Sitting on top of a smouldering mountain

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1151224/jsp/opinion/story_59980.jsp#.VnujyfmUfJA

Subir Bhaumik

Often called India's Lebanon or Bosnia, Manipur has been an ethnic tinderbox, a killing field with few parallels since the former princely state was merged with the Indian Union in 1949. It appears likely to erupt again, as the state's majority Meiteis in the Imphal valley seek to intensify their agitation for implementation of the three bills passed in the state assembly in August and the Naga and Kuki tribespeople in the hills look all set to fiercely oppose the bills. President Pranab Mukherjee has not given assent to the three bills as the Centre has not pushed for it. The Meitei platform, the Joint Committee on Inner Line Permit System, has blamed the state's Congress government for not taking enough initiative to ensure the implementation of the bills. The JCILPS has threatened to intensify its agitation in December if the government in Delhi and Imphal fail to operationalize the three bills. The agitators feel these bills will help check Manipur's changing demographic profile. But the tribals in the hills oppose these because they fear their existing safeguards will be undermined by them.

Manipur has witnessed free-for-all bloodletting between Naga and Kuki militias in the 1990s with large-scale beheadings of unarmed villagers, as the two tribes fought over conflicting versions of the ethnic homeland. The violence over the extension of the Naga ceasefire during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government saw angry Meitei mobs setting fire to the state assembly and residences of ministers and lawmakers. The mass anger against people's representatives for not opposing the ceasefire that was seen as a prelude to the break-up of Manipur forced Delhi to withdraw the ceasefire. The Narendra Modi government's effort to work out a final settlement of the Naga issue raises tensions again as the National Socialist Council of Nagalim insists they have not given up their demand for a greater Naga state to be formed by merging Naga areas of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh with the present state of Nagaland.

The agitations against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act that witnessed self-immolations and heavy-handed police action have been kept alive by the fast of Irom Sharmila. The frequent highway blockades by Naga groups to push for their version of 'Nagalim' often lead to violence involving police and protesters. Manipur is also home to dozens of armed insurgent groups representing all its major communities. The violence unleashed by them and by security forces trying to combat them adds to the climate of impunity in Manipur. Kidnappings and ambushes by rebels and custodial deaths and extra-judicial encounters by security forces abound.

Manipur is crucial to India's Look East policy that seeks to use the state as the country's land bridge to Southeast Asia and possibly China. But with extortions and ethnic conflict rising there, Delhi may find it difficult to work this overland policy.

Over the past few years, local nativist groups in Manipur, upset with the changing demographic balance in the valley, have targeted 'Mayangs' (outsiders from other Indian states like Bihar). Manipur's population now stands at more than 2.7 million. In that, persons from outside the state, the 'Mayangs', account for around seven lakh or one-fourth of the population. The population of 'outsiders' has risen sharply between the 2001 and 2011 census and that is believed to have spurred the Meiteis to demand introduction of the Inner Line Permit.

The ILP, a British governance tool in India's Northeast to protect tribal societies from loss of land and traditional way of life by preventing rampant migration of 'outsiders' (read plains people), was retained by independent India in Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. But it was never in vogue in states like Tripura or Manipur. Now Manipur's majority Meitei want the ILP to 'save themselves' - and in spite of practising Vaishnavite Hinduism, they even wish to be declared scheduled tribes. But Manipur's leading analyst, Pradip Phanjoubam, sees this 'siege mentality' driving the ILP agitation in Manipur as more "the product of the increasingly congested and shrinking space of the valley" rather than of any recent large-scale influx, for which he finds no evidence. 60 per cent of the state's population lives in 10 per cent of its area in the Imphal valley. While Meiteis and other plains people including 'outsiders' cannot buy land in the hill districts populated by tribes like the Nagas and Kukis, the tribals are free to buy land and settle in the valley. The desire for a 'level playing field' for the Meiteis is compounded by insecurities caused by the NSCN drive for a Nagalim: a greater Naga state in which Manipur's Naga populated areas would be merged with those from Assam and Arunachal Pradesh and joined to the present state of Nagaland.

As the ILP agitation gained momentum and paralysed the state, Manipur's Congress government led by the chief minister, Okram Ibobi Singh, came up with three bills - the protection of Manipur people bill, 2015, Manipur land revenue and land reforms (seventh amendment) bill, 2015, and Manipur shops and establishments (second amendment) bill, 2015 - in the assembly. The bills were passed without opposition, partly because the Congress has an overwhelming majority and partly because the tribal lawmakers of the Congress chose not to oppose them on ethnic grounds. The bills assuaged Meitei sentiments but upset the Nagas and the Kukis.

On September 1, the day after the bills were passed, violence erupted during an all-Manipur general strike called by three tribal students organizations - the All Naga Students' Association of Manipur, Kuki Students' Organisation and All Tribal Students' Union of Manipur. Signs of discord had been evident in mid-August when the Ibobi government introduced the bills. On August 18, clashes broke out between Meiteis and Kukis at Moreh, a town on the India-Myanmar border. The Kukis disrupted the Meitei rally in support of the ILP agitation as they had done in neighbouring Churachandpur on July 17.

The Manipur assembly ignored the tribal apprehensions over these three bills and passed them to curb the influx of outsiders into the state. The three bills are aimed at regulating the entry of non-domicile citizens into the region. Those demanding the permits in Manipur want to restrict and regulate the influx of outsiders and internal migrants "to save the culture, tradition, identity and demographic structure of the indigenous people of the state". But why are the tribal people opposed to the demand of the Meiteis for the ILP system in Manipur? The violence had spread to the Kuki-dominated district of Churachandpur, many died and houses of Congress ministers and legislators were set on fire because they had apparently failed to defend tribal interests against the Meitei-dominated Ibobi government.

The Manipur human rights activist, Babloo Loitongbam, says the three bills have "nothing against the security or interest of the tribals" and insists that the process of buying land by outsiders in the state has been made more stringent by the new laws. He lays blame for the tribal agitation on the failure of the state government to explain the content of the bills to the tribals or take their representatives into confidence during their framing. "Earlier the permission to buy land had to be sought from a section or subsidiary of the Cabinet, but now the entire Cabinet needs to approve land-buying by an outsider. The tribal areas - being Scheduled areas - remain protected and are not disturbed under the new amendments," Loitongbam says.

Although Manipur was never under the ILP regime, local laws forbid non-tribal people from within as well as outside the state from buying and owning land in the tribal/hill areas. Under Article 371C of the Constitution Manipur has a hill areas committee made up of the 19 members elected to the assembly from all the tribal areas. This committee, said to be "the guardian of tribal interests", must be consulted in all legislative matters affecting the hill areas of the state. The state governor must also send the president annual reports on the administration of hill areas, and the Central government has the power to give directions to the state government regarding the administration of these areas. Coupled with the Manipur Hill People Administration Regulation Act 1947, this is a constitutional recognition of the hill-plain divide in Manipur.

Thangkhanlal Ngaihte, a leading watcher of Manipur's hill politics, feels the three recent bills may be seen as "levelling the constitutional division between the tribals and Meiteis in terms of land rights and other reservation benefits". The obvious overlap of these bills (when they become law) with Article 371C has caused serious concern among the tribals. If the Meiteis resented the protection enjoyed by the tribals and wanted that for themselves, the tribals resent the levelling off process and fear that might end special provisions for the hills. Ibobi Singh's strong advocacy of Meitei aspirations makes the tribal groups more apprehensive. So much so that Nagas and Kukis, with a history of past animosity, are joining hands to oppose these bills.

Manipur today seems all set to explode. Plains versus hills, Naga vs Kuki over homeland demands, Naga vs Meitei over Nagalim, separatists vs the State, anti-AFSPA citizens vsa police-military dominated administration can all exacerbate the conflict that may be sparked off by the Meitei agitation for the three bills and the tribal opposition to them. The Indian government must watch the fallout of the Naga accord and see that a resolution of India's oldest ethnic insurrection does not complicate matters in Manipur.