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On Ethnicity, Conflict and Development in Manipur
By Lokendra Arambam
When the ancestor serpent-dragon rides on the aroused
hills men formations of the North and unleashes its fury, disaster shall befall this region.
-From ancient texts of the Meiteis
The uprising on June 18, 2001 in the wake of the extension of ceasefire, between the NSCN (IM) and the
Government of India, to Manipur, which brought extensive damage to life and property in the state, also highlighted critical problems in the uneasy ethnic relationship in contemporary North-East. Though the event was interpreted through various perceptions in polity formation and state reconstruction in the incomplete history of diagonalization of marginal peoples, especially in weak and fragile socio-economic systems of ethnic communities in North-East India, the intensity and ferocity of the event have left deep imprints on the minds of both Nagas and the Meiteis, the main players in the crisis, as to their relationship and possible unfolding of subsequent events.
The Naga communities perceived it as a stumbling block to their long cherished desire of
legitimizing their "territorial" and "geographic" presence in their imagined "nation-state", whereas the plains communities led by the Meiteis saw in it a vicious move to deny its history, civilization and pluralistic ethos represented by the existing state and its
boundaries. On the part of the Nagas, their sense of becoming a future, their unique political experiment of "Nagahood" have been "temporarily" thwarted by strong obstruction by an oppressive community who refuse to see the unfolding history of the Naga people.
On the other side, the plains communities led by the Meiteis saw the move as an attempt to disassemble the historic heritage built up through a few thousand years of struggle by the indigenous peoples of the region, a legacy which defined their collective identity and civilizational character of the
state of Manipur. A struggle for becoming by one, and a ferocious holding on to a history of identity by another led to this vital conflict of interest. The role that the big nation state of India plays in the subsequent developments would be crucial for the future of these communities in the ultimate search for peace in the North-East.
Many perspectives:
The construction of the concept "national" of the Nagas, the protection of the Manipur state in its full territorial and civilizational identity, the ethnic resurgence in the regions of the North-East are perhaps fallouts from the colonial encounters between the imperial colonizing forces and simple ethnic societies. However, the succession to power and hegemony by the newly formed Indian state whose perceptions through history of the
northeastern communities were marked by flawed imagination and genuine lack of understanding of tribal and ethnic cultures accentuated the syndrome.
The nation formation of the Indian republic, vitally represented in a multiplicity of cultures, languages and regions as laid down in the cherished Indian constitution, did in practice witness the bearers of the state indulge in adhoc, emergent counters to developing security and strategic issues in the
North-East rather than accept assiduously the unfolding of an "other" people in history.
The vital problems of development and economic growth were based on mathematical calculations without encountering cultural and traditional worldviews on environment, nature and human relations preserved by the peoples of the North-East. All "local" and "place" knowledge of the peoples were massively obliterated in the rush for profit, material advancement and modernization. The harsh realities of contemporary division of resources, accentuation of power struggles for benefit and accumulation,
unleashed forces based on group and ethnic identities forged by political and tribal elites. These elites worked on regeneration and activation of "primordial consciousness" to claim their place in the international community of decolonizing nations.
The political concept of "Nagahood", the attempt at Meitei resurgence, and ethnic awakening throughout the North-East were all played out in reality within the space of a faltering "nationhood" of the powerful post colonial Indian state. The conflicts in the North-East are not simple acrimonies between weak societies and mutually scribbling tribal and ethnic formations, but a serious questioning on the legitimacy and moral authority of the Indian state vis-à-vis the North-East. The low-intensity conflicts, the warped media attention and lack of proper international information on these issues are surface realities which hid vital interfaces of state power, media management and suppression of alternative discourses in the human condition.
From Diaspora to In
gathering:
True, the ethnic relations between the Meiteis, the Nagas and the Kukis in the state of Manipur witnessed varying dimensions in their "historical" development. These three predominant communities had painful encounters of ethnic diasporas throughout their past history. The Nagas claim that they are one people, many tribes who had suffered fissures, divisions and administrative manipulations through colonial machinations, that their "sacred geography" were obliterated by the imperial forces, and that their just demands for self-determination as one people with a distinct homogeneous territory and necessities of their historical development.
The Meiteis, on the other hand, who forged the pre-colonial Manipur state as a plural Asiatic kingdom were dispersed in different regions of Assam, Bangladesh, Tripura and Myanmar through vicissitudes of history, but their leadership and responsibility created a unique polity where entities were integrated through a common geo-ecological and socio-economic environment for the hills and the plains, and that the polity, through feudal and dynastic, had ample space for multi-ethnic pluralities to subsist, that the relationships between the communities were based on blood and kin groupings, and ethnic divisions in the contemporary sense were misnomers in the past. In fact, all tribes and ethnic societies had common origin theories and biogenetic commonalities in their racial stratum.
The traditional philosophy of the ancient Kingdom of Manipur and its functioning were based on the organistic belief that the state with its present component of the hills and plains was one body, like the human body. It throbbed and functioned like a human organism. The Koubru hills in the north-west amidst the Barail ranges were regarded as the head (cranium) of the body structure. It is from the Koubru hills that a main branch of the Meitei ethos descended unto the plains. The plains of Lamphelpat in the foothills in the north-west were the broad chests of the organism. The historic capital Kangla was the navel, the controlling energy, the nerve center of the body and source of all intelligence. The Loktak Lake in the south-west was the bowel of the state. The Sugnu Nungthong (the stone door at Sugnu where the Manipur River proceeds towards the Chindwin) was the rectum of the body. The mountain ranges and the hills surrounding the valley were the arms and legs of the body organism.
To be continued....
(This article is reproduced from the December 2001 issue of the Manipur Research Forum, Delhi's bulletin)
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