Blistering Manipur: Between Armed Forces, Special Powers Act and President's Rule

When the Austro-Asiatic settlers, Tibeto-Burman migrants and Indo-Aryan émigrés settled at various periods of history in India's north-eastern state of Manipur, they could never have predicted that this diverse assimilation of tribal clans will ethnically engender an inter-tribal conflict in 21st century India.

- DR. SHADAB AHMED

Nor could the mighty British Empire and British Raj in all their insight and foresight predicted that the once mighty Manipur Kingdom will descend into primitive and primal chaos for a resurgent ethnic identity. But this inter-tribal conflict is what keeps the state of Manipur simmering and seething, like a dormant volcano that threatens to erupt in mindless mayhem and cause protracted anarchy.

Manipur to this day remains deeply polarized, between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo communities. This polarization has not only matured among the civilian populace of Manipur, but also spiralled into the aristocracy, bureaucracy and judiciary of the state. To put in context, Manipur is broadly and ethnically divided into a predominant Hindu Meitei and a minority Christian Kuki-Zo population, and there exists deep mistrust between the two communities which keeps them perennially divided. Impassive violence erupted in 2023 during a march organized by the state's tribal communities. Led by representatives of the Kuki-Zo, the participants were protesting against a court decision that had ruled in favour of the majority Meitei community's demand to be recognized as a Scheduled Tribe, a status which confers both income and outcome in government jobs, quotas and protection of land. The Kuki-Zo, who are mostly Christian and have long been recognized as a tribal group, opposed this move all and sundry, arguing that the Meitei, who are mostly Hindu, already hold most of the political and economic power in the state.