Reflections on the Conflicts of our Times :
Attempt at Common Sense reading of the Manipur Experience
- Part 1 -

Lokendra Arambam *

Mass Rally for the common future of Manipur from THAU Ground to Khuman Lampak :: 06th February 2016 :: Pix - Deepak Oinam

New Delhi missed the vital fact that the NCSN (IM), notwithstanding its Pan-Naga pretensions, is essentially a militia of the Tangkhul tribes of Manipur with little resonance with the broad Naga family. A deal cut with it would not be acceptable to the Naga society.
R.N. Ravi in 'Nagaland : Descent into Chaos'
The Hindu, January, 23, 2014.

Introduction

On the 6th February 2016, a massive rally of over a lakh people were organized by three civil society organizations of the Manipur valley, when the congregation circumambulated the thorough fares of the Imphal city for come three hours raising slogans for a Common Future of Manipur. Conflict watchers attentively listened to the speakers at the public meeting held at the Khuman Lampak, where representatives including some eleven tribal communities spoke about Hills and Plains Unity, at the same time expressing concerns about non-communication amongst the communities on issues of public interest.

Four resolutions were adopted which stipulated the anxieties of major sections of the people of Manipur. The highlight of the resolutions were on the necessity to safeguard the territorial integrity of Manipur, that the Government of India should respect it. The second resolution also denounced the Government of India playing a Divide and Rule Policy amongst the indigenous communities who had lived in amity for more than two thousand years, that the GoI should respect its pluralistic, multi-ethnic and multi-religious character. Thirdly the meeting re-affirmed the relationship of the indigenous peoples as being of the same mother (homeland). And lastly, the meeting sternly warned neighbouring states not to meddle into the internal affairs of the state.1

The signals emitted symbolically from the rally of this nature was a product of two critical issues the people of Manipur experienced conflictually in the last sixty five years after Manipur's integration into India. The one more immediate was the simmering threat on the disintegration of the Manipur territory, fear of which was induced by the Government of India's policy of settling the long-drawn Indo-Naga conflict, which had dragged on for some seventy years. The new Modi Government's desire to end the conflict once for all, and settle the incompatibilities between the two entities India and the Nagas, seemed to have been reflected under the recent Frame-work of Agreement signed on the 3rd August 2015, the Indian Government's recognition of the unique history, culture and situation of the Nagas and the promise to honour the historical rights of the Nagas.

It implicated, in the minds of certain sections of the Manipur hill and valley people, that part of the territories in the Manipur state, especially in the eastern, southern and south western hills would be incorporated into an enlarged Nagalim which has claims over certain Naga inhabited areas of Manipur to be incorporated in the proposed Nagalim. This was the apprehension which led to the sacrifice of eighteen people in the valley in 2001, when the Indian security forces fired upon the agitating crowd during the anti-ceasefire agitation when the NDA Government signed the Bangkok agreement with the NSCN (IM) on June 14, 2001. (The ceasefire without territorial limits was rescinded by the NDA Government on July 28, and the clause 'Without territorial Limits' was struck off from the agreement).

The NSCN (IM) however refused to recognize the actions of the Indian Government, declaring that it was a unilateral decision by the Indian Government and the NSCN (IM) had not been consulted over the decision. When Mr. R.N. Ravi, the new interlocutor for the Indo-Naga Peace Talks met some civil society representatives in the valley, he was asked about the continued presence of NSCN (IM) armed cadres in the Manipur hills, and their harassment and killing of Manipur people, taxing transporters and civil employees in the hill districts, Mr. Ravi was reported to have replied that the ceasefire between the GoI and the NSCN (IM) was not extended beyond Nagaland, and if the NSCN (IM) armed cadres were perpetrating violence in the hills of Manipur, the responsibility of preventing it was that of the Manipur Government.

Hence the Centre has nothing to do with the matter. This attitude was confirmed by the actions of the Central Security and the paramilitary in the hills who didn't intervene whenever armed cadres perpetrated rampage over valley people with their goods and vehicles passing the National Highways for the last twenty five years or so. R.N. Ravi, before he became interlocutor, wrote in the Hindu that 'In the guise of giving the NCSN (IM) a secure political space for building a workable consensus on the fractious Naga issue, New Delhi has given the militia a free military run of the Naga inhabited areas'.

It seems Mr. R.N. Ravi in his interlocutory role in the peace talks also assured the civil society representatives of the valley that the Centre has no intention to give assent to demands of disintegration of Manipur territory for satisfying Muivah's demand for the same, and when he was pressed for an answer for the continuous public speeches by Muivah that the NSCN (IM)'s demand for Naga integration remains an integral part of the settlement, he again was reported to have retorted that let them make speeches as freedom of speech is allowed by the Constitution, and that those in the Centre who have power over the issue need not decide in his favour, so the valley people need not worry. This attitude was also shared by the Bharatiya Janata Party, that they stood for Manipur's territorial integrity, and they would never allow Manipur's territories to be given away to the NSCN (IM).

Enigma of Unique Histories

As for the issue of the GoI's decision to recognize the unique history, culture and situation of the Nagas, the people in the valley have other fears. Because the demographic situation of the Manipur state is composed of a plural spread of some thirty four ethnic communities all over the hills and plains and certain smaller ethnoses had been converted into the denomination of Nagas, like earlier anthropological understanding of some old-Kuki communities like the Moyon, Monsang, Anal, Maring etc. have identified themselves as Nagas, and there are resistances to this programme. The Aimol community had refused to be recognized as Nagas. They wanted to remain Aimol, and some other smaller communities like Chothe also refused to be incorporated into larger tribes.

When the NSCN (IM) submitted their demands for the settlement of the Indo-Naga Peace Talks, they surely must be presenting to the Centre a history of the Nagas as they claimed to be unique, and one is not sure what is the representation of the Manipur Nagas, apart from their solid history of the Nagas in Nagaland and Burma, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. When the civil representatives asked for a White Paper from the GoI to produce the documents of the Indo-Naga Peace Talks since 1997, Mr. Ravi was reported to have brushed aside the idea curtly, saying that he didn't bring any 'baggage' of the past, meaning GoI had rejected the earlier 17 years old non-settled ambivalences of the UPA Government of the Congress, that the Modi Government was starting afresh on the issue.

This means that the Modi Government had also rejected certain decisions reported to have been communicated to the Naga representatives by Mr. Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister that the idea of sovereignty of the Nagas shall not be recognized and that Naga integration of territories and people in neighbouring states are also ruled out. This sudden turn-about in the policies of the Centre, and recognition of the History of the Nagas as told by the Nagas only, not the history of ethnic components of neighbouring states, which are as yet not invited by the Centre from them. Here lies a complex bind on the case!

It is feared that the case of the Manipur Nagas, and their history in Manipur could have been wrongly reported by the NSCN (IM) to the Centre. It had been widely circulated that the Nagas of Manipur had never been conquered by any other power other than the British in Manipur history. It was circulated that the Meetei kingdom before they came under British rule in 1891 was only in the valley of Manipur. The Nagas of Manipur were therefore represented as being 'independent' in the hill regions of Manipur till the advent of the British.

It looks like the history of the Nagas in Manipur were being presented to the Centre in a one-sided version. The history of pre-colonial Manipur was not much studied as public knowledge, and not much of studies had been done on ethno-history, the issues of authority relations in the pre-colonial polity, the ritual relationship amongst communities with the state, and the facts in history about progressive awareness of self-hoods amongst pre-colonial ethnoses as against others, the development of the in-group consciousness of solidarity and out-group hostility being only a late phenomenon in our lives.

The Indo-Naga Peace Talks, which was freshly started by the Modi Government, with Mr. R.N. Ravi's perceptions of having carried no baggages from the past, was based on mistaken paradigms of conflict resolution exercises. Mr. R.N. Ravi himself was carrying a baggage of severe mistaken notion of Naga history, a discourse of unique history and situation of the Nagas, told by the NSCN (IM) and accepted by the NDA Government under Atal Bihari Bajpayee since the Amsterdam Conference of 2002. No other neighbouring states in Northeast India, which have Naga citizens in their territories, had ever been invited to relate their ethnic histories and cultures.

The civil societies in the Manipur valley have a relevant point to demand a White Paper of the GoI-NSCN (IM) negotiations since 1997, for the very issues of the Manipur Nagas could have been wrongly represented in the context of the negotiations. A correct perspective of history must be established about Naga uniqueness, if ever that too was reflected in Manipur history. There would be another uniqueness of Manipur history, if the pages of pre-colonial Manipur are opened. For it will be discovered that the hill tribes were participating as voluntary components of the pre-colonial Manipur polity since the tenth century of the Common Era.

A ritual of mutual relationship with collective solidarity in tow known as Mera Haochongba (Dance by the Hillmen in October) was established during the reign of King Irengba (984-1074 C.E.). Both the lowland and highland dwellers fought together in Manipur's wars against foreign powers like the Burmese and the English. The hills and the plains had a symbiotic relationship, forged by the geographic, ecological and economic inter-dependencies of the natural environment. The Manipur Nagas were not being understood as Nagas, which was a British invention. The Manipur polity recognized them in their ethnonyms, their original ethnos names like the Tangkhuls, the Mao, the Maram, the Thangals etc.

The spread of the idea of Naga consciousness was a fairly recent phenomenon, a post-Phizo development. Even the legendary sacrifices of Jadonang and Gaidinlieu from the Manipur hills against the British imperial power, as interpreted as forbears of Naga nationalism was found to be an incorrect interpretation. For the two leaders fought for kingdom of the Makam people, which now is represented by the Zeliangroung people. Such critical nuances in the interpretation of historical events did create a lot of misunderstanding in the study and analysis of conflict. The story of the actual participation of the Nagas of Manipur in the overall Naga ethno-national movement should be dispassionately debated in the Naga inhabited areas, understood by the neighbouring communities so as to encourage proper treatment of the subject of their dignity, status and autonomy appropriate in context.

The suggestion would however remain as wishful thinking since the issue of Naga integration under one administrative roof is a very strong demand of the NSCN (IM) and their supporters. Naga civil society groups in Manipur believe it as an act of faith that the Naga National movement is inexorably connected with the unison of territory with identity. Sanjib Baruah, an Assamese intellectual once remarked on 'The emerging inclusivity of Naga identity with geography coming into clash with the territorially embodied identities of states like Assam and Manipur!

For the Nagas, to bring together all the Nagas and the areas inhabited by them under one political roof is a driving force of the Nagas (Now there are opponents of this idea in Nagaland itself). The fundamental rights and aspirations of the Naga people as expounded by their leaders incorporate this fond belief. The constitution of the Naga National Council, the initiator of the Naga political struggle endorses this principle. Many prior agreements between the representatives of the Naga movement, and the officials of the Dominion of India in the wake of the Independence of India reflect this possibility.

"Naga integration implies explicitly that it is an issue of removing all the arbitrary boundaries created without the free and informed consent of the Naga people by the Government of British India, Burma and India. Therefore, for the integration of all Naga areas, under one political roof, the partition made in the past must be removed. The total geographical area of the land which is desired to be integrated is approximately 1,00,000 sq. Km. The division of their territory is one of the greatest wounds that has been inflicted on the Naga people by the power that be including the Naga opportunist elements who have more faith in the dominant system than the Naga people. It is clear that the Naga people did not decide to be part of Assam or Arunachal Pradesh or Manipur". (White paper on Naga Integration by Naga Hoho 2002).2

To be continued..