Dehumanising the Kukis
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: October 07, 2023 -

MORE than the action one could witness on the ground, it is interesting to note that the five-month-long communal conflict between the Meitei/Meetei and Kuki-Chin communities in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur is being played out on various social media platforms today.

For every single post put up any online platform, whether it is on X (formerly twitter), Facebook or Youtube, the comments made by people on both sides of the clash divide have been simply astounding.

With social media ensuring a scene of anonymity, there has been no-holds-barred in trying to deride each other by passing disparaging comments that are sometimes downright derogatory or abusive.

There are comments that are outrageously bad in taste with no sense of decency as well as which offer some wonderful insights into the current conflict.

But such insightful comments are a rarity like the pearls one needs to dive deep into the ocean to find them.

From a careful reading of all these comments, one could easily decipher what one community or the other despises the most and this weakness is being exploited to the hilt by each other.

If the Kuki-Chin people called the Meiteis/Meeteis as rapist, ngari eater, etc, the latter responded by terming the Kuki-Chin people as poppy cultivators or illegal migrants.

Both the warring groups may be reasoning that it is wrong to paint an entire community with the same brush, but that does not stop them from continuing to indulging in name calling.

From this endless war on social media, one can also see that more than the Meiteis/Meeteis who are being dubbed as rapists and ngari eater, the Kuki-Chin people have taken strong umbrage against what they described as the effort to dehumanise the entire community by nick-naming as poppy cultivators and illegal migrants.

It is true that all the Kuki-Chin people are not in favour of poppy cultivations which are being carried out illegally in interior hill areas.

So, calling all the Kuki-Chin people as poppy cultivators is wrong, and they have every right to protest against the attempt to dehumanise them.

But there is a reason behind the Meitei/Meetei people unabashedly calling the Kuki-Chin people as poppy cultivators or illegal immigrants, and this needs to be understood.

Poppies have been found cultivated in other hill areas as well. But people living in that'areas have not been targeted.

Then why the Kukis are being singled out.

This is also one question that has been raised by the Kuki-Chin people who are now at the receiving end of not only the "war on drugs" campaign launched by the state government but also on the social media spat.

One does not have to go far in seeking an answer to this question, if one looks at the reaction of the Kuki-Chin people to the multiple-threats post by illegal poppy cultivation in the society.

Unlike in other hill areas where people who are opposed to illegal poppy cultivations themselves came out to help the law enforcement agencies in carrying out drive against illegal poppy cultivation, people in Kuki-Chin-dominated area, regardless of whether they are in favour or not, made it a point to cry foul and tried everything possible to stop the law enforcement agencies from carrying out their duties of destroying the illegal poppy cultivation.

There have also been instances where chiefs of some Kuki villages, who had publicly announced support to the war on drugs campaign of the government, found to be allowing plantation of illicit poppy in their villages surreptitiously.

What's more, in an attempt to justify cultivation of Poppy, a man from Kuki-Chin community, who had served as the DPG of the state police Department and now is an elected representative to the Manipur Legislative Assembly, had even gone to the extent of saying ridiculously that the Kuki farmers in the hills are so poor and innocent that they took up the cultivation of poppy thinking it is a beautiful flower.

It is due to this 'humanising' attitude of Kuki people towards the problem of illicit poppy cultivation that they have been 'dehumanised' by others.