The unattended hostilities in Manipur, continuing since the ethnic clashes which started on May 3, 2023, has entered a dangerous phase with the rebels belonging allegedly to the Kuki-Zo tribe launching back-to-back drone attacks earlier this week on Meitei villages killing two people and injuring many others. Chief minister N. Biren Singh has lost no time to call these terrorist attacks while the Union government, as usual, kept mum despite the situation getting aggravated.
The first bomb attack using drones was reported in Koutruk Meitei village in Imphal West district in which two women were killed. Reports suggest that the village has witnessed clashes ever since last year’s mayhem started. It was followed by another attack in Senjam Chirang Maning Leikai in the district in which three persons were injured. “Dropping of bombs on the civilian population and security forces by using drones is an act of terrorism,” the CM articulated. He also promised to take “necessary response to fight such forms of terrorism upon the “indigenous population”.
The latest bout of clashes started in the immediate aftermath of the chief minister rejecting outright the Kuki demand for a separate administration within the state. The CM has been accused not only by tribespeople but also by the highest court of the land of having presided over the total breakdown of the law and order machinery in the state. He is even accused of unleashing state-sponsored violence on a section of his own people. The genesis of the demand for a separate administrative region or a Union territory within the state is the result of this patently partisan attitude displayed by the state administration under Mr Singh. However, neither he, nor his bosses in New Delhi, has any qualms about him sitting in judgment over a dispute to which he is also a party. The Union government also appears to be fine with Mr Singh making the tall promise that he can restore peace in the state in ‘five to six months’ although nothing has materialised on the ground in the last 15 months.
Mr Singh’s rationale for rejecting a separate administrative mechanism within the state is that it is a small state with a long history of 2,000-odd years, and that people have made big sacrifices to create the state. But the CM fails to explain why he can ignore the cries of a section of the very same people for justice.
There is also little justification for the Union government to remain a spectator when the situation in the border state is going from bad to worse belying the hope that it wasn’t possible. Democracy provides for disagreement and there are democratic ways for differences to coexist peacefully. People who feel they are victims of violence and injustice have a right to peaceful hearing by the authorities. To unleash state power on such people would hardly solve the problem.
India has had enough bitter experiences of strong-arm tactics failing to settle political problems and the Union government should do whatever it takes to ensure that Manipur, too, does not enter that doomed list.
