The Prime Minister Has a Habit of Making Tall Claims. Manipur Has Not Been Saved

He has refused to visit the state and the relief camps. Is he aware of the predicament of a people under siege?

For the Kuki-Zo people of Manipur who have been restricted to the hills, as if under house arrest, time drags on and they see no light at the end of the tunnel.

In no other state would the Narendra Modi government have allowed this level of violence to continue, and for thousands of people to be living in relief camps because their homes have been razed to the ground. In no other state in this country is there an embargo for the people of one part of the state to travel to the other.

The Kuki-Zo people working in various institutions in Imphal have not been able to return to their places of work due to fear of being attacked. What is crystal clear is that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BP) government in Manipur and the central government have turned a blind eye to all that has befallen the Kuki-Zo tribes of Manipur.

What is equally scandalous is Prime Minister Modi’s claims that his government had sent some of the best bureaucrats and police officials to bring down the violence in the state, and that "timely intervention" saved Manipur. The prime minister has a habit of making tall claims, most of which are not supported by ground realities.

On 3 May 2024, the violence that killed and maimed over 200 people, with women subjected to the vilest forms of atrocities, including being mercilessly raped in broad daylight and hundreds of homes going up in flames, has touched the one-year mark.

Modi Government Refuses to Pay Heed to Ground Realities

Let's put aside Manipur for a minute.

Inflation has raised the cost of living to sky-high levels in the northeastern states where the cost of transportation adds to that of essential commodities. Add to this the rent-seeking economy where sundry groups collect their hafta from these goods-carrying trucks, and you have a situation where the poor can barely afford a square meal. 15 kg of free rice a month for a family of five or six does not take them too far.

Most families cannot afford lentils (dal), much less meat, because of the prohibitive prices. Can the prime minister claim that Indians are much better off now than they were before 2014?

In 2023, India was ranked 111th out of 125 countries in the Global Hunger Index. India scored 28.7 indicating a serious level of hunger. India’s ranking was worse than that of Pakistan (102), Bangladesh (81), Nepal (69) and Sri Lanka (60). As expected, the Modi government pooh-poohed the statistics, calling them "malafide".

Undernourishment or Malnourishment among children is also a huge problem in the rural areas of this country, particularly the northeastern region, where child wasting, which stands at 18.7 per cent in India, tells us the sordid story of acute malnutrition. But the Modi government is casting aside all these ground realities as if they have been crafted to denigrate his government.

Is the PM Aware of the Harsh Realities of a Fractured Manipur?

Regarding Manipur, the prime minister has remained a silent spectator. He refused to utter the ‘M’ word for months after the violence occurred and had to be literally dragged to parliament by an uncompromising Opposition, where in a speech lasting over an hour, he only uttered the word "Manipur" only once. What sort of a leader is this who has left a section of his own people to suffer in silence, that too because they are too weak to put up any resistance, having been deprived of all their physical resources and their willpower eroded to the point of complete helplessness.

In normal circumstances, no matter how callous a central government, the state's chief minister presiding over such a reign of terror would have been asked to step down, but none of that happened. To date, the Kuki-Zo people are unable to travel to places outside the state via Imphal airport. They either have to take the Aizawl or Dimapur route. What would it take for the prime minister to even acknowledge that the government has failed Manipur and its people?

Prime Minister Modi’s claims that Home Minister Amit Shah spent three days in the state to calm tempers are simply not enough. The problems of Manipur are complex, and Amit Shah cannot decipher the deeply entrenched differences between the hill tribes and those residing in the valley (a difference that has been exacerbated by the politics of division) in three days.

The three major ethnic communities residing in Manipur have their own claims over the state. The Kuki-Zo people have been demanding a separate administration on the plea that they will suffer from a development deficit as they have done since the state of Manipur was created. The state government of Manipur will not bow down to that demand and has convinced the central government that the demand for a separate administration is untenable.

So, what’s the way forward for the Kuki-Zo people? Is the prime minister, who has stubbornly refused to visit the state and the relief camps, aware of the predicament of a people under siege? Why is he in denial about the harsh realities of a fractured Manipur? Is the prime minister so beholden to Biren Singh for delivering Manipur to the BJP for two successive terms that he does not want to upset the apple cart?

Above all, what sort of election can be held in a state that is wracked by violence that has wrecked thousands of young lives and their educational endeavours, who are now living hopeless lives, uncertain as to what the future holds for them? Does the prime minister care about the plight of these young desperados? Perhaps he cannot even relate to them because they don’t resemble the normal “Indian.” That is the tragedy of being a northeasterner, nay a hill tribal, in this country.

(This article has been republished as the ethnic conflict in Manipur touches the one-year mark. It was originally published on 12 April 2024. Click on the link to check out our ground reports from Manipur – and become a member.)

(The writer is the Editor of The Shillong Times and a former member of NSAB. She can be reached at @meipat. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)