A Short Note on Ethnonationalism in and around Manipur
What are the implications of ethnic-based politics and nationalism in our contemporary world? The ongoing Meitei-Kuki Conflict of 2023 have some answers.
The State is an individual writ large.
PLATO
Preface
A backgrounder: Referring to the above idea of Plato, it is easy to see how some parts of the world, especially in the Third World, are going through relentless unrest and all sorts of forced misunderstanding and miscommunication. Simply put this way, if a family is rich, they will still have problems. It is human nature. They have their own agencies, as they navigate through their life paths. It is the opposite in the other parts of the world. The individual represents the worst epitome of rebellion in the worst ways in these corners of the world. Check the areas in the world below that have the problem of insurgency, militancy and armed movements. (PS: The term Third World might be offensive to some people, but their sensitive reaction does not change the reality.)
A rich country such as the United States has its own problems, ranging from opioid epidemic to the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor. Yet, the condition is entirely different in so-called conflict zones, irrespective of which part of the globe they belong to. Out there in developed regions, nobody will pick up arms to fight against the government. There have been Luddites and anarchists in those places; but those exceptions only prove the rule.
However, the condition is entirely different when you look at, again, the conflict zones that are mostly concentrated in the Global South, and even worse in muti-ethnic regions. One way to explain this phenomenon is that the modern concept of nation-states is still a divisive force for many people and their politics. The epitome of this ideological projection is best seen in Imphal and a neighbouring town like Kohima. Mizoram is also joining the bandwagon because of the Chin-Kuki-Mizo affiliation in the latest skirmish but their problem was sorted out when the Mizo National Front and the Government of India (GoI) signed the Mizoram Accord in 1986. Human greed really knows no boundary.
In this context, politics informed by ethnicity and ethnonationalism is at the core of the problem. In Governance and Conflict Resolution in Multi-ethnic Societies, Kumar Rupesinghe writes: ‘The search for identity is a powerful psychological driving force which has propelled human civilisation. Identity is evocative: we are after all dealing with a myth or an imagined community which has all the power necessary for political mobilisation.’ Besides, the arguments for ethnic consolidation of territories are always based on inequality and underdevelopment, while the various ethnic groups emphasize their collective agency. How much they have become successful, predominantly in terms of economics, in a Third World country is another story altogether. For now, what we see are the contestations one time, and conflicts in others, yet not necessarily in that order.
By Futuretrillionaire
Above: A map of ongoing armed conflicts (number of combat-related deaths in current or past year from Wikipedia Commons):
- ❚ Major wars (10,000 or more)
- ❚ Wars (1,000–9,999)
- ❚ Minor conflicts (100–999)
- ❚ Skirmishes and clashes (1–99)
The Matter at Hand
As some people have claimed, is the latest conflict between the Meiteis and Kukis in Manipur a lethal consequence of narcoterrorism? Is it fuelled by the issues of illegal immigration from Burma? Is it incited by the state government’s drive to clear protected forest area? Is it a consequence of political assertion by one of the parties in the conflict? Is it because of the demand for the status of scheduled tribe and the allegedly open support from the state and constitutional machinery? Is it an open declaration to live or die from drug lords and warlords living within and outside the state of Manipur? Or is it a fallout of the political domination by a majoritarian group? Is it a sequel to the termination of Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement with the 25-odd Chin-Kuki-Mizo armed organisations? Or have the people completely ignored the big picture while they are busy hurling abuse at each other? Or is it a manifestation of ethnonationalism that serves nobody in that region? Or is this violence just one of the repercussions of power trips taken by power players?
Geographical Focus
As much as there are different kinds of conflicts exist as seen from the above map on ongoing armed conflicts, there are as many reasons as possible why there have been conflicts in the first place. For today, we can focus on India’s Northeast, and not necessarily the Northeast in India. The differentiation is important for several reasons. The way we think is influenced by how we use a language. We are not even considering the factor of homogenising a region that has nearly 220 ethnic groups and that also comprises hardly 8% of the territory in India plus all the mainland Indian privileges for generalisations and stereotypes.
In simple words, the Northeast is just the northeastern part of India but it could be a geographical sandwich at the centre between South and Southeast Asia. It can as well be the separator between the eastern Southeast and western Southeast Asia. The frame of reference changes completely when we adjust the geographical foci; and this basis of location has several implications that are often negative and destructive in contemporary politics.
This is best illustrated in the ongoing fight between the Meiteis and Kukis in Manipur, albeit this is only one of the latest manifestations of identity politics and ethnonationalistic political projects. Nobody is wrong, at least in their arguments, of/for/on this conflict. If we take a step back and re-watch this theatre of the absurd, it is so obvious that it is a problem of access to resources. It is a problem of underdevelopment. However, in this reductionist approach, we must not ignore the propaganda of State formation and nation-building mobilisation drives that are based merely on ethnicity. In the last seven decades or so, India has become more or less the largest entity; though history shows maps are changing all the time. In the crossroads are these ethnic groups fraught with multiple identities and overlapping ideas of peoplehood and homelands.
It is so tragic to witness in this cauldron that people believe in their leaders who profess the only way to growth and development is exclusivist politics. It is even worst when these Third World politicians are one of the major reasons why we are undergoing through this confrontation in the first place. This reeks of frustration and parochialism. Meanwhile, any argument for a party/ethnic group implies you are sympathising with them and if it is against, then, you are an enemy of that group. This is the tragedy of a conflict region.
Existential Focus
The territory is the key now. Today we are not referring to the anarchist land of Zomia. In the preface to his seminal work, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, James C Scott (2011, Yale University Press) defines it this way:
Zomia is a new name for virtually all the lands at altitudes above roughly three hundred meters all the way from the Central Highlands of Vietnam to northeastern India and traversing five Southeast Asian nations (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Burma) and four provinces of China (Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi and parts of Sichuan). It is an expanse of 2.5 million square kilometres containing about 100 million minority peoples of truly bewildering ethnic and linguistic variety. Geographically, it is also known as the Southeast Asian mainland massif.
It is not Zomia but we are discussing about a concrete region fully incorporated into the modern nation-state of India that is characterised by the three important requisites of (i) an elected government, (ii) territoriality and (iii) peoplehood. This is one factor that many tribes in and around Manipur always say that they live under village republics independent of the valley people. However, in those days of monarchies and empires, there was no clear-cut geographical boundaries, no concept of territory and no understanding of peoplehood. This transition to modernity, or the lack of it, has always been an issue from the colonial days. To use a local expression: people around the world have gone to the moon and space and which we learn from the technology around us; but, we cannot make even one bicycle.
For the sake of argument, let us say that modern human beings evolved around the same time 10,000 years ago. Still, why are there so much difference between peoples now? The only similarity with, say, a country like the US has in common with a state like Manipur is the fact that human beings are pathetic. Even if things go right, as in the economic development of huge groups of people, there will be some who ensure that it is halted at one point or the other. In this sense, we are only waiting for our collective death in this undefinable existence and universe, more.
However, another approach to shed light on the conflict is to understand the nature of humanity itself. In Conflict Resolution: The Human Dimension, John W Burton (1998, International Study of Peace) asks:
Are conflicts at all societal levels the result of innate human aggression, particularly male aggression, which is a result of evolution and struggles for survival of the fittest? Are these conflicts a result of the creation of unsuitable social institutions and norms, which logically seem to be well within human capacities to alter but that the individual finds difficult to adjust to?
Burton explains that there was a great deal of social concern, cooperation inside them, and frequently between them, when civilisations, or rather communities in our deliberation today, were small extended family or tribe units. Conflicts were ritualised in considerable part. Competition for territory and property as well as conflicts of interest unavoidably shaped social connections as the population grew and face-to-face interactions in decision-making became less common. He adds that slavery, feudalism, various kinds of colonialism, and today’s antagonistic industrial and political relations are all products of these growing competitive systems.
Rational Focus
The present conflict can be attributed to the different perceptions of what constitutes a nation, in a technical sense. In Manipur, the Meiteis go by the historical concept of the term, while other groups such as the Nagas and Kukis base their ideologies on indoctrination and the ever-evolving idea of a State and these have started only in the last few decades.
For the Meiteis, it is always contextualised within the Manipur/Kangleipak kingdom that has existed from 33AD. The Nagas saw their political existence for the first time in 1929, when the then Naga Club wrote to the Indian Statutory Commission, also known as the Simon Commission about a Naga ‘country’. It is slightly different for the Kukis, whose demand is focussed mostly on Kukiland rooted in the idea of the Zale’n-gam—or the land of freedom, which started their campaign as late as in the 1990s and their main demand has been for territorial council and more autonomy within India. This chronology does not imply that a longer history of resistance commands more power or strength but rather it points only to a piece of history-political fact.
Except for pop culture, things always arrive at this region a bit late, and nobody can refute this fact. Depending on who you ask, at the international level, China is at least 10 to 30 years ahead of India; while between the states in India, this region is lagging behind by as many years compared to some of the well-off states particularly in mainland India. It relies on its infrastructure development to catch up, while its Northeast is betting it on the latter’s inevitable political socialisation. As a whole, both India and China enjoy highly legitimate political systems though it is a contradiction if we take the cases of armed movements in India’s Northeast and Xinjiang conflict in far-northwest China respectively.
In the latest dispute in Manipur, you will come across slogans, such as Separate Administration is the Only Solution; A Separate Administration under the Constitution (of India), New States for New India, Born to Defend Kukiland and so on. For that matter, their slogans have been legitimised with the help of 10 BJP turncoats in Imphal. Since 1997, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah faction) has been in bilateral peace talks with the GoI. So far, no armed Meitei organisation has agreed to talk, citing they cannot do so with the conditions put forth by the GoI—and another major reason is to have the negotiation, again, within the ambit of the Constitution of India.
These realities only make the solution to ethnic politics so elusive as well add more layers of confusion for India and frustration of the natives to the already perplexing situation. This explains the utter competency of the GoI to resolve insurgency in the region that is witnessing one of the oldest armed movements in the world. Irrespective of these differences, though, there could still be a middle ground for the different people. That is the simplest rule of conflict resolution, albeit it is easier said than done.
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| Amit Shah with other Indian officials discussing about the peace prospects in Manipur, May last week 2023. For mainland India, it is all military—for job prospects, geopolitics, nationalism and a national territory when the issues are inherently political. Image: OneIndia |
New Delhi Focus
Once upon a time, there were armed movements against the GoI—there still are, and there have been numerous changes in the political landscape over the last few decades. The government, for instance, was once a party to the conflict; and now it has taken on the mantle of a mediator. One consequence of this strategy and game plan of New Delhi is the extreme ethnic polarisation, just as how it has been in mainland India over religions and related identities. One, the solutions are already elusive, no matter how much Kautilyan incantation is chanted to keep the national territory intact. Two: every successive government at the Centre has not been able to reach a conclusion with all the warring groups; in fact, the ongoing crisis involves the score of Kuki armed organisations that are under Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement with the GoI. It started as a trilateral pact, but the Government of Manipur withdraws in March this year.
As the saying goes, with great power, comes great electricity bill! Since New Delhi is the apex of the power structure, it must have understood the gravity of the ongoing conflict. It is a textbook example of genocide and ethnic cleansing, and power vacuum created by incompetent people in a structure created with the idealistic concept of separation of power. This statement will only bring back the condition of a Third World country and how there have been all sorts of misunderstanding and miscommunication. Calvin, Locke, Montesquieu & Co had refined the power division five to six centuries ago. The concept is still followed extensively but lacks the edge when it comes to governance and administration which defeats their existence in the first place. Some ethnic groups will gladly say they will take the matter into their hands because they know themselves more. Simple, but this is the factor that had led us to total anarchy today. It will also be no surprise if India is paying the price for its own security dilemma.
If you are poor, paradoxically, you need more money to survive. This is the phenomenon in the so-called underdeveloped regions across the world. The GoI has also created a system of donor states in the union intentionally or otherwise. It is earning their return on geopolitical investment, and it is as well a win-win situation for them and the local ruling class belonging to the nouveau riche that consists of highly self-conscious social workers and contractors, in a state such as Manipur cutting across ethnic lines. The bad news is the people unwillingly paying too much for this unitary or federal bonding—both of which is labelled according to the convenience of the power player, read New Delhi. It is sad but true that nobody is going to trust the army and paramilitary forces that consists of people who are banking on their employability and nationalism simultaneously.
Irrespective of the involvement of New Delhi, one thing that has stood out is the fact that the ongoing clash is between the Meiteis and the Kukis. A major tribal group, which also has a substantial stake in the Manipur hills, the Nagas, they are completely nonchalant about the issue. This is the phenomenon of people in an underdeveloped conflict zone. No India, no United Nations can do anything here. For the sake of one of its constituent provinces and since it wields the power, India must intervene for the the benefit of everyone, including itself for the multi-nation State project, but obviously, it is easier when the people are already divided in small chunks as Kukis, Meiteis and Nagas, and so on. Its former colonial master, the Britishers used to have the same formula of dividing the people. With the sheer number of ethnic groups, India is doing well when it comes to its Northeast because there are so many fault lines that they can utilise to encourage certain ethnic groups. However, this cannot be a long-term solution, more because the government leaves office in five years and if they are fortunate, they will get elected, promise the same things and deliver the smallest things for formality. In the run-up to the 2014 Election, the present PM promised that every Indian will get ₹14 lakh.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that the buck stops with the GoI. Manipur also has elected representatives in the State Assembly that exists to reinforce Delhi’s diktats. The servility of these representatives is on a different level altogether. Right now, as always, their motive is to enjoy their access to resources, which they enjoy as freebies for promising for the Moon, lying and manipulating all the time. You cannot blame the CM Biren, because he is just another cog in the wheel that India receives every five years. You cannot also blame all these MLAs, ministers and loyalists because they have to make up for the money and funds that they had utilised for election and paying people to vote for them. At least, now that they are elected, they must have some responsibility and accountability to see the issues in non-partisan ways and take up political measures for organic growth amongst all the ethnic groups. The largest democracy in the world! A bit of awareness about the region’s politics and diversity can help India to a large extent.
At the end of the day, reconciliation and generosity will have to triumph, though this sounds like a pipe dream for now, at least for Manipur. Meanwhile, India must decide about so many things although it has no power or whatsoever to modify the structure of present-day Manipur. This brings us to the ideology of the Kukis in the latest conflict. Zale’n-gam is too ideal and surreal, while for the Meiteis, what really constitutes the Indian state of Manipur/Kangleipak is the question. The Nagas started the peace talks in 1997, yet nobody knows about the honouarble settlement of the Indo-Naga relationship. Breaking the groups into further factions is one way of the GoI to keep the fire under control, but again, how much longer?
Conclusion
One major problem in this conflict zone is the over-dependence of the natives on other people, read India, for whatever reasons or how handicapped they project themselves to be. If the state government takes decisions only when New Delhi gives the green signal, and if the natives are getting validation only when the so-called mainstream media are covering the news—as long as the natives cannot put their house in order, the conflict is going to continue. With such inferiority complex, the only best thing the people can also do is to offer legitimacy to both militarisation and neocolonialism. Recalling the statement of a State being an individual writ large, we are not at the centre of the Universe. India has its own problems, just as Manipur, Nagaland, Meiteis, Nagas and Kukis have theirs. The tendency of leaving these critical issues to the allegedly super-ordinate politicians from mainland India is going to cost the natives so much.
Of course, in the context of Manipur, the people have been paying the price for their inability to stand together. The Merger Agreement, categorisation of the erstwhile kingdom that had conducted one of the first democratic elections in Asia, and living as a second-class citizen of a union territory for 23 years, have had a severe impact on the people. In other words, the origin of crises always leads to a point where India is always involved with. For pro-India people, they can count on the Constitution of India, albeit it does not make any difference on the ground. For others, it is all about making informed and political decisions on how to make a nation. More so because there are so many people belong to different ethnic groups, regardless of whether they are doing it intentionally or not, they simply do not understand the concept of a State territory. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why there is a conflict in the first place, albeit it is not going to benefit anyone, whether it is in the hills or the valleys in Manipur.
Finally, the Meiteis are completely against balkanisation and never going to concede even one inch of land and the Kukis insist we have crossed the Rubicon. It is such a perplexing time for everyone, and it will be miracle if we find a solution just too soon. The only common ground between the two communities is the mutual and relentless blame game. India, on the other hand, has found two imaginary paths to the solution. Disarmament and creation of a peace committee to be headed by the governor. This was articulated during the home minister visit to Manipur in May 2023.
For better clarity of/on the topic, please read the previous post:
Meiteis, Nagas and Kukis: The 4Ds of Disconnection, Drugs, Demography and Diversions in Manipur
Related articles on this blog:
- A Brief Story of Political Conflicts in Modern Manipur
- Southeast Asia: Fighting the Bad Fight?
- The Scourge of Geography
- Post-Truth in the Neighbourhood
- A Local Reimagination of the State of Nature
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