The army has been patrolling the streets of Manipur, one of the smallest and most troubled states in India, since Thursday. At least eleven people have died in the riots and another twenty thousand have had to be accommodated in military camps. Among the dozens of wounded are at least two local deputies, who were about to be lynched.
The immediate source of the violence is demonstrations by Christianized hill tribes against new privileges for the Meitei, the Hindu-converted tribe that dominates Manipur’s central valley, home to the capital Imphal.
Manipur is the only one of the small Mongoloid-populated states of north-east India where Hindus constitute a very slim majority. At least in the last census, twelve years ago. However, this 51% of the population occupies only 10% of the widely urbanized territory. Meanwhile, the airy hills to the north are inhabited by the Naga tribes and those to the south by the Kukis (called Chin in Burma and Mizos in the Indian state of Mizoram).
To stop the violence, this Friday more federal rapid intervention forces have arrived and three camps have been consolidated to accommodate internally displaced persons. “There are more than a hundred columns working tirelessly to restore law and order,” the army said. Also, the internet has been suspended in the state to curb the spread of rumors. Previously, local activists have shown photos of entire towns burning down. Vehicles, houses, shops, churches and temples have been burned.
The head of government of Manipur, Nongthombam Biren Singh, speaks of “a misunderstanding” and has said that he will listen to the apprehensions of all parties, for which he has called for calm “to avoid further loss of human life.” Singh, a meitei, is a member of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP.
This party has its raison d’être in Hindu supremacism, so it is tempted to satisfy the maximalist claims of Hindus from the former principality of Manipur. Also the Indian judiciary, by its nature, should be sympathetic to their demands. In fact, a fortnight ago, the Manipur High Court of Justice already recommended the government to study it. The secondary effects were foreseeable and it is difficult for them to have caught the party of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah – his right hand man – highly specialized in converting social tension into votes by surprise.
Manipur is a state in which the same party as in New Delhi usually governs, to ensure “dual motor”, according to the local parties. Or in other words, to guarantee money transfers, in a state undermined by insurgent groups, both Meiteis, Nagas and Kukis. Political violence has claimed 2,163 deaths in Manipur in the past two decades, though it has slowed to a trickle in recent years.
That the demonstration on Wednesday has degenerated into burning property, deaths and injuries, would not be understood without the intervention of these elements, who have real arsenals, something that has precipitated the intervention of the army.
Northern Manipur is, in fact, the cradle of the thangkul tribe, which dominates the NSCN-IM, the main Naga insurgent group, also in the neighboring state of Nagaland. The protests this week, however, appear to be led by the kukis. the additional reason for this is the application or reclassification of the title of “nature reserves” in forested areas where the Kukis -both Indians and Burmese- have built villages and towns in recent times. Their forced eviction has fueled tension, as has the recent demolition of three churches in Imphal, “for not having a building permit.”
The Meiteis converted to Hinduism beginning in the 18th century, almost two centuries before the other animist tribes converted to Christianity, usually Baptist. Both of them currently add up to more than three million manipuris.
Although the meiteis are reputed to be more educated, industrious and prosperous than their neighbors -whom they look upon with condescension- they now flirt with “lowering” their status to that of tribal, to compete for positive discrimination in that category, less at odds than the of Other Backward Castes to which they belong.
This is a common phenomenon in democratic India. But that in the northeast of India has an added incentive, since only the tribal population can acquire land from “tribal” owners. This “intrusion” is what the nagas and kukis say they want to prevent.
The land, they say, is the last thing they have left, in a state in which power is held by the meitei, until now the majority. Whose language, moreover, acts as the lingua franca of the different communities -there are also 8% native Muslims- and as the official language, both in its own original alphabet and in the Bengali alphabet.
