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On Ethnicity, Conflict and Development in Manipur-
II
By Lokendra Arambam
Mutually reinforcing
exclusivisms:
The Kukis, one of the other populous tribes of Manipur experienced an agonized diaspora of continuous segmentation and "cladogenesis" through the culture of their economic and social organization based on slash-and-burn and clan autonomies. They are present in as far as Bangladesh, Tripura, south Assam, Nagaland, Manipur and the
Chin state of Myanmar. For them there seems to be no resource center for stable economic and
political integration amidst these vast sprawling topographies, where they could "claim", as do the Nagas, a "homeland" and a separate administrative and political structure.
Their hunger for a unifying and stable, autonomous self-serving polity therefore are mixed up in an amorphous interface between immediate
neighborhoods with Naga and Meitei communities. This creates an
ambience of uneasy disturbance in ethnic equilibrium thereby leading to hostile contentions with the other. The conflict with the Nagas in the Sadar Hills district issue, and the Naga-Kuki tragedy of 1992-93 should be read in this light. The Naga "ethnic cleansing" of the Kukis, and the reprisals in "self
defense" by the Kukis (which both sides mutually claim) are blots in the
multiplicity and diversity ethos of post-colonial India.
Again, the Meiteis, during the crisis in the ceasefire issue, in an extreme exercise of self-restraint, did not physically harm the Naga population, which surprised many. The Governor of Manipur, Ved Marwah is reported to have remarked on the civilizational maturity of the Meitei people. What could complicate matters however was that the Naga community tried to
internationalize the issue of "displaced Nagas" from the June riots, though proper statistical data and realistic appraisal of the situation was not forthcoming. The President's representatives of the state, Ved Marwah, in his meeting with some Meitei public service organization representatives on the matter, is learnt to have advised them not to take cognizance, as it was a "non-issue".
However,
NGO foras in Amsterdam and Norway, in collaboration with
intellectuals of universities in India worked for reaching the UN bodies for the cause of the "oppressed" Nagas. The seeming indifference of the Manipur government under President's rule in the matter and its nonchalant silence reflect an abysmal abdication of public responsibilities in a delicate ethnic situation.
The Meitei community, in emotional recognition of the June tragedy, projected eighteen young men and elderly women who died from bullet wounds in the firing by the security forces, as martyrs. The Kuki community then pressed why not include amongst the "martyrs of territorial integrity" some nine hundred odd Kuki sons of the soil who died in the ethnic cleansing by the Nagas. The Meitei, as a people in history, wedged in from different sides by surrounding
ethnicities, tried to keep an objective centrist stance, distancing from sharing the history of contention amidst the ethnic communities.
But the tragedy of June had re-opened old questions in a new context, when past histories are being obliterated in the contemporary power struggle, if they still could take the centrist position within the ethnic balance in the state. Equations in the fluid political and social situation may also change as the Central government in their role as peacekeeper and arbiter of conflicts may adopt policies to further weaken the weak societies and strengthen the strong in the light of how they perceive the security of the Indian state.
What lessons in polity restructuring could be learnt from this potential ethnic strife in the North-East in general and Manipur in particular in such an intricate balance of emergent forces is hard to define. However, issues of "nation-making" on the basis of ethnicity and ethnic nationalism are no easy matter and are of deep political and social import. The attempt by the
Government of India to approach the subject piecemeal and through "stages of settlement" between communities one after another may not serve the desired purpose. Deep cultural prejudices on notions of equal treatment, fair and natural justice on the lines of perceived values of Northeasterners, and one issue affecting the whole in networks of relationship that balance out the ethnoses-
such intricacies compound matters to the core. An alternative holistic paradigm may be needed to approach the "post-insurgency" settlement of the Naga issue.
Roots of ethnic divide:
British colonial interests no doubt helped raise the ethnic issue of the citizens of the North-East. However, the response to colonialism varied from ethnos to ethnos in the unified
geo-climatic and bio-geographic environment of the North-East. Earlier tribal animosities in matters of dispute over land, resources and human relations were settled through
mutual avenues of cultural knowledge and banking on traditional norms. Violent clashes, head taking and burning of villages, and attempts at rationalization of authority relations were settled amicably between disputing parties with the participation in mutual rituals and cognition of inter-dependence. Disputes and settlement of disputes were in the realm of accessibility and possibility. Confrontation as such
was hardly self-perpetuating; violence today and settlement tomorrow through an oath, a common sippage from the native brew would wind up long standing animosities. Conflict and conflict resolution were therefore mutually
re-enforcing values embedded in the lived experiences of the ethnic peoples. Head taking and head giving were practices deeply imbued with personal ideas of chivalry and dedication to community security.
Modern civilizational values had destroyed these "evil" practices and with it had gone the underlying cultural notions that sustained ethnic civilizations. The first nature of the primitive environment indeed had some intrinsic truths and indelible traits of positive character amongst the "natives". But this first nature was obliterated through a second nature perpetuated by colonial
practices. In the name of individual growth, competition for resource accumulation and
concentration of wealth, man was posited over man in eternal conflict under the sinister logic of capital formation and use. The world of progress and development in a haze left a few
ethnicities out of the general rush towards affluence and spatial security. Many in the margins or the periphery
needed to re-consolidate their strength through cultural models of alterity and difference. Ethnic identity was thus sharpened through social and political practices foisted by an "other" over the economy and society of the Northeasterner "self".
Second Colonialism!:
Post-Independence Indian attitude to the North-East, with development and democracy as a front, coupled with self perpetuating rule by Indian social and economic classes over the economy and society of the "natives"-propelled a second colonialism of an internal
kind- which produced a natural reaction, the movement for "Sovereignty" and "Independence". The entire North-East in the post colonial period then witnessed a configuration, complex networks of resurgence, suppression, counter-cultures, elimination of dissent, social and ethnic divisions as well as multiplicity of demographic and political crises. The inability of the failed state of Manipur to encounter this historic reality is the tragic subject of today.
During the five decades or so, the Manipur polity, in association with the Indian state, failed miserably to encounter the problems of its own discover of many selves in the ethnic panorama. Ethnic identification movements in the state were generated in the wake of the impending departure of the British colonial power in the first half of the twentieth century. Out of some thirty communities in the region, some major communities were affected deeply by the emerging
balance in the post Independence power structure, and their place in the overall control and distribution of the meager resources. The formation of tribal unions, political clubs and associations in the post forties, viz. the Tangkhul Long, Kuki National Assembly, the Khulmi Union, the Mizo Union, the Kabui Sammiti and others were reflective of the emergence of ethnic issues under the impending collapse of feudal, dynastic rule. The post-British state of Manipur
made a bold but weakened attempt at introducing constitutional monarchy and democracy and tried to reconsolidate the plural forces through reintegration of tribal communities in the power structure through the Hill Areas Regulation Act of 1947. Major ethnic communities like the Nagas and the Kukis had an equal say in the state of affairs.
It must, however, be noted that British colonial rule had earlier ruptured the organic hills and plains relationship through their "exclusive" policies towards tribals, thereby helping the tribes grow in insularity and difference over their plains brethren. The ongoing religious divisions of plains Hinduism and hills Christianity, and notions of social purity and pollution derived from Hindu discourses also increased the differences. This so called "cultural arrogance" of Hindu Meiteis over the hillsmen was however not shared by pre-Hindu believers of Meitei religion in the social hierarchy, who advocated the hill-plain biological and cultural unity amongst these ethnicities. But their views didn't circulate in the established social discourse in the Hinduized state of Manipur. Manipur's integration to the Indian state did not ameliorate matters. The
obliteration of the Asiatic state, its submersion in mundane uniformity of the vast sprawling citizenship of a diverse India, and upward mobility of individuals and classes
favored by the powerful establishment were creating a new society where the past of Manipur was re-fashioned under the ruling discourse on national integration. The Naga insurgency which attempted to shake the foundations of the inherited national state was brushed aside from the immediate experience of the Manipuris. Hardly any Manipuri intellectual noticed the futuristic scenario of the expanding Naga identity movement.
To be continued....
(This article is reproduced from the December 2001 issue of the Manipur Research Forum, Delhi's bulletin)
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