Manipur burning has become emblematic of the divisive politics of the BJP in the North East. Only four months ago, in February, Narendra Modi had crowed about the success of the BJP in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland elections in the North East. He claimed Christians in the North East are accepting the BJP.
It is seven weeks now since violence erupted in Manipur on May 3. Armed clashes, killings and arson attacks have ravaged the state. Hundreds of houses, around 200 churches and 17 temples have been burnt. Even the house of a union minister of state in Imphal was not spared. Despite 35,000 central armed police forces having been deployed in the state along with the army, incidents of attacks by armed Kuki and Meitei groups continue to occur. The death toll has crossed 100 and there are at least 50,000 displaced people in relief camps.
The home minister, Amit Shah, visited the state on May 29, a full 26 days after violence engulfed the state. His visit and the measures announced have not stemmed the violence. The divide between the Meiteis and the Kukis is now complete with extremist elements on both sides exploiting the lawless situation.
Manipur is a sensitive border state, which is notable for its diversity with 36 ethnic and religious communities. Of these, the three main ones are the Meitei community, which inhabits the Imphal valley, who are followers of the Hinduism or the indigenous Sanamahi religion; and the Kukis and the Nagas, who are predominantly Christian. Apart from them, there are a number of smaller tribal communities and people from other states.
For decades, Manipur has suffered from the insurgency of armed groups belonging to various ethnic communities. In the past, there have been clashes between the Nagas and Kukis. With the advent of the BJP to the state government in 2017, the RSS and its outfits have been active to consolidate the Meiteis as a Hindu force against the Kukis who are Christians. This has given the Meitei-Kuki conflict the contours of a Hindu-Christian conflict too.
The situation has been aggravated in recent times with the migration of thousands of Chin refugees from Myanmar, who have fled the crackdown by the military which seized power in 2021. The Chin are of the same ethnic group as the Kukis. Both in Mizoram and Manipur, these refugees have been welcomed by their ethnic kinsmen and given shelter. But the government of India has refused to accord them refugee status and declared them as illegal migrants.
The Biren Singh government aggravated the situation by initiating eviction measures in the reserve forests, which affected a large number of Kuki families. The crackdown on poppy cultivation was also seen as a hostile act against the Kukis. The RSS-BJP have been encouraging extremist Meitei groups like Arambai Tengol and Meitei Leepun, who have been propagating against the Kukis and branding them as illegal outsiders.
The duplicitous game of the BJP was exposed when it was found that it has been enlisting some of the Kuki armed militant groups to help it during the elections. In a letter written in June 2019 to the union home minister, Amit Shah, the leader of an armed Kuki group, S S Hokip, who is the chairman of the United Kuki Liberation Front (UKLF) had said that, in 2017, Ram Madhav, the BJP national general secretary, in-charge of the North East and Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Assam chief minister had approached him for support in the 2017 assembly elections and subsequently in the 2019 parliament elections. It was clear from the letter, which was submitted as an annexure with an affidavit in an NIA court in Imphal that money was also paid. The UKLF was one of the organisations which had joined the “suspension of operations” agreement in 2008.
This dubious game of the BJP has exposed it and the Biren Singh government amongst the Meiteis. As far as the Kukis are concerned, they are totally against Biren Singh as they view him as the source of all their problems. All the ten MLAs of the Kuki hill districts who are mostly of the BJP are demanding a separate administration for the Kuki area.
The most intriguing part of the whole affair is the total silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He has not spoken a single word about the situation in Manipur nor appealed for peace and restoration of normalcy. Three political delegations, two of them comprising BJP MLAs and the third of opposition parties from Manipur waited in vain in Delhi to meet the prime minister. They only saw him leaving the country for the United States. This complete lack of accountability on the part of the prime minister has infuriated all sections of the people of Manipur.
With the state government in shambles and no clear line of authority established, the first step necessary is a political one, i.e., removal of the Biren Singh government. Without such a step, there can be no way out of the mess created by the narrow and sectarian politics of the ruling party in the North East. (IPA Service)
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