Manipur govt played partisan role in ethnic conflict, says Editors Guild report

In a damning report, the Editors Guild of India (EGI) has found the N Biren Singh-led Manipur government and the local media, largely controlled by the majority Hindu Meitei community and based in the Imphal Valley, played a partisan role during the ongoing ethnic violence in the state.

By taking sides during the ethnic conflict, the state government “failed to do its duty as a democratic government which should have represented the entire state”, said the Editors Guild in its 24-page report released on Sunday (September 3).

“There are clear indications that the leadership of the state became partisan during the conflict. It should have avoided taking sides in the ethnic conflict but it failed to do its duty as a democratic government which should have represented the entire state,” said the Editors Guild.

No faith in govt

As a result, this “directly affected governance which was also seen as partisan”. “The net result is that the executive, its instruments (the police and other security forces of the state) and the bureaucracy are today divided along ethnic lines. There is a Meitei government, Meitei police and Meitei bureaucracy in Imphal and the tribal people living in the Hills have no faith in them,” says the report.

The Editors Guild, after receiving several representations from civil society organisations and the Indian Army’s 3rd Corps headquarters complaining about the partisan role the media played there, sent a three-member fact finding team of journalists to Manipur on August 7 to 10 to investigate the events before and after the violence broke out there.

Titled “Report of the Fact-Finding Mission on Media's Reportage of the Ethnic Violence in Manipur”, the report delves in detail into the various aspects of the strife, including the failure of the government to contain violence, the false narratives it created to brand the entire Kuki-Zo community as “illegal migrants” and “narco-terrorists”, imposition of internet ban and peddling of fake news by a predominantly Meitei-dominated media of the state.

False narrative

In fact, the present bloody conflict between the Kukis and the Meiteis, according to the Editors Guild report, has its genesis in “seemingly partisan statements and policy measures” the state government made and took against the Kuki-Chin-Zo community in not distant a past.

The government created a false narrative against the entire Kuki-Zo community by labelling them as “illegal immigrants” and “foreigners” without any reliable data or evidence. The BJP-led government did this “despite the fact that the decadal census from 1901 to 2011 has not shown any unusual growth of the non-Naga (the other minority tribal community) tribal population” in the state, the report says.

The violence and political turmoil in neighbouring Myanmar that followed a military coup in 2021 led to influx of about 40,000 refugees to Mizoram and reportedly about 4,000 to Manipur. This influx became a pretext for the government to “brand all Kuki-Zo as illegal immigrants”.

Eviction from Hills

Apart from creating such a dangerous narrative to breed discontent among the Meiteis, the N Biren Singh government declared parts of Hills as “reserved” and “protected” forests and “wetland reserves”.

The government land ownership documents within these areas were cancelled and a drive started in December 2022 to evict the tribals. “This led to violent confrontation between the state authorities and the Kuki-Zo community which had been living in these villages. The demolition drive which began in the Kangpokpi district, a Kuki-dominated area, extended by February 2023 to Churachandpur and Tengnoupal districts which also had a preponderance of the Kuki-Zo community,” the report has observed.

However, the forest surveys, inquiries, evictions and demolitions were carried out only in the non-Naga inhabited tribal areas, once again leading the Kuki community to believe that it was being singled out by the state government.

To confound the situation, a government committee headed by the chief secretary on April 3, 2023 cancelled all land and property deeds and recognition of villages within the designated reserved and protected forest areas. This was done without any rehabilitation plan for the evicted tribal population.

Ceasefire agreement

Not content with the demolition and eviction drives against the Kuki community, the state government withdrew from the tripartite Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement – a kind of a ceasefire agreement – with the Kuki insurgent groups, Kuki National, the Zomi Revolutionary and the Kuki Revolutionary. The Union government wanted a peaceful negotiation. These outfits were in peace talks with the Centre, though. Interestingly, the Meitei insurgents active in the Imphal Valley were outside any process of negotiation for peace.

This move was followed by selectively lifting of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) only from the Imphal Valley. Ideally, the controversial AFSPA should have also been lifted from the Hill districts. “In retrospect, this was seen by the Kuki-Zo tribals as a partisan move in preparation for violence against the Kukis, which came a few weeks later,” the report says.

Manipur HC order

Before the cancellation of property rights in the designated areas of the Hill districts, in an unusual development the Manipur High Court on March 27 ordered the state government to recommend the inclusion of the Meitei community in the Scheduled Tribes List to the Centre. “This was seen by the Naga as well as Kuki-Zo tribals, as a Meitei land-grab move, as once they got ST status they could buy land in the tribal areas of the Hills, which is currently forbidden,” the report says.

Narco-terrorism charge

The Editors Guild report further highlights the hollowness of Biren Singh’s so-called “war on drugs”, which focused only on poppy cultivation, while sidestepping the inflow of heroin, brown sugar, prescription painkillers, cough syrups and Yaba or WIY Pills. Manipur borders Myanmar and is a major route for drug smuggling through its border town of Moreh.

Illegal poppy cultivation is done by all, Kuki-Zos, Nagas, as well as Meiteis, according to the report. However, the Kuki-Zos were painted as villains, who indulged in illegal poppy cultivation in the Hills, by the government. The government popularised the epithets “poppy cultivators” and “narco-terrorists” only for the Kuki-Zos, the report says.

This “dangerous public posturing became evident when a highly decorated IPS officer, Thounaojam Brinda, filed an affidavit in court stating that the Chief Minister and the top police brass in the state forced her to let off a person from whose premises drugs worth Rs 27 crore had been recovered by her team,” the report added.

All these factors played a significant role in pushing both communities to a flash point, which was further exacerbated by the media that only added to the mistrust between them.

Peddling fake news

The Editor Guild reports has underlined the partisan role various newspapers and digital portals, largely Meitei-owned and run out of the Imphal Valley, played a partisan role in the ethnic conflict.

According to the report, newspapers like ‘The Sangai Express’, ‘Imphal Free Press’ and ‘People’s Chronicle’, among others, peddled fake news and disinformation which played a crucial role in stoking the ethnic flare up in the state. The fact-finding team of the Editors Guild has given some uncanny instances of the media playing to galleries.

Detailing one such instance, the report says, “There was an attack on Kuki villages of Khamenlok and adjoining areas on June 12, supported by Meitei women folk in the mob. Some members of both sides, without any intervention of the security forces, were blocked by the Meitei womenfolk from reaching the burning villages. Few among those who got killed were not locals and had been killed elsewhere in the counter-attacks the following day by the Kukis.”

However, the media had diametrically different and biased take on the incident. To quote the report, “The Manipur media inverted the role of the Meitei mobs and reported the incidents as being instigated by Kuki militants who attacked and killed Meiteis.”

In another instance, armed miscreants in police uniform attacked the Kuki village of Khoken at 4 am on June 9, and three persons were killed. When news of the incident spread, a mob of Meitei women gathered in an adjoining village. “The Imphal media reported the incident once again reversing the role suggesting that ‘Kuki militants’ had attacked the (Kuki) village and that all those killed were all Kuki militants, the victims included a 67-year-old woman and a 70-year-old man,” the reports said.

Internet shutdown

Immediately after ethnic violence broke out, the state government clamped a shutdown on the internet, first on mobile phone data and then on broadband services.

The shutdown declared on May 4 was for five days initially, which was extended multiple times. “The internet cut on May 4 had a dramatic impact on reporting. It actually indirectly helped in constructing a majoritarian narrative,” the report says.

The ban on the internet left the media outlets with no recourse to ply their trade faithfully during the conflict as they could not source news from the Hills after the violence broke out. The internet was the only medium for them to source news from the conflict areas.

“Shutting down the internet ensured that the Imphal-based newspapers were denied any reporting from preponderantly Kuki areas like Churachandpur, Kangpokpi and Moreh,” the report says.

As a result, rumour mongers had a field day, which further aggravated the conflict. “Rumours of some Meitei women at Churachandpur Medical College being raped led to ‘counter-molestation and rape’ of Kuki women, arson and killing of Kukis in the Imphal Valley. The night of May 3 saw the almost total destruction of Kuki-Zo churches, houses and other property in the Meitei dominated areas,” according the report.

Ethnic violence in the northeastern state erupted after a May 3 ‘Tribal Solidarity March’ called by the All Tribal Students’ Union of Manipur to oppose the long-standing demand of the Meitei community for granting tribal status to them. The violence, which has gone unabated as it continues to erupt sporadically in the strife-torn state, has so far claimed more than 160 lives and has rendered over 54,000 homeless.

The report underlines the deep divide between the ethnic Kuki minority tribals and the majority Meiteis. It also highlights the division of the command to control the violence between the Centre and the state government, which failed to restore peace in the state.