Wasbir Hussain | Walking The Tightrope On Peace In Manipur

Earlier this month, a spokesman of a leading Kuki civil society group said in a television debate that his community, that is, the Kukis, would never talk to Meiteis and the only time they could consider talking to them would be during the signing of an agreement that would grant the Kukis a “separate administration”, obviously outside the jurisdiction of the state of Manipur.

One doesn’t know if this is the general mood among all Kuki-Zo civil society groups, but if this is so, then the efforts of the Government of India’s home ministry to reduce the trust deficit between the two warring groups, the Kukis and the Meiteis in Manipur, may not yield results. The Union home ministry has so far held four rounds of trust-building talks with prominent civil society groups representing the Meiteis and the Kukis, both in the state as well as in New Delhi, since President’s Rule was imposed in February this year. However, these talks were held separately with the leaders of the two communities with the hope that at some point, they would sit together and discuss the peace roadmap.

What the MHA is aiming at is to first deal with issues like free movement of people from both sides into the territory of the other side because ever since the ethnic violence began on May 3, 2023, the Kukis have not ventured into the Imphal Valley, comprising six districts, while the Meiteis have not visited the Kuki-dominated hill districts like Churachandpur and others. Even the 10 Kuki-Zo MLAs have not visited the Imphal Valley since May 2023 and have missed all the state Assembly sessions held in the capital Imphal during this period.

After the MHA-initiated talks, leading Meitei civil society groups like the Coordination Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI) have stated publicly that they have no objection to people belonging to the Kuki-Zo community coming to the Imphal Valley for any sort of work. But, leaders of groups like the Kuki Inpi, an influential Kuki civil society organisation, have been saying in the media that they are okay with the free movement of goods and essential commodities between the Imphal Valley and the hill districts, but were not open to the free movement of people as yet. Now, this is one of the sticky points, that is, ensuring free movement of people across the state, that the government at the Centre and the state have to resolve.

Another urgent issue that the MHA is interested in finding a solution to is the rehabilitation of 57,000 internally displaced people (IDP), who have been living in makeshift relief camps for more than two years now with immense hardships. Here, too, there seems to be a difference in approach by the Meitei and Kuki IDPs. While some Meitei IDPs who have been uprooted from their homes in Kuki-dominated areas want to return to their homes in Churachandpur, Moreh and other places, the Kukis displaced from their homes in Imphal and other Meitei-dominated areas are reluctant to settle again in their original homes in the Imphal Valley, accusing the Meiteis of being the “perpetrators”.

Now, in the middle of all this, Manipur governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla has said that all relief camps, numbering around 350, housing the IDPs will be shut by December this year. The rehabilitation policy of the government is not clear but what is known is that the authorities have built around 1,000 pre-fabricated houses to accommodate the IDPs.

The question arises whether the Meitei IDPs will be housed in the Meitei-dominated Imphal Valley area and the Kuki-Zo IDPs will be housed in the Kuki-dominated hill districts. If this is so, how can one expect the two warring sides to ever patch up and regain each others’ trust? Can the IDPs never return to what they called home for decades? Will the Meiteis and Kukis be divided and separated for ever? These are questions to which there are hardly any answers.

If one goes back to the genesis of the ethnic clash, it appears that the main trigger was an attempt or demand to grant Scheduled Tribe status to the Meiteis. The Kukis opposed it, saying the Meiteis were an “advanced community” and as such granting them ST status will deprive the Kuki-Zo community of benefits like reservation in jobs and educational institutions. The Kuki-Zo groups were already seeking maximum autonomy for the hill areas that they inhabit. But after the ethnic violence, that has killed more than 250 people on both sides and displaced 57,000 others, the Kuki-Zo groups have upscaled their demand from the vague term of “autonomy” to that of a “separate administration”. The Kuki-Zos are either hoping to achieve a Union territory for the community, if not a separate state.

The stand of the Meiteis is well known: that there will be no dismemberment of Manipur.

On its part, the MHA wants to separate the two challenges in Manipur today -- that of restoring normality in the state, bridge the trust deficit and resolve issues like that of free movement across the state and rehabilitation of IDPs and the political demands of the two communities. The MHA feels that dealing with the political demands will require a “structured dialogue” with both groups separately, and even jointly. And that such a dialogue cannot be started without a semblance of peace in the state and the willingness of the two communities to sit together and talk. This, however, is proving to be an uphill task as things stand on the ground.

Amid these developments, there is a clamour for the restoration of a “popular government” in Manipur. That can be done as while clamping President’s Rule, the Centre kept the Assembly in suspended animation and not dissolved. The BJP and its allies still command the maximum number of MLAs in the 60-member House, but who will be the new leader? After all, the former CM, N. Biren Singh, could not succeed in dealing with the situation or ending the ethnic violence. The masses and some civil society groups on their part are “unhappy” with President’s Rule and want restoration of, what they call, a “popular government” in the state.

But the big question is: without the participation of the Kuki-Zo elected representatives in any new Manipur government, the stalemate cannot be broken. And organisations like the Kuki Inpi issued a diktat to the ten Kuki-Zo MLAs not to participate in any government formation process in Manipur. On the whole, the deadlock continues in almost all major fronts in the state where peace is elusive, to say the least.

Wasbir Hussain, author and political commentator, is editor-in-chief of Northeast Live, Northeast India’s only satellite English and Hindi news channel. The views expressed here are personal.