially after Manorama Thangjam was abused and sexually molested and then killed. Then they had the naked protest, if you remember. Then we had that lady who went on a 16-year fast. One of the activists. It didn't work. Of course, later on, the areas under AFSPA were reduced. But at this point, I don't know if AFSPA is going to help in any way other than allowing the army to just push into anybody's house, anyone they think who's a suspect. It feels as if the central government is just allowing one thing after the next after the next, just trying out things without really wanting to bring anything under complete control. And now you have Biren Singh saying, he's very happy that the NIA is taking up all the cases. Does he think that the NIA is a free agent? It's part of the Union Home Ministry. So what is it that he is intending to get from the NIA? What is the report that he's looking for?
It will be just that he wants them to corroborate what he is saying all along. And now they are saying that we have proof that there are external agents who are causing this whole turmoil. See, the problem is that most of the militant outfits of the Northeast are either based in Myanmar or in Bangladesh. Then later on, Bangladesh took action and most of them have been freezed out from there. The problem is with Myanmar. There are still a lot of militant outfits operating from there. Even Meitei outfits are out there. So how do we know who is doing what?
NN:
And not just that, India has for many years now had this Look East Policy about the neighborhood in Southasia, which basically means better relations, you know, on the east and development of trade on that side. You have this, Myanmar has its own conflict that's been going on for a while. Bangladesh now has a government that is a little wary of India.
PM:
Yeah, very anti-India.
NN:
And we've had this seemingly endless internal conflict that's been going on. How do you think the Manipur conflict itself, the fact that it's dragged on for so long, affects our relationships with the neighbors?
PM:
See, right after Myanmar went into a spin, after Aung San Suu Kyi had lost power, since then, trade has come to almost a standstill, particularly formal trade. As it is, formal trade was very insignificant. It is the informal trade, we respectfully call smuggling the informal trade. That was what was happening. Now, with Manipur in turmoil, that is, you know, it's history now. You can't think of any trade happening. And then, no, let's come back to this Look East Policy, then it turned into Act East Policy under the Modi regime. Who is it for, by the way, this Act East policy? See, when you make a policy, you make it from the ground up, which means that you consult the people, the main stakeholders. If you think it is for the Northeast, then the people from the Northeast, at least the legislators from this region should have been consulted for that roadmap to be made so that we know what we are trading in. Do we have the resources to trade with Southeast Asia? Of course, for a brief while, there were a lot of patients who had come in from Myanmar to Manipur to be treated. But then, you know, the union, the external affairs ministry found some problems with visas, that created a lot of problems and that also got a short shift. So we are still never able to understand and the MEA keeps having these discourses, these seminars, these workshops again and again on the Act East Policy, but we know that the Act East Policy actually benefits the eastern coastal areas of India. You know, wherever you have ports, maybe.
So we understand where this Act East came from. It came from the idea that we shouldn't be looking at the West for all our economic transactions, that we should also be looking east. But perhaps it is our fault in the region that we think the Look East Policy later turned Act East Policy is about us. It may never have been about us. Because you have that Kaladan multimodal project that is supposed to link Mizoram to Myanmar and further on. Then you have the trilateral highway. I think these have sort of been, they haven't received the attention that they should have. And the problem again, as I said earlier, is that policies change with governments. At one time when the Congress government was in power and the DoNER ministry was headed by Mani Shankar Aiyar, there was a lot of, you know, exchange of people coming from Thailand and other places to the region to talk business, and people from the region going there. They were actually facilitated to talk to each other in a people to people kind of interface. After that, it all stopped. So, government policies don't really, you know, they're not sustainable in the long run. And it is the people, I think, who suffer.
NN:
Right. I just very want to quickly make a note to listeners that the DoNER ministry is a ministry for the development of the Northeast region specifically. Patricia, I want to come back to the question of the security forces for a minute. We spoke about AFSPA earlier, but how have security forces like the Central Reserve Police Force that are deployed in many parts of the state now, how have they behaved over the course of the conflict, aside from the obvious failure to contain it?
PM:
You know, it's a very difficult situation for them as well because see the state is divided into half and then the Assam Rifles are alleged to be partisan towards the Kukis and other hill tribes because there are more of them in the Assam Rifles. The Manipur police has been alleged to be pro-Meitei. The CRPF - I'm not so sure that they can really contain the situation. I mean, they will just try and sort of walk up and down, try and create a sense of security. But this whole conflict is meant to be addressed by conversations, talking to each other. I mean, there should be a meeting point. Now here, this is where we find that we are so inadequate, we don't have the tools for conflict resolution. We don't know how to go about it. We don't know what vocabulary to use. You know, we are all so, we feel so helpless because when two people are fighting, there needs to be a third party to bring the two together to at least talk sense.
NN:
And that ideally should be the government, whether state or center, right?
PM:
It could be the government but it could also be groups, maybe civil society groups that have proven themselves to be conflict resolution makers.
NN:
Right, and in one of our pieces, I think earlier this year, we had a contributor write about how one of the worst things that's happened has been the breakdown of civil society. And that's very worrying for not just Manipur, but the whole of the Northeast.
PM:
Yeah, yeah. The whole of the country, if you ask me, because civil society has been hounded out on several pretexts. So they are actually very disarmed, and it's very difficult for them to come together again.
NN:
The other big problem, of course, is the way information has been used, almost weaponized. You know, in the bigger picture, how has the national media reported on the conflict since it started in May 2023? And how has this affected how things have played out since then?
PM:
I cannot generalise that the entire so-called national media was wrong in their approach to the problem. Many of them had sent their reporters there, their correspondents there, and they've stayed there for long. But when they tried to report from the ground, many of them were harassed if they didn't take a certain position. Especially if they were reporting from the valley, they were told that they should report in a certain way. Some of them were hounded out. So it's not as if those reporters were partisan in any way, but they didn't have the liberty to report the truth. And then it was difficult for many of them to go to the hills. I remember going to Kangpokpi and taking the long route from Dimapur, Senapati till you reach Kangpokpi. So for them there was no information outflow because the internet was withdrawn. And it is difficult for reporters to go all the way. Some of them did go though, but largely information was flowing from the valley to the rest of the country.
So in many ways, and then you know how the media is today. I don't need to tell you how partisan the media is. So they took whatever they felt was their brief. So if you, especially if you're writing, if you are from the print media, by the time your report reaches the desk and the desk is so unfamiliar with the region, by the time the story goes out, it goes out in a very skewed way.
NN:
Sure. And has that changed at all over the last one and a half years? Do you see better reporting now as people have tried to understand the region and the conflict better?
PM:
I think now, yes, because of articles that people have written and written very intimately, I think many people now understand the situation better also because it's gone on for so long. The Kukis have come to Delhi, spoken up, the Meiteis have also come to Delhi, spoken up. So you know, it's no longer reduced to being in that periphery. And somehow I think people from that state are quite good at, sort of, telling their own stories, whichever the story is. So it depends on the listener to make their own judgments. If I'm the affected party, naturally I will say it my way. I'm not going to be empathetic towards the one who's inflicting violence on me.
NN:
So, what is the way out of this conflict? You know, you have mentioned earlier and some Kukis legislators have said that for the short term there should be President's rule and then eventually separate administrations for both communities, possibly in the form of union territories. What do you think is a possible political and administrative solution?
PM:
Actually, you earlier asked me what's the way forward. The way forward is for Biren Singh to step down or to be asked to step down. That's the first step. That will reduce tempers. And perhaps then whoever comes, I mean, if it's the President's rule, then it will be a different kind of situation. The army will be given a free hand to do what they need to do. And none of these militant outfits will have any godfather, you know. Only then will things begin to straighten out. Otherwise, with Biren Singh there, you can't think of peace building steps.
NN:
And Patricia, what is the way forward for Manipur as a society over the course of this conflict? There are people who were friends, neighbors, who are now on just these opposite sides of the battle lines. And this has been a very violent conflict. Somewhere the social fabric has been deeply, deeply affected.
PM:
Absolutely.
NN:
So what is the way forward for Manipur and its people?
PM:
See, people, when we say people, it's quite ambiguous because it's the state that should be worried about the situation. People will finally come around, friends will manage to get back to their friendships. But as of now, they are a tortured people. They are people who can't think of a single night of peace. They can't think of sleeping peacefully like anyone else anywhere is doing. They don't have that good fortune. And to be constantly in that frame of mind, think of the trauma. Think of the trauma that visits those people in the refugee camps. One and a half years, the camps we visited last year had three women delivering babies and no privacy, no nothing.
The very, you know, one has to be there to really understand how deep the wounds are. So to talk of coming back to - I don't like that word normalcy at all because I don't think there's anything normal - so to talk of coming back to a normal way of life, so to say, is really difficult. It's like building from scratch. Those people who have lost their homes in the valley. Homes worth crores of rupees, their life savings, how do they rebuild that? How do you rebuild lives? So it's not going to be easy and I'm sorry I don't have an easy recipe for bringing back Manipur on track.
NN:
I don't think anyone could possibly have an easy solution.
PM:
Not even the government, not even the government. Because the government may, you know, the state, the state can do certain things, but the state is emotionless. And here we are dealing with people's emotions. Of course, if what the Kukis demand is granted to them, perhaps that could be the first step towards rebuilding their lives.
NN:
Right. My final question, if I can ask you for a few recommendations on Manipur or the Northeast, this could be a book, fiction or nonfiction or a movie or another podcast maybe. What could people listen to to just understand the region better?
PM:
A podcast like the one you're having now is good as a beginning, but there are several books on the region written by British authors because we were an oral history people. The Khasis, the tribe where I belong to, we only got our script in 1841. So much of our history is oral history and recorded history is by the British, which of course, is not entirely correct. But over the years, you have local historians that have come up and written of their societies and of the region. So I think this is the world of Google. If I recommend one book, it may not be the best recommendation. I would suggest that people who are serious about understanding this region should read, come and visit. Because the other day I was speaking to some person, and we were at the Lit Fest and I was in conversation with Shobhaa De and we were called Daughters of Independence because we were born after independence. And she had a completely different life. Mine was completely different because until 1948, when the people of my community signed the instrument of accession, we were really not independent, you know, we were neither here nor there.
So it takes a lot to understand the region. There are so many cultural nuances. The best thing is to try and visit here, speak to people or meet people who are from this region wherever you are in different parts of India. There are a lot of people from the region having to go out because there are just no employment opportunities. So many of them are in Bangalore, Delhi, Bombay and not really happy with the kind of life that they have to live there but they are forced to leave the region.
NN:
Patricia, thank you so much for spending time with us today and for this very important and illuminating conversation. Thank you for being here.
PM:
Thank you for having me.