By Thanglienmang Haokip
On 21st March 2024, the Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Manipur’s Chandel district issued an order to stop the construction of a bridge over the Manipur River at K. Molnom village. It is true that the bridge construction was “unauthorised”, as the DC claimed. However, it is crucial for the Kuki people of Chandel district to obtain food and other essentials from Churachandpur, as their neighbouring Meitei community has denied them basic needs following the ethnic tensions in the state.
Manipur, a tiny state in India’s Northeast, has historically been divided into the hills and the valley. This hill-valley divide is not limited to the topography but permeates through all domains, including the distribution of infrastructures. According to the composite infrastructural index of the Ministry of Development of the North Eastern Region (2006), the Meitei-inhabited valley districts of Manipur are far better equipped with infrastructures of transport, education, healthcare, banking, electricity, etc., than the hill districts predominantly inhabited by the Kuki and Naga tribes. The four valley districts (now six) of Imphal West, Imphal East, Thoubal and Bishnupur are on top of the table, while the five hill districts (now ten) of Senapati, Ukhrul, Tamenglong, Churachandpur and Chandel sit at the bottom. The same infrastructural index also shows that Manipur’s valley districts are among the best in the entire Northeast India, with Imphal West leading the table, whereas the hill districts are among those with the poorest infrastructure, with Chandel ranking 78th out of 80 districts in the region.
While disparity exists across all types of infrastructure, it is most apparent in education, road transport and healthcare facilities. In Manipur today, most state and central universities, including technical and professional institutes like the Manipur University, Central Agricultural University, the lone Sports University of the country, National Institute of Technology Manipur, Manipur University of Culture and Manipur Technical University – are situated in the valley, posing accessibility challenges for hill people. Even the regional campus of the Indira Gandhi National Tribal University (IGNTU-RCM) is kept within close proximity to the valley rather than in one of the hill headquarters where tribal populations are more concentrated.
In the road transport sector, there is an average of 117 km of road length per 100 square kilometres area of the valley, out of which 90% is surfaced. On the contrary, the total road length per 100 square kilometres in the hill districts is merely 22 km on average, of which 72% is surfaced. Consequently, people residing in the hills do not have access to all-weather roads, which is a denial of their fundamental rights. Further, the hill districts are not interconnected; one must cross the valley to commute from one hill district to another. For instance, there is no direct road connecting the hill districts of Churachandpur and Chandel, despite the two being adjacent to each other. Travellers between the two districts are required to pass through the valley district of Kakching.
It is not different in the distribution of medical facilities. There is a huge dearth of primary health centres in the hill districts, and where it exist, they often lack doctors and nurses. Both the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences and the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences, two premier medical institutes of the state, are kept in Imphal. Public hospitals in the hill districts are poorly equipped, frequently missing essential machinery and adequate medical staff. Even basic necessities like mortuaries are not available in most of them. The Churachandpur District Hospital was elevated to a medical college in 2022, yet it continues to lack the basic infrastructure and medical staff necessary to run a college.
The infrastructural deficit in the hill districts of Manipur is not simply because of the topographical challenges and high cost of construction. It is rather a systematic attempt of the state to make the hill people depend on the valley, and hence, it is an injustice. The state government, often controlled and headed by the valley community who have a higher share of political power than the hill people (40:20 legislators), largely concentrates its development initiatives in the valley and historically neglects the hill areas. Rocky R. Ziipao (2020), a professor at IIT Bombay, observes that in projects aimed at benefiting hill communities, the state government often delays the release of funds, utilisation certificates, and other requirements, sometimes resulting in project suspensions, whereas, in projects that would benefit the valley communities, the government even bypasses legal obstacles and expedites constructions.
A huge disparity is also seen in the state budget allocation. According to the state finance department, as cited in Kipgen & Chowdhury (2016), the hill districts of Manipur were allocated only 26% of the education budget, 25% of the health budget, 22% of the public works department budget, 14% of the social welfare budget and 12% of the agriculture budget in 2004–05. Similarly, Alfred K. Arthur, a former legislator from a hill constituency and a newly elected parliamentarian, pointed out on the floor of the assembly that the state’s expenditures for the development of hill areas in 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, and 2020-21 were a meagre 108 crore INR, 150 crores INR, 120 crores INR, and 41 crores INR, respectively, whereas for the valley, he claimed, were in terms of thousands of crores every financial year. This is despite the marginal difference in population between the valley and hills (60:40) and the significant difference in geographical area (10:90).
While infrastructural injustice in Manipur is historical, it is the ensuing violence that erupted in May 2023 that has intensified its consequences, particularly for the Kuki people. With the valley and all its infrastructures being inaccessible to the Kuki, communication between Kuki-dominated areas has become paralysed. They are separated by rivers and mountains, creating challenges in the supply of food and other essentials. It was to mitigate this that the K. Molnom bridge was constructed by the locals through public donations, but it has now come to a halt. The problem of connectivity was also the reason many Kuki villagers, especially those in the foothills, fled to the jungle when they faced attacks from their neighbouring Meitei community.
The only means of transportation available to the Kuki people in different districts today are the unsurfaced inter-village roads and makeshift boats for crossing the river. For those needing to cross the river with their vehicles, they must have their vehicles transported across by trucks paying exorbitant prices. The arrival of the monsoon exacerbates the situation as the water level rises and landslides often block the road. The distance between Churachandpur and Kangpokpi, which used to take only three hours when travelling through Imphal, now requires a whole day to cover as one travels along an unsurfaced road through hills and mountains. Besides the supply of essentials, the Kuki people face significant challenges in maintaining their customary practices as they cannot visit each other across different districts easily during times of both hardship and celebration.
For the Kuki youth, particularly those who studied in Imphal, education has come to a standstill, although a fortunate few managed to get transferred to universities in other states. With no university in Kuki-dominated areas, most youth cannot continue their education, nor are there jobs available for them locally. Many have migrated to metropolitan cities like Delhi, Chennai and Bengaluru in search of jobs. Unemployment is at its peak. As far as schools and colleges are concerned, they are overcrowded with students. With little to no support from the governments (both at the central and state), local student bodies like the Kuki Students’ Organisation are compelled to set up what they call “community schools” in various locations to prevent internally displaced students from dropping out. These community schools barely have infrastructure and rely on donations from like-minded individuals for their operation.
The impact of infrastructural injustices on medical care is also immense. Patients from the Kuki community are left with no choice but to travel to Aizawl, Kohima or Guwahati when local hospitals are unable to treat them. Earlier, Imphal was the main hub for transferring critically ill patients. But, with Imphal being inaccessible and medical facilities in the hill districts very poor, the only option left for critically ill Kuki patients is to travel to other states, which is time-consuming and expensive. While a few could afford it, many could not, forcing them to live with their illnesses. Tragically, some have passed away en route to other states.
Given the complexities, the Manipur violence is unlikely to end soon. It is, thus, pertinent for the Indian government to address infrastructural challenges facing the hill people, particularly the Kuki. This includes improving communication channels between hill districts by constructing rural roads and bridges, addressing the problems faced by students and youth and mitigating medical challenges by mobilising specialised doctors and nurses from other states of the country. Chopper services between specific locations and short-term deployment of doctors are insufficient. It must undo the historical injustices meted out against the hill people.
(The writer is a research staff at IIT Gandhinagar)