The Ningthouja Dynasty established by the Meitei monarch Nongda Lairen Pakhangba enthroned themselves at Kangla in the Imphal Valley by the turn of the century. Under this dynasty, Manipur got governed by 6 Royal Houses under an assortment of Meitei Emperors, Kings, Maharajas, Prince and Princesses. Intermittently invaded by the Burmese Konbaung Dynasty, Manipur evolved as a protectorate of British East India Company and subsequently as a princely state of British Raj under British Political Agents and British Administrators. With the Union of India clinching her freedom on account of the lapse of paramountcy of the British Crown, Manipur regained her political autonomy despite staying a monarchy.
With independence, the dominantly-Hindu Meitei revolutionized to see the rise of Meitei Nationalism, when the people revolted against monarchy rule demanding a democratic government for the people. Manipur got her first taste of modern insurgency. The will of people won and Manipur became a separate state of the Indian Union in 1972, but the insurgency continued.
As India and Manipur moved ahead from the 20th to the 21st century, another minority indigenous tribe of the surrounding hills gained traction in the primordial war-lands of Manipur. This was the Kuki Tribe of the North Cachar and Naga Hills, collectively known as Kuki-Zo.
The court chronicles of Manipuri Meitei kings mention various Kuki tribes living in the hills of Manipur through the pre-medieval and medieval era, unitedly known as “Khongchai” by the Meities. A climacteric landmark in the history of the Kuki people was the arrival of missionaries and the spread of Christianity among them. The spread of English education Christianized the Kuki people, rehabilitating their traditional customs and socio-political structure, as opposed to the dominant Hindu Meitei population.
The plague of ethno-tribal conflicts tormenting Manipur materialized into ethno-religious conflict in 2003-2004 after the All Tribal Student Union of Manipur (ATSUM) protested a Manipur High Court recommendation to recognize the Meitei, the majority ethnic group in the Imphal Valley, as a Scheduled Tribe (ST). The Kukis alleged that the ST status would allow the Meiteis to purchase land in the prohibited hilly areas. Violence substantialized and metamorphosed to deadly violence between the Kuki-dominated hill areas and Meitei-dominated valleys.
The question of blame is symbiotically shared by both the State Government as well as the Central Armed Paramilitary Forces. While the state under the pretext of “War on Drugs, Forest Surveys, Inner Line Permit, Immigration Drive and indigenous Land Rights Concerns” flared up the Meitei-Kuki tensions, the deployed CAPF failed to check Kuki immigration from Myanmar. Wonderment and Bewilderment was raised as to how the Kuki militants managed to escape the law of the land in dramatic fashions. Whether it was certain misunderstandings, actions of vested interests or foreign conspiracies to destabilise the state by elements acting against India’s Act East Policy, it led to widespread violence in Manipur which refuses to abate.
The continuing ethno-social violence in Manipur is rooted in bureaucratic influence and land-lording. It continues to claim both innocent and militant life, in both intemperate and rampant ways. It is hard to say if this is an ethnic or religious fight, but there is civil war on the ground there, with depressing ramifications on life, modesty, sexuality, propriety and culture.
The Indian government’s decision to employ silence and deploy additional forces and boots on the ground to combat this pyrrhic menace is a political gamble, but so is the call from tribal leaders for imposition of a direct rule. The Central Government has to readily come out with a unified solution to pacify both the warring factions and to stem the religio-ethnic divide which persistently fragments a historically-fragmented and neglected region of India.
Dr Shadab Ahmed is an oral & maxillofacial surgeon and translator of several books on historical & ethnic poetry.