How India’s northeast is turning into an ethno-religious tinderbox

Ethnic violence in India’s north eastern state of Manipur has resulted in deaths of more than a hundred people, many of them civilians. Tensions flared up between the Kuki tribe people, who are mostly Christians, and the Hindu-dominated Meitei community in early May.

The violence, which has displaced thousands of families and damaged homes and businesses, has put spotlight on simmering communal tensions and raised questions about New Delhi’s willingness to take the issue seriously.

That it is ethnic violence that has torn apart Manipur, one of seven separate states in India’s north east, is no more in doubt as attested by Home Minister Amit Shah himself in a recent statement.

Manipur is home to various tribes, including the Kuki people, who have lived in India’s farthest state for centuries.

The Kukis live in villages scattered over the hilly region of Manipur. Indian law recognises them as a scheduled tribe, which grants them certain privileges like quota for government jobs and exclusive ownership rights on the real estate in the province.

The crisis has its roots in a proposal that will grant Meitei people, a non-tribal ethnic group, the status of a scheduled tribe, making them eligible to purchase tribal land, access economic support, jobs and subsidised education.

Manipur’s highest court asked the far-right Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Manipur state government to consider Meitei’s demand. The order led the tribes to believe that granting such privileges to non-tribals would infringe on their rights.

While the order acted as the trigger, a set of factors – partly based on the actions of Chief Minister N. Biren Singh – accentuated the crisis.

An outside problem?

There is a social divide in Manipur commonly identified by where the different communities live.

The Kuki group of tribes and other tribes have homes in the hills and the forests. On the other hand, the Meiteis, who constitute little over 50 percent of Manipur’s population, live in the more urban valley areas, in and around the capital, Imphal.

But the Imphal Valley covers just 10 percent of the land and Meiteis cannot buy land in tribal areas while there is no restriction on tribes to buy land in the Meitei-populated valley region.

That has prompted Meitei people to demand that they be given equal rights - even if that means being enlisted as a scheduled tribe.

In addition, population pressure in Manipur is increasing as more refugees arrive from neighboring Myanmar, to flee the internal conflict there.

Around one-fourth of the roughly 1600-kilometre long India-Myanmar border passes between Manipur and two of Myanmar's main provinces, Sagaing Region– to the east of Manipur– and Chin State– to the south.

The refugee influx was a cause of concern for the Manipur government as illegal settlements in the bordering hills have been popping up at a rapid pace since the conflict intensified in February 2021. The Indian government has done little to block that influx.

Many refugees coming from Myanmar have ethnic ties with one or another of the Manipur tribes. Meiteis increasingly express fear that they will be outnumbered by tribal people in Manipur if the number of Myanmar refugees keeps going up.

A problem more closer to home

While there’s no evidence to link New Delhi to the violent events, Manipur’s Chief Minister Singh has made matters worse since taking office in 2022 for the second consecutive term.

There’s a lot out there to suggest that the BJP leader has backed his own community, the Hindu-majority Meiteis, in strengthening its hand against the tribal groups.

For instance, Singh drew criticism after he referred to some of the Kuki people as terrorists. Such inflammatory remarks can be particularly disastrous in a state which has a long history of ethnic strife.

That was not the only instance of such careless and discriminatory outburst. The Chief Minister linked the issue of illegal migrants from neighbouring Myanmar with the tribals, using racial expletives on social media.

In a tweet, which was later deleted, Singh even called the Kuki people “stupid” while making unsubstantiated accusations that Christians have destroyed Manipur by engaging in criminal acts such as peddling drugs, cultivation of poppy, and looting.

Such inflammatory rhetoric has led some of his own BJP colleagues to call him “anti-Kuki”. His statements are one of the reasons for stalling peace. The Kukis have refused to discuss peace and engage with a committee formed by New Delhi because Singh is part of it.

Singh has been issuing statements against the Kukis even before the recent tensions flared up.

In Manipur where a substantial population of both Hindus and Christians reside, the incendiary comments by the state’s highest administrator prepped the ground for violence.

The tribes for the most part practice Animism, Shamanism and Christianity. Attacks against the Kukis come across as an attempt to enforce a Hindu nationalism agenda, which stems from the controversial Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), upon them.

For years, the proponents of Hindutva, the ideology of the RSS, have been on a mission to convert the tribal population in northeast India into Hindus.

In his book, “The Greater India Experiment”, author and research Arkotong Longkumer, writes: “My first encounter with the Hindu right was during the period of my PhD fieldwork (2004–05) in Haflong and Laisong in the Dima Hasao District of Assam (a key northeastern state). I was intrigued by their commitment to teach in village schools run by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. Interacting with them made me realize their ambition to extend their activities all over the region. Over time, I could see their ambition gradually spreading and gaining momentum.”

RSS believes that it can even use religious movements like Animism or Shamanism to counter the spread of Christianity – which arrived in Manipur and surrounding region in the early 17th century.

The Hindu nationalists are also undertaking a kind of social engineering, which is damaging the social fabric of the local communities. For example, in another north eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, Hindu ‘missionaries’ have been preaching that 'Donyi-Polo', the sun and the moon god-believing local religion overlaps with Hinduism.

This is where the political maneuvering starts. Since Hinduism is one of the main religions in the northeast, the Hindutva proponents have tried to convince the practitioners of local tribal religions that their less-influential religions were ‘suppressed’ by Christianity. This is creating unease among the Christians.

Tensions, however, has benefitted RSS’ political wing – the BJP as it now finds itself in the government in six out of seven states of the north east – but upended the ethnic fabric.

The Hindutva policy to paint Hindus and followers of local religions as allies has led to attacks on churches in recent years.

In Manipur an organisation of churches – 'Goodwill Mission' – says that nearly 300 churches or church-related offices were partially damaged or completely destroyed in the most recent violence. Some of the Hindu temples were also desecrated, making the situation harder to control.

The Manipur crisis highlights other aspects of government failure. Police armories were looted a few weeks ago, which worsened the infighting. Armed insurgent groups, which had been inactive, and have presence in all the communities, have also contributed to the violence.

The BJP governments both in New Delhi and Manipur must take immediate measures before things get any worse.

A section of Indian civil society has suggested that an Africa-type nonpartisan justice delivery commission can be set-up, internally, to restore peace in the troubled state.

In 1996 South Africa set up a Commission for restorative justice – Truth and Reconciliation Commission – to instill confidence among rival communities to establish peace. A similar body – National Unity and Reconciliation Commission – was established by Rwanda in 1999 with similar objectives. Both were reasonably successful.

The Indian government indeed set up a Peace Committee under the purportedly bi-partisan Governor of Manipur but on June 11, the Kukis boycotted the initiative arguing that inclusion of the Chief Minister Singh has ‘defeated’ the purpose of the talk, thus indicating that the peace initiative without fast-tracking a parallel justice delivery mechanism would not work.

Fresh violence erupted on June 14, which witnessed at least nine deaths, and the entire peace process was back to square one.