By Patricia Mukhim
We live in a disparate region – a cauldron that tends to blow up on our faces every now and again. The reason is because we are different ethnicities that have failed to sit across the table to analyse and resolve the socio-economic challenges we face and to try and resolve those. On the contrary the tendency is to paint the other tribe as the ‘enemy’ and lash out at their community. One can also understand that there are long pending unresolved issues that have simmered and then come to the boil thereby causing a lot of pain, ill-will, loss of lives and property such as is happening in Manipur today.
There are inherent inequities in Manipur that should have been resolved after the British left this country because it was the colonial power that first divided Manipur into the hills and the valley. At that point we can imagine how life in the hills was like. The Kukis-Zo-Paite etc., who are originally from the Chin hills of the then Burma must have trudged there to escape the ruthless Burmese rulers. In fact, the Burmese kings were quite formidable and had conquered Manipur and ruled over it for seven long years (1819- 1825). That period was called the Seven Year Devastation. Burmese general Mingi Maha Bandula forced King Margit Singh and his supporters to flee to Cachar. A large number of Manipuris too fled to Cachar because they could not bear the torture and harassment under the Burmese.
The Burmese also invaded Cachar and posed a threat to the British rulers. In 1825 the Manipuri prince Gambhir Singh supported by the British forces pushed the Burmese out of Imphal. With the assistance of the British Gambhir Singh was later able to also push the Burmese out of the Kabow valley between December 1825 and January 1826. The British then advanced further into Burma and occupied Yandaboo which was only 25 kms from Ava the capital of Burma then. It was then that the Burmese and British signed the Treaty of Yandaboo and agreed for perpetual peace and friendship with the commitment that the Burmese would renounce all claims and will abstain from all future interference with the principality of Assam and its dependencies and also with the contiguous petty states of Cachar and Jaintia. This treaty ended the open conflict between Manipur and Burma for all times to come.
But even after becoming free of the Burmese, the Manipur kings functioned under the control of the British exercised through their political agents. In fact, the British without consulting the Manipur king gave away the Kabow valley – a rich agricultural land measuring nearly 1200 sq km and lying between the eastern border of Manipur and the Chindwin river in Burma. This was done to avoid any future wars with Burma and to safeguard their imperial interests. The loss of this territory weighed heavily on the Manipuris. How the British got into a war with the Manipur kings and occupied Kangla fort is another historical past that continues to haunt. After this annexation by the British post the Anglo-Manipur war of 1891, Manipur became a part of British India. The British ruled Manipur through an administrative system called the “Native Rule” where puppet kings with limited powers were put on the throne and the administration was run indirectly by the British.
Manipur is well known for uprisings against the British. The Kuki Rebellion of 1917-1919), the Zeliangrong Naga uprising 1930-32 and the anti-British women’s movement – the Nupilan (1930-40) were all uprisings against the British. In 1907 the British decided to hand over charge of the state to Raja Churachand by constituting a Darbar headed by the Raja as President, called the Manipur State Darbar formed under the Rules for the General Administration of the State (RFGAS). The British known for their chicanery separated the administration of the hills occupied by the Naga, Kuki and other tribes from the valley. The hills were under the charge of the Vice President of the Manipur State Darbar, a British officer with little scope for the Raja to interfere in the administration. The British argued that the hill tribes were very different from the valley based Meiteis and had very different customs, languages and ethnicities. It was this that sowed the seeds for the present dissension between the people of the hills and the valley (Source: Understanding Conflict in Manipur: A Socio-Historical Perspective by Veronica Khangchian).
At the time of India’s independence there were 565 princely states in India of which Manipur was one. In September 1949 Maharaja Bodhchandra Singh signed the Instrument of Accession to India. Manipur became a Union Territory in 1962 and a full-fledged state in 1972. However, the seeds of inherent distrust sowed by the British and the largely incongruent ethnicities – the Kuki-Zo-Paite – Naga- Meitei ensured that they could never learn to live together in harmony. The situation is made worse by the fact that about 67% of the population live in 10 % of the geographical area of Manipur while the rest 33% live in the hills which constitute 90 % of the total land mass of Manipur.
The Nagas and Meiteis feel that the Kukis are interlopers from the Chin hills of Burma which is a fact but having lived in those hills from the early 18th century they can no longer be considered migrants and certainly not ‘illegal migrants’ as is being made out to be. It is true that after Myanmar regressed into military rule a good number of Kuki-Chin people from Myanmar have taken shelter in Kuki-inhabited areas. What makes things convoluted here is that India has no national law on refugees. India refused to sign the 1951 Refugee Convention. This leaves a staggering 250,000 recognized refugees in a legally grey area. India urgently needs a Refugee Policy.
While people of the same ethnic and kinship ties from Myanmar keep arriving in small numbers both in Manipur and Mizoram there is no definite plan about their return. Their absorption into the two states would pose a problem of resources which are already scarce. India’s North Eastern states were not created on the basis of their economic viability. They were all created out of political exigencies. Hence unregulated population growth is problematic. However, there are ways of resolving these issues. Mizoram seems to be more transparent in handling the Myanmar refugees. Manipur does not seem to have a handle on this.
What is also problematic is the resistance by the Manipur government to devolve power to the Hill Areas Councils (HAC) and give them 6th Schedule status so that they have governance autonomy. From the very beginning the Government of Manipur has been playing fast and loose by not empowering the tribal councils and allowing them to plan out their development framework. Here the role of the 20 MLAs from the hill areas must also be questioned. For 21 years the hills had boycotted the elections to the Councils because they were not given adequate powers. This should have been a critical election agenda but it did not become a point of convergence for the hill tribes. Is this because the Naga, Kuki and other tribal MLAs cannot sit together in a show of solidarity that will challenge the Government in Imphal?
The recent intrusion of the Manipur Government into the forest lands of the Kuki tribes in a bid to turn them to reserved forests and wild life sanctuaries is also a sore point since the tribes believe they own the hills and forests. The Manipur Government also evicted the villagers of K Songjang village saying they were newly created villages much after the Indian Forest Act, of 1927 and its subsequent amendments.
There are also allegations that Chief Minister N Biren Singh wants to expand the area under marijuana cultivation with the intention of legalising it for medicinal and industrial use and to reduce drastically the area under poppy cultivation. In fact, the area under poppy cultivation in the hills has come down from 6742 acres in 2021 to 1,118 acres in 2022. That the drug lords of Manipur irrespective of ethnicities would be unhappy with this, goes without saying.
The hill tribes of Manipur have had an ongoing grouse against what they call the Meitei led government which invests the large part of its resources in the valley while the hills are left in the lurch with very little infrastructure and not even good roads. All major institutions of learning are based in Imphal. This governance deficit is sure to create animosity and a sense of deep frustration. Why do we wonder then when violence becomes the strategy of choice? Where do the tribals take their disaffection to? Who listens to them? Where are the conflict management platforms where they can at least voice their grievances and let out pressure?
It is in this context that schools, colleges and universities need to train their young ones to channelise their anger and frustration in a manner that they are able to get those grievances addressed without bloodshed, violence, killing and arson. It’s a high price to pay for the sole reason that the state has failed to create institutions of conflict management. Should we not work at this objective collectively instead of raving and ranting at each other? We are after all humans of the same origin; our allegiance to our ethnicities only serves our ego. Its time we learnt to have cross-community conversations. It’s the only way to a more liveable future.