Inside Manipur’s Ethnic Violence

Manipur is burning. The small Indian state, tucked away in the country’s northeast and bordering Myanmar, has been the site of deadly violence between its two biggest ethnic groups, the majority Meitei and the Kuki minority.

Since May, more than 130 Manipuris have been killed and tens of thousands have been displaced. Churches and temples have been destroyed. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, remained silent until a shocking video emerged last month of two Kuki women paraded naked by Meitei men. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is currently in power in the state, led by a Meitei politician, Chief Minister N. Biren Singh.

The violence in Manipur exhibits troubling signs not only of ethnic conflict but also of state failure, with local police seemingly unable to stop the violence. Despite the conflict’s shocking nature, it has gotten relatively little media attention. To shed light on the crisis and its regional implications, I spoke with two longtime India experts on FP Live: Barkha Dutt is the founder and host of Mojo Story and has reported from Manipur extensively; and Sushant Singh is a former Indian Army officer who contributes frequently to Foreign Policy. Subscribers can watch the full video discussion on the box atop this page. What follows is an edited and condensed transcript of our conversation.

Ravi Agrawal: Barkha, you just spent some time on the ground in Manipur. What’s it like there?

Barkha Dutt: It’s one state, but it’s effectively been divided into two. The distance between the valley where the Meitei people live and the hills where the tribal Kuki population lives is separated by a distance that could be covered in a short drive. However, if you belong to one community, you cannot travel into the other region—and vice versa. Across the front lines of villages deep in the interiors of Manipur, you have fortified bunkers. Women who were once paddy farmers are today patrolling their villages armed with guns. On the other side, there are school-aged children as young as 16 in rifle pits with hand-crafted cannon-like guns, spending hours there instead of attending school. There are almost 60,000 people on both sides living in relief camps. You have an estimated 4,000 weapons, including high-caliber ones, in the hands of civilians. You have a police force that has lost both authority and credibility, and you have a swirling national political debate around all of this.

RA: Sushant, how did we get here?

Sushant Singh: The trigger for the current crisis was a judgment by the Manipur High Court, which asked the state government to grant reservations—a form of affirmative action—in jobs and educational institutions to the Meitei community. This caused anger among the minority Kuki and Naga communities, who protested. In response to that protest, the Meitei community unleashed a torrent of violence against the Kuki community, clearly supported by the state chief minister and the state police force. During the first few days of the conflict, the violence was intense, and a large number of people were killed or rendered homeless. People fled to Myanmar to find refuge.

The root of the crisis lies in the Meitei community’s belief that they are the original inhabitants of the land and the Kukis are essentially interlopers who have come from foreign countries such as Myanmar, who are not Indian enough. This has to do with pressures related to land. Fifty-four percent of the population is Meitei and lives in 10 percent of the landmass. Eighteen to 20 percent of the Kuki population lives in forested areas, which is much larger. These areas are protected by India’s constitution, which means that other nontribal communities like the Meitei cannot buy those lands. Essentially, it’s a question of identity, pressure over land, and government jobs, all of which came together in an explosion approximately 100 days ago.

RA: Barkha, what is the role of the local state police and the army?

BD: If there’s any one issue on which both of these communities agree today it is the belief that the police have failed them. Every survivor and every family of victims that I met on the ground in Manipur said the police were there but did nothing. In every instance, the testimony that we have encountered is that the police have been unable to intervene with effectiveness, either from incompetence or from bias.

The army is involved. The Assam Rifles, which operates directly under the Indian Army, has played a key role in rescuing people and relocating them into shelters and relief camps, and also in creating a community conversation at a time when the state government has no authority whatsoever. But unfortunately, the army is now being pulled into this ethnic strife with the Meitei community targeting the Assam Rifles and accusing it of bias.

RA: Sushant, talk us through the role of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, the BJP, which is in power in Manipur.

SS: As a former army officer, I spoke to friends of mine who are in Manipur who pointed out that the rules of engagement and the political directions being given to them are rather unclear. They really do not know how far they can go in, whether in dealing with women protesters or other groups. The political leadership in the state—the BJP government—is making it extremely difficult for them.

The BJP won the election in this state marginally in 2017 and was reelected in 2022. The chief minister, N. Biren Singh—a former Congress politician—remains in power. In his first tenure between 2017 and 2022, he regularly visited Kuki areas, dealing with them, inaugurating hospitals, gyms, and community centers. He was seen as a leader of the whole state, not only of the Meitei community, which he belongs to, and which politically dominates the state of Manipur. Out of 60 seats in the state assembly, 40 seats are controlled by the Meitei community, 10 by the Kuki, and 10 by the Naga community.

After Singh’s reelection in 2022, he had a greater majority, and has since recrafted himself as a leader of the majority Meitei community. This shift was clear from the language he used against the Kuki community, to his tweets, which were then subsequently deleted, which called them narco-terrorists, outsiders, and saying that even if the federal government had a cease-fire agreement with these Kuki militant groups, his state government would not be a party to it. The whole narrative has flipped and shifted in the last year and a half. Singh was opposed to an administrative arrangement that Modi’s government wanted to sign with the Kuki community, and therefore it is presumed he chose to instigate the violence there to ensure that the administrative arrangement was not made available to the Kukis.

The role of the BJP as a majoritarian party representing the Meitei community, and not all the communities in this state, is not a healthy scenario. Kukis are mostly Christians, while the Meitei community is seen as part of the Hindu faith. While this is not a Hindu-versus-Christian conflict, there are definite religious undertones, which certainly have consequences in today’s India.

RA: Barkha, both of you are painting such a disturbing picture of instruments of the state standing by or being complicit in the violence. Who could possibly play a role in mediation and easing tensions?

BD: If you asked me what institution can transcend the divisions a few weeks ago, I would have said the army has credibility, since every other state institution has collapsed. Today, the army is extremely concerned since it doesn’t have the legal cover of what’s known as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act in all the areas of Manipur. In effect, that means that in order for the army to use force, it needs a judicial magistrate to travel every time it’s deployed so that soldiers do not get into legal complications. That’s not a practical way to operate. The army can act when the adversities are external, but it cannot provide solutions when your own people are fighting amongst themselves.

The Biren Singh government should have been sacked. The chief minister should have been asked to go, and there should have been central rule in the state by now. That seems like the only option left to begin rebuilding these broken relationships.

RA: Sushant, what is the role of the so-called war on drugs? It seems central to how this chief minister has sparked tensions.

SS: Manipur is located in what is known as the Golden Triangle of Thailand and Myanmar, where drug trafficking is rampant and one of the biggest transit points for supplying the world. Poppy is grown in the hills of Manipur. The Meitei community and the chief minister allege that the Kuki community is misusing its forest privileges and rights to grow poppy, because it’s a commercial crop, which makes them a lot of profit. When you talk to the Kuki community, they say we only grow it, but the business is controlled by the Meitei community and politically well-connected people who supply the poppy product. Everybody acknowledges that poppy is grown in the hills of Manipur, but who controls poppy cultivation and the business of smuggling is heavily disputed.

The Indian government has historically dealt with such crises—whether in Kashmir, Punjab, Nagaland, or Mizoram—by using a clear template. You remove the state government when it becomes biased and partisan in its actions. You replace it with a credible governor who’s directly controlled by the central government. You bring in the army, remove biased police if required, and you start building bridges between communities through political activity. The first step toward that must be the retrieval of weapons. There are nearly 5,000 lethal weapons in circulation, including mortars. Retired and senior military officers tell me this is the first time in independent Indian history that mortars, machine guns, AK-47s, MP5s, and Uzis are being used. More than 630,000 rounds of ammunition were taken from the state. Unless you bring those weapons back, there’s no way you can bring the violence down.

By allowing Singh to avoid giving clear direction to the security forces, they have created a very difficult situation for everyone. The violence is not stopping. People are firing at each other across a buffer zone. Barkha mentioned that the communities live in areas separated by a short drive. The federal government is now offering a 75 percent discount on helicopter rides for Kukis to travel to the local airport, because they cannot secure the road. It’s unprecedented and reflects poorly on the Indian state.

RA: Barkha, this story isn’t getting much attention in the West. Is it getting attention in India?

BD: The only time the story got focused national media attention was after the video that showed the women being paraded naked surfaced. That is what compelled the media to take notice, and what compelled the prime minister to make a brief comment outside Parliament. That video moved the opposition to demand a debate in Parliament and send an opposition delegation to Manipur.

I compare this moment to the situation in Kashmir when there was a lot of internal turmoil and young men were on the streets, with more than 100 people killed. An all-party delegation traveled to the state and said, “We’re not going to play electoral politics. Let’s bury our differences.” I do not understand why we haven’t seen a gesture like that.

Everybody I meet on the ground—Kukis and Meiteis alike—are asking, “Where is the prime minister?” They want him to visit the area. Both sides are upset that he hasn’t done so thus far.

RA: Is the northeast of India seen as peripheral in terms of policymaking for New Delhi?

SS: Manipur is psychologically distant from what is popularly known as the Indian heartland. Most Indians would not be able to place Manipur on a map of India, or differentiate it from other states in the area, which is why they are all clubbed together as India’s northeast. Beyond the psychological distance, the harsh internet ban imposed in Manipur when the violence broke out also helped suppress the news and kept it away from independent media platforms.

RA: I should point out: Internet shutdowns refer to the state’s ability to shut down access to the internet at a very micro level. It could be a street, a state, or the entire country. India has more internet shutdowns than any other country on Earth, including countries such as Afghanistan or Syria.

Sushant, what are the implications of what’s occurring in Manipur for the civil war in neighboring Myanmar?

SS: The Modi government has very close ties with the military junta in Myanmar, which has been aerially bombing the Chin rebels fighting against the military junta. These Chin rebels share the same ethnicity as the Kuki community in Manipur, and there are very close ties between the two communities. A large number of Chin people have moved to Mizoram, a neighboring Indian state, but some of them have also come to Manipur. Similarly, around 1,000 people have gone from Manipur into Myanmar because of their shared ethnicity.

There is a spillover of the crises in Myanmar and India, not just only in terms of ethnicity, but also due to India’s ability to build infrastructure projects as part of Modi’s Act East policy for ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] countries. There’s one highway that must pass through Myanmar to Thailand from Manipur. This highway and other multi-modal projects cannot happen if the situation is so difficult in Manipur.

RA: Is this crisis going to impact Modi’s standing in next year’s election?

BD: I don’t believe this will have electoral consequences for Prime Minister Modi, but his government has always defined itself by its nationalist credentials with a strongman leader at the helm. The violence doesn’t fit with the government’s projected image as a law-and-order government that has the capacity to contain internal strife. To protect its image, the government cannot afford to have this carry on.

RA: Sushant, finally, what impact could this conflict have on India’s border with China?

SS: One of the Indian Army’s mountain divisions, containing about 18,000 soldiers, was previously posted in Manipur but was moved in May of 2020 as part of the larger defensive deployment of the Indian military following the crisis on its border with China.

After the violence began in Manipur in May of this year, this same division had to come back and focus on maintaining internal security within Manipur. This move weakens India’s defensive posture against China. The internal strife in Manipur, which is already spilling over to Mizoram, Myanmar, and Nagaland because of shared ethnicity and shared religion, will consume a lot of resources of the Indian Armed Forces and the Indian political leadership, making it more and more difficult for them to focus on the challenge coming from China. The Indian Army, with its commitments in Kashmir, cannot afford to remain deeply committed in the northeast.