How to solve Meitei-Kuki ethnic clash

Dr Mohendra Irengbam *

Prime Minister Narendra Modi

This is easy as this would be in the form of a prayer to Modiji Bhagwan.

“Hĕ Parvadigar- e- Alam Tera Hi Hai Sahara.
Hĕ Bhagwan. Tune ye bahar keisi layi, jo Khazan be sath layi?
Edher aa [to Manipur], gale lagalung, ye gardish-e-zamana.
Daya karo Bhagwan”,

My English translation,
‘Hĕ the protector of the world.
We depend on your help.
Hĕ Lord how is it that you brought spring along with autumn [to Manipur} at the same time?
Please do come here to Manipur.
We want to hug you at this time of holocaust.
Please have mercy Bhagwan.

When I say, ‘This is easy’, I am dreaming of Manipur, like the slave in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, The Slave’s Dream:
“In the mist and shadow of sleep, he saw his Native Land,
wide through the landscape of his dreams.”

Without entirely blinding you with science, or blitzing you with poetry, this documentary envisages how easily Modiji, as a prime minister, could solve the ethnic clash in Manipur. I have complete faith in his ability to do so.

Let us face it. No prime minister of India except the great Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (I have been around from his time) has ever done half of what Modiji had done in his tenure of ten years in respect of economic growth, India’s esteem in the world, and military establishment. Our military-industry complex is also getting its foothold. Even the Chinese will think twice before initiating a border war. Never mind Pakistan.

Everybody in India knows what Modiji could do to stop this wanton destruction of life and property in Manipur if he so wished, in a way that sanp bhi mare, lathi bhi na tute [the snake is killed without breaking the stick], to put it in Modiji’s preferred language. Aside from the two brilliant Manipuri MP speakers in the parliament,

Modiji’s nonchalance has been exposed in no uncertain terms, by the eloquent speech in English and Hindi of a very young Mahua Moitra [TMC, West Bengal]. It was so succinct that one starts wondering about the state of mind of our Prime Minister. It will be jejune to repeat here. Still, I have not lost hope. I will continue to say my prathna to Modiji Bhagwan.

Down to earth, back to Manipur. Kukis are also aiming for an unobtainable height in their demand, and they know it. But my feeling is, somewhere on the way, they would be pleased to stop and consider. It is always good to aim high while bargaining. Because if you set up a higher goal you have the chance of achieving higher results than what you want.

It is like the saying in Manipuri, atya tamna nung hullabadi, yamdrabada wagi matondi yougani. If you throw a stone aiming for the sky, it will at least reach the top of the bamboos. In this context, I want to take refuge in the truth.

It does seem that the Meiteis are having a lion’s share in the economic progress after Independence. It looked the same during the British Raj as well. But looks are deceiving. Things are not always as they seem. In any case, these are things we can sort out among ourselves sitting at a moderate-sized table.

Prolonging the violence would be more undesirable for the Kukis than for the Meiteis simply because Meiteis are ready to bargain from a position of advantage. They do not have to go to the hills ever, while the Kukis need to come down to the valley for survival, sometime or the other, and to help to run the civil government as members of the Legislative Assembly. In the end, nobody wants to rock the boat.

Still, it is not as black and white. But progressive people like the Kukis, would like a solution to their problems that is as good as it comes. So do the Meiteis. Both the ethnic groups must try to solve the problem in earnest for peaceful living as has been done for an indefinitely long time. Nothing ventured, nothing gained – an extremely popular 14th century French proverb.

It is better if I rephrase it, ‘how can this ethnic conflict be resolved by assuaging some of the Kuki demands? I bet they did not start this civil war for fun. They must have been subject to certain acts that inflicted undeserved hurt before they exploded. The Meiteis need to listen to their grievances very carefully, showing interest and respect, asking open-ended questions, clarifying points, summarising key messages, and acknowledging emotions.

So many people have voiced their opinion in the written and electronic media about what they think would be the solution to the present ethnic clash in Manipur. As concerned human beings they want to bring the conflict to an end, as the Manipur government is impotent, and the central government appears not to care less. It is like suggesting to God with all kinds of ideas and desires at times of misfortune.

And God never listens. Modiji is not God, but like God – a Bhagwan. As he says, he is inspired by God, giving him the extra-ordinary momentum in things he does. That is the difference. But as human flesh and blood, he also feels hot and cold; he has temper tantrums and maybe a desire for revenge. How could anyone blame him? The same human blood runs in his veins as well.

There are many military historians and political scientists worldwide, who have written articles about solving ethnic clashes. In practice, they are equally impuissant. None of them helped in the horrific ethnic civil war in Kosovo, where Christian Serbians attempted to ethnically cleanse the region of Muslim Albanians. Only a NATO bombing of 78 days brought it to a standstill in 1999.

At least we will agree that the top brass in the federal government in Delhi are not half-wits. And the prime minister knows everything in minute detail about the mayhem in Manipur. He knew and said off- the- cuff in parliament that 11,000 FIRs had been filed and 500 people had been arrested.

Whatever the future political historians would say, he is deliberately keeping quiet, awaiting to see us fight out our guts until ‘the winner takes it all, after sending 10,000 military, paramilitary and Central Armed Police personnel to Manipur, simply to umpire the bouts like in Kungfu martial arts.

In one of my previous articles, I wrote about a better bargaining position with respect to Meitei’s ability to achieve a deal which is favourable to us in any negotiation. This is not to solve the problem. It is for better survival during this harangue.

The Meiteis are intrinsically on higher ground, as Imphal is the capital of Manipur and they have control over the air and land routes for physical contact with the outside of Manipur, in a way that would not affect their livelihood and existence as that of the Kukis. That did not matter in this immediate internal civil war.

What was needed was an organised defensive force, like the Japanese JSDF and the Israel IDF, which came in the shape of Arambai Tenggol with Kourounganba Khuman as the leader. They were equipped with small arms misappropriated from Manipur police armouries.

There are many intelligentsias worldwide, who have theorised a typology of the methods of conflict resolution that have been employed by the states. There is a list of them, such as indigenization, accommodation, assimilation, acculturation, population transfer, boundary alteration and so on. None of them worked in the Kosovo ethnic civil war mentioned above. Nonetheless, it has been understood after the collapse of USSR, that federalism as an institution of ethnic conflict resolution is not an answer. And it does not bode well for the future of the peace process in Manipur. Nor is the partition of Manipur.

The Kosovo conflict referred to above was an extremely horrible ethnic civil war. I mention it here to strike home that this sort of thing can easily get out of hand. It began when ethnic Muslim Albanians started an armed campaign in the Serbian province of Kosovo, for independence from Serbia, complaining of discrimination against them by the Serbian government in 1991.

Then, the Serb President Slobodan Milosevic began to massacre the Albanians (genocide) to get rid of them. The Bosnian civil war (1992-1995) was only stopped when NATO (North Atlantic Organisation) intervened with air strikes for 78 days, starting on March 24 1999 and ended on June 10 1999.

That resulted in Yugoslav forces withdrawing from Kosovo. [Former Yugoslavia was then ruled by the Serbian dynasty]. On the surface, the fighting was a bloody tug-of-war between ethnic Albanians and Serbians over Kosovo, a province of Serbia. During the conflict, 8,661 Albanians including women and children, and 1,196 Serbs were killed [cf. Int. Tribunal].

They say, ‘Diamonds are forever, wars are not’. Diamonds symbolise love and affection, wars create a significant threat to regional security and stability. So, it is common sense that we learn to think on our feet like an improv performer with love at heart for our adversary, while Bhagwan Modiji prefers to do nothing for the moment. Perhaps he thinks of the value of ‘masterly inactivity.’ Like God he wants the ethnic Manipuris to use their Freewill and see if we can help ourselves without his goodwill.

Like God, Modiji Bhagwan [Lord] knows everything that is going on in Manipur - a border state, which is full of faceless intelligence gathering internal security and counterintelligence agents from Delhi, who serve as the eyes and ears of the Union government. There is nothing Modiji does not know. There are Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW), National Investigation Agency (NIA), The Intelligence Bureau (IB).

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is the principal investigative Police Agency. The Cabinet Secretary, who is the Indian Administrative Services’ senior-most cadre, is the professional intelligence officer for the prime minister, for ‘Traffic Analysis’. The secret service collaborates closely with the Prime Minister.

Modiji must have suspected that Manipur was not going to the BJP in the last election. Likewise, he knew he would not be elected from Ayodhya constituency where he has spent a lot of money for uplifting the face of the city. So, he chose Varanasi, the holiest city for Hindus, which was sure to elect him.

I am sure Modiji must have been more exasperated when on July 3 2024, Bimol Akoijam, MP for Inner parliamentary Constituency in Manipur relentlessly criticised him for his inaction in dealing with the mayhem in Manipur at this time. Though it was a good speech with excellent delivery, it was more of a telling-off of the prime minister than asking for his intervention.

Then on July 30 2024, Alfred K Arthur, MP for Outer Parliamentary Constituency made such a thought-provoking and inspiring speech in perfect Hindi and with the right intonation that he drew the attention and sympathy of even the Lady Speaker, who intermittently nodded her head in agreement. He did the right thing. “One should not make a hole in the plate one is eating from”.

I was quite concerned that Modiji looked deeply upset following the poor result of his party in the last general election for Rajya Sabha [well short of 370 in the 543 seats]. Naturally, it broke his golden heart. unka swarna hrdya tut gaya. He lost his pleasant dream. Unka suhana sapna lut gaya. His speeches are softer with a drop in the range of the pitch and more laboured and prolonged. As his admirer, I feel extremely uncomfortable when Rahul Gandhi goes on and on in depersonalising him in the parliament.

I had a gut feeling, or an educated guess, which I was telling my wife, that Manipur will be at the receiving end of a very despondent prime minister Modiji, for helping to make a shadow in his brilliant political limelight, and for slowing his ‘God-sent’ momentum during his present occupancy of the prime minister’s chair. I felt sorry for him because I took a tremendous pride in him for standing up against the bullying Chinese across the LOC and for occupying Aksai Chin in eastern Ladakh, now a Union Territory.

[Henry] McMahon Line [Red] drawn and accepted at the Simla convention between Tibet and British India in 1914.
Now disputed by the Chinese who annexed Tibet to the Republic of China in 1950-51.

I am still smarting of the Chinese PLA, that humiliated our unprepared Indian Army in 1962, because of Pandit Nehru’s HINDI-CHINI BHA BHAI diplomacy. We, in the Northeast, thought we might be cut off from India and become part of China. Even Pandit Nehru thought so and moaned a sentimental goodbye to the whole of the northeast of India, during his speech on All India Radio, after the fall of Bomdila in NEFA (now Arunachal Pradesh), only 160km from Tezpur, nearly as far as Kohima from Imphal. He said, “My heart goes to you at this moment …”.

Luckily, for us in east India, Mao Zedong ordered a withdrawal of the PLA, after declaring a unilateral ceasefire, once he had achieved the goal of humiliating Pandit Nehru and delegitimized the existing McMahon line and occupied 38,000 sq km of Indian soil in Aksai Chin in the northeast of Kashmir.

Now fast forward from 1962 and back to the present. I have an answer as to why Modiji continues to be silent in the affairs of Manipur. It is a matter of academic interest. He is unhappy because of the political mood of the Manipuris after he has done so much for Manipur. To him, we are being ungrateful. Even before the civil war, he made a point of omitting Manipur while canvassing in the neighbouring states.

My deductive inference, though lately, is based on the following premises: the frugal (2024-2025) budget allocation for Manipur and lack of any mention of Manipur, in the finance minister Nirmala Sitaraman’s speech. Whilst Modiji did not touch Manipur with a barge pole in his Viksit Bharat@2047 speech at the NITI Aayog conference on Saturday, July 27 2024.

Further evidence accrued from missing grants for Manipur in the budget allocation under the Pradhan Mantri Awas yojana (PMAY) scheme and others. PMAY is a government-backed scheme for promoting affordable housing for low-income groups. He said, “we can fulfil our dreams of Viksit Bharat 2047 with the combined effort of all states [sic. barring Manipur]. Viksit States will make Viksit Bharat (Developing India).”

Along this line of thinking, I append that the ruling DMK in Tamil Naidu, protesting across the state on July 27 2024, alleging that the Union government was discriminatory, and it was a “revenge” against states which “boycotted” the BJP and voted the INDIA alliance, winning all the 39 seats in Tamil Naidu.

Further, the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar made a point of not attending the NITI conference without any apology. Instead, he sent his deputy chief minister, though Bihar and Andhra Pradesh [non-BJP government] were allocated a handsome budget, to help keep Modiji in his chair of the prime minister.

In the context of the Union budget allocation, Mamta Bannerjee, chief minister of West Bengal [Trinamul Congress, a breakaway faction of the Indian National Congress], walked out of the recent NITI Ayog meeting in Delhi, which was chaired by Narendra Modi, alleging that her microphone was switched off after five minutes when some other chief ministers were given twenty minutes to speak. She said she was the only chief minister from non-BJP-ruled states to attend. She also complained that all the opposition-ruled states have been deprived in the last budget proposals.

Now, we have an idea about the frame of mind of our prime minister in this current ethnic clash in Manipur. In the circumstance, we need to find a person, man, or woman, who is acceptable to mediate between the Kukis and the Meiteis. Unfortunately, Chief Minister Nongthombam Biren Singh is out, as the Kukis have no faith in him.

We need someone Like Gaikhangam Gangmei, who is a seasoned Congress politician and Kabui Naga from Nungba in Tamenglong. He can swear neutrality between the two ethnic communities. I know of him as I wrote a resumé about him and his life after a bit of research. And we could have someone like Kourounganba Khuman, leader of the Arambai Tenggol, or Heigrujam Nabashyam, Chair of the World Meetei Council, who are outstanding people now, during this ethnic crisis.

The Kukis are stoic and rational people, in my experience. They know we must start somewhere to negotiate. It is good to remember the quote, ‘Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.’ [Seneca, Roman Imperial philosopher, c. 4 BCE – 65 CE.].

For me, I can only pray to Modiji Bhagwan.

Daya karo Prabhu,
Manipur me hum sub ko sukhi aur swathya rakho.