Inside Manipur’s battle zones, the State is missing

We were sitting, surrounded by paddy fields, in Kangpokpi, at an hour’s distance from the state capital. That neither parent felt they could safely travel the 50 kilometres by road to bring their dead home says everything about the line that has already been drawn through the heart of Manipur today.

I spent this week on the ground in Manipur, meeting victims and survivors of both the clashing communities — Meiteis and Kukis. I walked in the cover of darkness in border villages, where men who once cultivated rice, now wield guns. I sat in underground bunkers with young boys who should be in a school classroom, but are now holding rifles bigger than them, as they take turns to “do their duty” in trenches and shooting pits. I argued with women protesters about why they are facing off against the army.

I met a baby delivered in a jungle as her mother fled a violent assault. I met the son of an 84-year-old woman, who could neither see nor hear; but was not spared by a rampaging mob.

And while there are many arguments one can have about Manipur’s unique history and the roots of this particular conflict; there is one unequivocal fact — the State in Manipur has gone missing.

Either the Biren Singh government and the state apparatus are entirely absent or it is without the slightest modicum of compassion. It has lost both authority and credibility.

What else can explain the fact that there is not even minimal outreach to the victims, with rape survivors, and with the parents of girls who have been brutally murdered? Where are the institutions of governance?

The police, especially, stand discredited, with eyewitness testimonies of victims recording how the police simply stood by, either in helplessness or from prejudice.

And, while the debate continues over whether a separate administration for the Kuki tribal population is part of the solution, Manipur is effectively already two States.

Take the volatile build-up over the mass burial that Kuki families wanted to organise this week. A late night intervention by Union home minister Amit Shah persuaded them to press pause for five days. But, in the meantime, word spread and Meitei groups came out to block the national highway that connects Imphal to Churachandpur, one of the epicentres of this conflict.

Kuki families had approached security agencies to move the bodies of those, like the murdered young women from the car wash, back to their homes. Meitei protestors objected to the spot chosen for the burial, claiming it to be theirs.

Meitei women protesters blocked the highway, ensuring no cars could pass. Elsewhere, attempts were made to loot police armouries for more weapons as young men clashed with security forces. As we travelled on the highway through teargas, burnt tyres and angry agitators, we were forced to retrace our steps towards the city.

If you want to look away from the suffering of the people of Manipur, think of the national security implications. The state shares a nearly 400-kilometre-long border with Myanmar.

But the army, instead of being focused on external adversaries and threats, has been pulled into an internal conflict that should have been the job of the civil administration. In Tengnoupal, Kuki women have been sitting for days on the national highway, blocking the entry of Manipur police into the border town of Moreh, while welcoming the army and central forces.

These are fault lines that India can ill afford.

Think of the young men, barely in their 20s, who are throwing away their futures in this conflict. In an underground bunker in a remote village of Manipur, I met a young man sitting in a small bunker with an automatic rifle and a hand-made cannon-like weapon. I asked him what his dream was if the crisis ever ended. “I want to join the Indian Army,” he said, with a wide smile.

Who will reach out and have a conversation with these young men? Not the absent State in Manipur.

Barkha Dutt is an award-winning journalist and author. The views expressed are personal