Hitherto unknown aspect of Manipur violence
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: October 30, 2023 -

HOW the importance of social media as a tool for promoting human rights, democracy and peace has been overshadowed by its dismal record of being used to push false narratives through disinformation campaigns is a well-known fact.

The debate around this issue has once again gained worldwide attention, especially in the light of the ongoing Hamas-Israeli war in the faraway Middle East where a barrage of false images, memes, videos and posts mostly generated from within the region itself is making it difficult for anyone to assess what is actually going on.

Juxtaposed to this Hamas-Israeli war, the conflict between the Meitei/ Meetei and the Kuki-Chin communities in the tiny northeastern Indian state of Manipur, which has been raging on for nearly six months now, may be insignificant in terms of the devastation caused and stakeholders involved.

But the role of social media warriors from both sides of the warring communities in fighting a battle online for pushing forward their respective narratives from within the comfort and confined of their rooms and in the process fuelling the ongoing conflict in Manipur is becoming hard to ignore.

So far, hundreds of precious human lives have been lost and thousands of families on either side of the clash divide uprooted from their homes and hearths, not to speak of the sufferings caused to people of all communities living in the state.

But there has been no solution in sight with the governments, both at the centre and in the state, doing nothing concrete for resolving the conflict, while the leaders of the two warring communities have not shown any intention of working towards finding a common ground for initiating talks for restoration of peace and normalcy.

Against this backdrop, it is interesting to note that Al Jazeera has come up with a report on the role of social media warriors in the ongoing conflict between the Meitei/Meetei and the Kuki-Chin communities, which validates the standpoint of Meiteis/Meeteis.

The report based on two separate studies conducted by the Delhi-based Narrative Research Lab, as well as Joyojeet Pal of the University of Michigan and independent researcher Sheyril Agarwal revealed how the leaders of Kuki-Chin community managed to outwit their Meitei/Meetei counterparts in utilising social media platforms, specially X, in putting across their narrative.

The report said that the presence of Indigenous Tribal Leaders' Forum (ITLF), a key political association of Kuki leaders, has been strong on social media platform X since the start of the conflict but the Meitei community did not have such a singular voice reflecting their political and civil society leadership on social media until COCOMI, an organisation of the Meitei Community, became active on social media in July.

The research findings also say that social media handles sympathising with or affiliated with the Kuki community mushroomed and tweeted actively with well-coordinated messaging but the Meitei-associated handles got into the narrative game later to counter the disinformation campaigns.

Another interesting revelation made in the Al Jazeera report filed by Angana Chakrabarti is that the ban on internet imposed by the government to stop spread of misinformation had never been a deterrent to the Kuki people from carrying out their activities as their leaders even paid hackers up to Rs 1 to 1.5 lakh for helping to get online by connecting to some of the phone lines that were left out from the purview of internet ban for use by state machineries.

All these revelations have shown how the Meitei/Meeteis were-caught completely off-guard of the ruse devised by leaders of Kuki-Chin community for pushing their demand for Zele'ngam in the guise of taking out a Tribal Solidarity March against the scheduled tribe (ST) demand of the Meiteis/Meeteis, and how well-planned is the war being waged by Kuki-Zo people on the Meitei/Meeteis, both on the ground as well as on digital platforms.