Missteps in Manipur may introduce dangerous dynamics in NE politics

Any demand for a separate ethnic state for the Zo people carved out of India, Myanmar and Bangladesh could rapidly worsen the security situation in India's northeast

Addressing only violence against women, terrible though it was, will not resolve the Manipur conflict. Ignoring the extreme social polarisation and civilian militarisation will have grave consequences both for India and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

So far, the Nagas of Manipur have stayed aloof from the Meitei-Kuki conflict. But they must be concerned by the threat these developments pose to the 26-year-old Naga peace process. A key proposal, hammered out in the peace talks, was that the Nagas of the states adjoining Nagaland be given autonomous administrative bodies within their states. Further, these Regional Autonomous Councils would supplement a Pan Naga Hoho (a tribal body with some financial powers spanning the contiguous states inhabited by Nagas without changing their boundaries). This was to be a non-territorial alternative to the initial demand of carving out a Naga homeland larger than the present-day Nagaland state. 

However, now, with the majority of the Meitei community opposing the Kuki demand for an autonomous administrative zone within the state, the political prospects of delivering on the proposals of the Naga Peace Accord have dimmed. 

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Even the Kukis might not accept the creation of a Regional Autonomous Council for the Nagas so easily. The areas inhabited by the two ethnicities overlap as the British colonialists deliberately settled Kuki villages next to Naga villages. Moreover, because they practice jhum agriculture, the Kukis tend to spread out and have not established large self-sustaining villages. This expansionist tendency has brought the Kukis into constant conflict with the Nagas in Manipur hills. Besides, the Nagas also claim that the Kukis are outsiders while they and the Meiteis are the only original inhabitants of Manipur.

If the Kukis have come to believe that they are safe only in a geographical homeland of their own, the situation in Manipur may become tricky. Already a Manipur Kuki legislator, Paolienlal Haokip (BJP) has told Press Trust of India (PTI) that the only political solution is to carve out three separate Union Territories for the Kukis, Nagas and Meiteis out of Manipur. This could snowball into a demand for encompassing areas in adjoining states as the Kukis are part of the Kuki-Chin-Mizo ethnic group, called the Zo people, who are spread over Manipur and Mizoram in India and across the border in Myanmar and Bangladesh. They are variously referred to as Chin (in Myanmar and Bangladesh), Mizo (in Mizoram), Kuki (in Manipur) and Zomi or Zo, elsewhere.

Hitherto dormant, the demand for a separate homeland for the Zo people has acquired a new life after nearly 12,300 Kuki refugees from Manipur poured into adjoining Mizoram. There are already 35,000 Chin refugees from Myanmar and 1,000 from Bangladesh currently in Mizoram. Any demand for a separate ethnic state carved out of India, Myanmar and Bangladesh could rapidly worsen the security situation in India's northeast. 

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Links already exist between the Kuki-Chin insurgent groups of Manipur and their Myanmar-based tribal kin. The Kuki National Army has one wing in India and another in Myanmar. It holds joint operations with the People's Defence Force of the banned National Unity Government of Myanmar, currently fighting the military junta. On the other hand, the Manipur-based Meitei insurgent outfit, the People's Liberation Army, has reportedly been provided weapons and shelter by the Myanmar Army in return for joint operations against their Chin rebels. The spillover of ethnic insurgencies across international borders will impact stability in the region. 

In addition, today, India's northeast is flush with weapons and ammunition looted from the Manipur police. The state government apparently has no figures of the weapons looted as the records were either destroyed or "taken away" by mobs. Rough official estimates suggest that around 4,000 weapons, including assault rifles like INSAS and AK-47s, Carbines, LMGs, pistols, .303 rifles and a large quantity of ammunition, were looted. Of these, only 1800 have been recovered. The rest are in civilian hands, mostly Meitei.

Weapons in the northeast are commonly traded and even rented by insurgents. Wrapped in polythene, they are easy to bury and store in forest areas. Last weekend, a deputy minister, Apam alias Ngathingpam Shimrah, of the parallel government of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah), was arrested by the Indian Army, smuggling ammunition to Manipur in collusion with an inspector of Nagaland Police. The NSCN(IM) has promised to punish Shimrah if found guilty. The Assam Police, meanwhile, has warned its officials to look out for arms looted in Manipur from finding their way into the state. 

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Further, the violence in Manipur was transformed in the public eye after churches were burned into a Hindu (Meitei) vs. Christian (Tribal Kukis) conflict. The BJP regime's deliberate Hindu ritualisation of public events and spaces reinforces the perception. This has eroded India's image in influential parts of the world where the Church has considerable influence on political leaders. 

This perception will also hurt the BJP's extensive political alliances in the northeast. The region's political parties have now favoured alliances with the ruling party in Delhi for easier access to Central funds and development schemes. Neiphiu Rio opportunistically included the BJP within the Democratic Alliance government he leads in Nagaland, although his party already had 41 out of 54 seats in the legislature. He must have hoped that a partnership in the state would make the BJP government in Delhi more amenable to signing the Naga Peace Accord. Such political cost-benefit calculations will take a beating now. In Mizoram, CM Zoramthanga and his deputy chief minister Tawnluia joined a recent protest in support of the Manipur Kukis despite their party, the Mizo National Front, being a member of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. They marched in silence but let other protestors raise anti-BJP slogans.  

The Centre's inability to control the violence in Manipur has, therefore, introduced a new dynamic in north-eastern politics. How and when these political parties in states, where loyalties to the clan, tribe and the Church trump everything, reveal their hand will be determined by how satisfied they are with the Centre's handling of the Manipur situation.