State Autonomy and Capacity

What has been the overall impact of state-society dynamics on contemporary politics in Manipur and Mizoram? How have divergent modes of politicization of identity in the two states had an impact on the respective state’s ability to govern and to respond to community demands? How has it affected their capacity to manage community conflicts? And crucially, how have the particular historical experiences of the two states with identity mobilization affected inter-community relations among them? It is these questions that I address in this final section to understand the conditions that create violence in one and enable relative peace in another. I begin by exploring whether, and to what extent, the state in Manipur is accessible to its minority communities. As tests for accessibility I take access to public office, the state’s allocation and transfer of resources and its readiness to share power with minority communities. I then explore how minorities have responded to their poor accessibility to the state (or otherwise) and the impact this has had on politics in the state. I conduct a similar test for Mizoram, exploring what aids minorities’ access to resources and power, and the implications of this accessibility for social cohesion and state legitimacy.

Manipur’s ‘limited’ state

Meitei mobilization by the state’s dominant state-making leaders has had consequences for the large non-Meitei population. They have complained about state institutions being partisan. Tribal organizations believe they have been excluded and that the state government has not been fair in distribution of resources to their areas. The poor condition of educational and health services, adverse economic conditions and poor infrastructure in these areas have often been the source of tribal complaints and their consequent anti-state mobilization. Often these complaints have resonated with findings of the government itself.86 Tribal communities in Manipur have often complained of their poor representation in state government jobs and of the paucity of personnel and poor functioning of public offices in the hills. While it is mandatory to have at least 31 per cent tribal employees in all government departments, 87 few departments have been able to meet this target, sometimes due to a shortage of adequately qualified candidates, but mostly on account of a lack of political and bureaucratic Commitment.88 There is also a very skewed manning of government offices between the hills and the valley districts. Tribal groups have often complained of abundance of staff in Imphal and other valley districts, while government establishments in hill districts are perpetually short of them.89

Aggravating the situation is the perception among tribal communities of poor investment in hill areas, poor implementation of development programs and absence of basic infrastructure. The Hills make up some 9/10ths of the total area of the state. Tribal communities, who exclusively inhabit them, constitute 37 per cent of the state’s total population. A survey of budget allocations for hill districts in fiscal 2004-05 throws up some interesting figures: only 26 per cent of the total budget of the Education Department was allocated for the five hill districts. It wasn’t any better in other departments: 25 per cent of the Health department’s budget and 22 per cent of the budget of the Public Works Department’s (PWD), the agency responsible for roads and other works. In the other key departments of social welfare and agriculture, the allocation was 14 per cent and 12 per cent respectively.90 A similar imbalance characterizes credit to the Hills as a proportion of total credit to the state: 21.4 per cent in 2003 and only 7.8 per cent in 2002.91 The outcome of low levels of investment in the Hills has been along predictable lines. Four out of five hill districts figure at the bottom of the heap on the human development index.92 These districts also have a larger proportion of the poor than their valley counterparts.93

Tribal organizations see most of these problems arising out of the state government’s concentrating political powers in Meitei hands and their reluctance to share power with other communities. Although administrative powers have been devolved to local bodies in valley districts, complaints have been voiced about how there has been a gradual disempowerment of elected local bodies in the hills. Elections to local bodies in valley districts have been conducted regularly, while their charter of administrative authority and their resource base has been expanded.94 There has been little of that in the hills. Elections to ADCs set up in 1973, under the Manipur (Hill Areas) District Council Act 1971, have not been held since 1990.95 The state government has since directly controlled them. Village Authorities, set up under provisions of Manipur Village Authorities (in the Hill Areas) Act 1956, have similarly remained a damp squib. Set up on the lines of traditional village councils, they have little powers to implement development projects and are generally sidelined by the bureaucratic machinery. Elections to them have been irregular and they have mostly been captured by powerful local elites. Governance in the hills has in effect, seen a movement towards greater disempowerment. It has reverted to direct administration under state bureaucracy. Line departments, which so far have worked through their district offices, are increasingly becoming centralized with almost all development schemes being formulated and implemented from the state capital. Inadequate access to jobs, poor functioning of state institutions in the hills and reluctance of the state to share power with local communities in hill districts have fed into mounting tribal alienation. Moved by their apparent neglect, tribal leaders and organizations have frequently resorted to protests and strikes.

The state government’s response to these grievances has been less than robust. It has mostly dithered, tried to buy time and sought short-term compromises. Much of this inertia could be the result of pressures on the state from Meitei civil society groups. Meitei associations have been vocal in opposing tribal demands. Citing existing legislation that benefits tribal communities, these associations question the need for additional safeguards. Meitei groups have been resentful of reservations for tribal communities in jobs within the central public sector, claiming that opportunities for educated Meitei youth are limited. They have also demanded that existing land laws in the state under the MLR&LR Act 1960 be extended to Hills areas, to relieve some of the pressure on land in the Valley. They argue that while there are large tracts of unutilized land in Hill districts, cultivable land in the Valley is scarce.96 Meitei groups have also opposed tribal demands for conversion of ADCs to 6th Schedule status, citing dangers to Manipur’s ‘territorial integrity’ due to possible creation of ‘states within state’.97 Mainstream political leaders have tended to go along with these interpretations, reaffirming Meitei fears.98 The state’s perceived inaction on tribal grievances and Meitei civil society’s opposition to their demands have led to tribal alienation. Of late, tribal organizations have increasingly begun raising demands for division of the state and separate administrative units for themselves. With rising socio-economic challenges, the cycle of conflicts has become unending.

A telling consequence of the playing-out of contests has been the highly conflictual nature of politics in Manipur. Politics in the state have moved to the streets. Strikes, bandhs (public closures), road blockades and protests by citizen’s groups are common. There were 34 bandhs in 2001 and 38 in 2002, leading to an average of two months of working days lost each year on account of them.99 The state’s poor autonomy means it is constantly hemmed in by social forces each pursuing its limited interests. Frustration with the state’s inability to govern is so pronounced that a local paper noting “There is no indication of any rule of law in the state” and that “nobody respects the law”, was forced to ask, “who exactly is running the state?”100 Paralysis of the state, its weakness and poor authority, have undermined the state’s role as the framework for resolving inter-community conflicts. With little direction from the state, public organizations have had a field day, mobilizing support along particularistic lines. These have spawned sustained and multiplying conflicts. Inter-community mobilization in this situation tends to quickly degenerate into violence. The enduring picture is one of a weak state, with little autonomy, hemmed in by powerful social forces. The state’s actions feed into patterns of mobilization and counter-mobilization in the political arena. With the state controlling most resources, contestations for a share of these continue incessantly, leading to frequent breakdown.

Accommodation in Mizoram

State-making leaders in Mizoram ensured that mobilization around Mizo identity was inclusive. This, and the need to maintain the Mizo edifice, ensures that the state is sensitive to minority concerns and takes them on board. Different social groups within the Mizo constellation have better representation in the agencies of the state government. Hmars and Raltes, due to their advancement in education and commerce and Lushais due to their political power are evenly represented in state government structures. It is true that minority communities such as Maras and Lai, as well as Chakmas, do not find proportionate representation in state bureaucracy.101 Yet the presence of separate ADCs for these communities, under 6th Schedule provisions, ensures they get a relatively fair share of resources and political power.102 Chakma ADC employs 996 persons, all Chakmas; Lai ADC, 1648 persons; and Mara ADC, 1580 persons of their particular group, an average of 3% of each community’s population.103 Mizoram is also one of the few states in the region where minority communities effectively control resources and their way of life. Among other things, elected ADCs have significant control over how land, forests and other natural resources in their jurisdiction are utilized, what laws are followed to order social life and what language is used in local schools.

Undoubtedly, ADCs in Mizoram came about not due to any proactive policies of state government but because of central interventions. Yet the fact that the three have been functioning, and have the full support of the state government, speaks of the government’s attitude.104 It will be fruitful here to examine the state’s response to political demands by sections of Hmar and Bru communities. The Singlung Hills Development Council (SHDC), an outcome of negotiations between the rebel Hmar People’s Convention (HPC) and the state government, tries to replicate the ADC example for the Hmar community, albeit on a less grand scale. While SHDC may have its weak spots (fund transfers are not statutory, there is little in the scheme for control over land and resources as well over cultural aspects of the Hmar community), its very presence, and the readiness of the state government to think in terms of autonomy for those with grievances, has helped moderate their sense of being wronged.105 The Mizoram government’s agreeing to a similar arrangement for Bru group recently was the basis for the Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) agreeing to give up their violent activities.106 Significantly, in both instances, it was not the central government that was leading talks with militants, but the state government. ADCs and the SHDC have ensured that development investment in minority areas is less iniquitous. ADCs act as channels for much of the developmental interventions of the state in remote pockets inhabited by minority tribes. Statutory transfers from the state to the ADCs means that these regions, and more importantly the elite tied to them, get substantial resources over which they have direct control.

Source: Draft 10th 5-Year Plan (2002-2007), Government of Mizoram and Mizoram Government's Memorandum to Tenth Finance Commission, Feb 2004

Representation of different communities, including minorities, in the administrative and political structures of the state, and with the state enabling minorities to exercise control over local resources and their way of life, has helped bind elites from minority communities in patterns of mutual relationships with the state structure. Political parties have contributed to this process. The Congress party, when it was in power in the 1990s, and the ruling Mizo National Front in more recent times, has often forged political alliances with elites from minority communities. This has been a win-win exercise. While this has helped bring minority viewpoints onto the state agenda, mainstream Mizo parties have managed to obtain a toehold in minority constituencies. Congress in Mizoram has traditionally enjoyed a special place among Chakmas and Maras, and has consistently opposed demands for dissolution of these ADCs.107 The MNF, which on many occasions was the party moving the resolutions for dissolution of Chakma ADC, recently welcomed a large number of Chakma leaders into its fold.108 It has slowly been making inroads in Chakma ADC and now heads the coalition in power there. Until recently, the MNF had an alliance with the lone Mara Democratic Front (MDF) representative in the state assembly, a move that helped the party safeguard its majority in the state assembly. In the past, MNF had established a political alliance with HPC promising to support Hmar autonomy demands in return for electoral support.109 The recent break-through in Mizo-Bru talks is also being seen as an outcome of similar political deals between the ruling-Mizo National Front (MNF) and the Bru leaders.110 Elite alliances have worked to help integrate minorities into the Mizo body politic.

Perhaps what motivates political parties to be accommodative is the overpowering legacy of the Mizo Union, which had turned political alliance-making into a basic tenet of its policy. We saw earlier how MU in its state-making phase chose to reach out to communities to gain the upper hand in electoral politics rather than to ‘divide and rule’. Perhaps an equally important incentive for political parties in Mizoram today is the need to project the state as the model for peace in the Northeast. Mizo leaders take immense pride in their state’s peaceful climate and have often offered themselves for services to neighboring states as well as the central government to broker peace with insurgent groups in the region.111 Perhaps they also realize that the only way they can maintain peace in their state and retain their pride of place in the region is by being accommodating to those who could upset the applecart. 112 Adding to the dynamic is the fact that the state in Mizoram enjoys greater legitimacy and a good public image. This could be on account of the state’s high degree of social control and the state-society compact. Analysts see absence of enduring violence as an outcome of the people’s faith in the government’s capacity for fair play: It is probably because the state functions in a just manner, transparently and is effective that has prevented the slide down. People have still not lost faith in the state’s capacity to govern. Frustration, ...has not become inconsolable.113

The state’s capability is evident from the way public projects and programs have been implemented. An example is the implementation of the Public Distribution System (PDS), a national food security program, for which Mizoram has received wide acclaim.114 Crucial to the success of the program has been involvement of civil society organizations like the YMA in implementation and monitoring. Wide public participation and sharing of information has helped prevent mismanagement and leakages, so common to implementation of PDS in other Indian states.115 A similar state-society partnership in promoting primary education has helped the state attain enviable levels of literacy. Serchip district recently created history by recording 100 % enrolment. The state has added other feathers to its cap. Recently, it claimed to be the first e-governance state in the North East and the first to introduce the Right to Information Act, an act likely to improve the quality of governance.116 Its capability and effectiveness have helped the state retain its legitimacy in society. Thus in marked contrast to state-society dynamics in Manipur, social organizations in Mizoram, tied as they are to the state, have helped enhance the state’s capability and resultant legitimacy. This has prevented state-society contestation and has reinforced the positive inter-community dynamics in the state. In Manipur, the state-making leaders’ politicizing of Meitei identity excluded minority communities and caused their alienation. This severely reduced the state’s legitimacy in the latter’s eyes. The state’s autonomy has also been constrained due to the poor authority it has been able to garner historically. This has affected the state’s capacity to manage and resolve conflicts. Social organizations that have leveraged traditional centers of authority have mobilized against each other in an attempt to wrest resources and benefits and authority. The result has been a cycle of conflicts. In Mizoram, state-making leaders politicized Mizo identity for the same purpose. But they imagined Mizo identity in inclusive terms and kept it open to all communities, thus enhancing their legitimacy. The process of state-making itself consolidated the state’s hold over power at the cost of traditional centers of authority, thus enhancing state’s autonomy. The close working relationship between key social organizations and the state institutions in Mizoram has further helped this process of consolidation. This has helped resolve conflicts and maintain peace.

Conclusion

I began this paper by arguing that divergence in violent outcomes between Manipur and Mizoram can be explained best by looking at the processes of state-making in the two states and the contrasting ways in which state-making leaders and those who were opposing them mobilized their constituencies to capture power in the early years of state-making. This had implications for the state’s capacity to govern, and specifically its readiness to respond to group aspirations. Where the state has been responsive and inclusive, it has avoided cycles of conflict and violence. On the other hand, the state’s reluctance to respond to minority aspirations provides the material for sustained violence and breakdown. What are the lessons that we can derive from this analysis?

Firstly, the authority of the state depends on where state power lies. In the state-making period, state elites and key social forces have been engaged in long drawn out struggles over control. Where state elites succeeded in incorporating social forces into state structures, their authority has been augmented, while that of competing social forces has declined. Where social forces were not incorporated, or where the state sought to ride piggyback on preexisting centers of authority, state power was compromised. The role of the colonial state was significant in this process in both Manipur and Mizoram. What is remarkable is that the colonial administration was employing two very different strategies in its attempt to rule tracts of adjoining territory. In Mizoram, even though the conquest had been designed initially to prevent Lushai chiefs from raiding the plains areas in Bengal, the colonial state was taking a more proactive role and interest. Through ruling by proxy with the help of chiefs, the state sought to get closer to the people and ground itself in Lushai society.

In Manipur, the state remained a distant lord. Its presence in the hills was marginal. Preexisting institutions and power centers among tribal communities continued to rule with only small adjustments. In the valley, the state was at best an overseer of proceedings. This was partly due to the presence of a developed polity that the colonial state encountered in the state in the form of the Meitei kingship. Cultural considerations may also have prevented the state from attempting to ground itself in Hinduized Meitei society. In Mizoram, the state actively used Christian missionaries as agents of social change among hitherto animist tribes. Missionary activity helped enhance the state’s legitimacy in society. The colonial state was therefore better integrated in Lushai hills than it was in the Manipur kingdom. The result of this integration was a consolidated state-making exercise.

Secondly, the colonial legacy has implications for strategies used by the elite in their postcolonial state-making efforts. Literature abounds on how ruling coalitions have used a variety of tools for this purpose: from electoral incorporation, to state patronage and programmatic reforms, to developing organizational capacity to govern or simply by repression.117 Where does the Northeast example fit in this context? Are there other strategies that ruling coalitions in Manipur and Mizoram have used for their state-making objectives? Political parties and other elites have frequently politicized ethnic identities in the region in their struggles over power and authority. Ethnic mobilization, therefore, may be serving objectives that electoral incorporation or land reforms may have served elsewhere. However, empirical material proves that ethnic mobilization can be a double-edged sword: it can reinforce the state and enhance its overall capacity and legitimacy in society; but it can also diminish its strengths, compromise its legitimacy and further fragment society. That outcome will depend on whether identity construction and mobilization is inclusive and aggregative, or partisan and exclusionary. The manner of identity mobilization thus has serious consequences for intercommunity relations and violence.

Thirdly, the state’s role in managing the aspirations of minority communities plays a big part in how those communities mobilize. Where the state is seen as being accessible to minorities, chances are these communities will have a stake in upholding the system. Administrative arrangements enabling self-governance for minority tribes in Mizoram has meant that elite and even more restive elements from these communities have been incorporated into the state’s political system, thus taking their attention away from the need to mobilize for a share of power. Similar patterns of relationships between elites among minorities and mainstream political parties have also been forged as an outcome of the political process. These relationships have helped reduce intercommunity tensions in Mizoram. Manipur’s heightened contestations could be the outcome of perceptions among minorities that the state was reluctant to share power and resources with them.

Lastly, a common strategy used by state elites to enhance state authority has been to develop their organizational capacity. This has usually implied working through political and state institutions. Material from Mizoram demonstrates that beyond state organizations, it is social organizations that elites have fostered to help enhance the state’s capability. The YMA and the Church have had established patterns of relationship with the state in Mizoram. The strength of these organizations has been used by state elites to reinforce the state’s capacity. This state-society bonding, largely an outcome of the historical process, has helped prevent fragmentation in politics. It has fostered stability and order. In Manipur, the state-society break and fragmentation of social forces themselves has led to a rising spiral of competitive mobilization between different social organizations and the state. Resultant poor state autonomy has led to social forces constraining the state from behaving in ways that could be seen by all groups as fair and objective.

End Notes:

86 Statistical Tables of Manipur: Department of Economics and Statistics, Government of Manipur, 2004.
87 This is against the all-India reservation of 7.5%, based on proportionate composition of ‘tribal’ communities at the national level. According to the 1971 census, tribal communities make up 31% of Manipur’s population. See Manipur SA # G-FA/12/54, R/18-5, 352 on this debate in the Parliament.
88 In a Public Interest Litigation filed in Guwahati High Court by H. Nengsong, on behalf of Manipur Tribal Employees Association (MTEA), it was claimed there were only 20.3% Scheduled Tribes (STs) in the Medical department, 8.5% in Education, 21.8% in Police and 16% in the Manipur Secretariat.
89 Memorandum submitted by Movement for Tribal People’s Rights, Manipur (MTPRM) to state Chief Minister, Imphal, 1 March 2003.
90 Finance Department, Government of Manipur, 2004.
91 Minutes of the State Level Bankers’ Coordination Committee Meetings, Union Bank of India, Manipur Regional Office, Imphal: Various issues.
92 Department of Economics and Statistics, Government of Manipur, Human Development Series 2003.
93 19.33 % in Imphal, 26.24 % in Bishnupur and 24.39 % in Thoubal, all valley districts. For the hills: 40 % in Churachandpur, 44.4 % in Ukhrul, 42 % in Chandel, 51.3 % in Senapati and 54.5 % in Tamenglong (Estimates of the Proportion of Poor in Manipur: NSS 55th Round, 1999-2000).
94 ‘Cabinet Clears Devolution of Powers to Panchayati Raj’, The Imphal Free Press, 20 September 2005.
95 ADCs in Manipur were established under the 5th Schedule of the constitution, unlike those in Mizoram (and other Northeast states) under the 6th Schedule. While the latter have extensive legislative, executive and judicial powers and secure sources of finance, 5th Schedule ADCs have little autonomy. Manipur’s tribal leaders have been demanding conversion of their ADCs to 6th Schedule status and have, since 1990, been boycotting ADC elections to press their demands.
96 Both measures stem from constitutional provisions that seek to neutralize structural disadvantages faced by tribal communities in the country. The first seeks to provide tribals access to public employment, while the second aims to prevent alienation of tribal land to outsiders. Yet the fact of restricted opportunities for non-tribal youth in the state and rising pressure on Valley land is indisputable.
97 Sangai Express (Imphal), 31 October 2002.
98 R. K. Ranbir, Ex-Chief Minister, recently warned of loss of territorial integrity of the state if 6th schedule demand was conceded (The Imphal Free Press, 2 November 2002).
99 According to the state Finance Department, losses due to bandhs in a single year amount to about Rs 32.18 billion in a year, more than double the annual Plan resource that Manipur receives from the Centre. While bandhs do not much affect the salaried class, laborers, daily wage earners and those engaged in the farming sector are hit hard (Sangai Express (Imphal), 29 September 2005).
100 ‘No Difference’, Editorial The Imphal Free Press, 24 June 1998.
101 Making up a poor 0.7% of Mizoram State Secretariat’s strength (Memorandum of the United Lai Chakma Mara Union Territory (ULCM UT) Demand Committee to the Prime Minister, 2000, p.9).
102 This is despite the alleged poor representation of minority communities in state government services. (ULCM UT Demand Committee memo to the PM, 2000).
103 State government with total staff strength of 42,883 employs some 4.5 % of the population.
104 There have been calls by Mizo public organizations and sometimes by political parties, for the abolition of Chakma ADC. Mizos believe the Assam government foisted it on them, without there being a case for it. Yet all political parties have, from time to time, forged political alliances with Chakma leaders and have facilitated Chakma ADC’s functioning. No such calls have been made for Mara and Lai ADCs.
105 Memorandum of Settlement between Government of Mizoram and HPC, Aizawl (27 July 1994).
106 BNLF and Mizoram Government signed a Memorandum of Understanding on 26 April 2005, South Asia Intelligence Review, 3:42 (2 May 2005).
107 Records of debates in Mizoram State Assembly: Secretariat, Mizoram Legislative Assembly, Aizawl.
108 Newslink (Aizawl) reported induction of many Chakmas and Brus into the party, noting, “this is in sharp contrast to MNF’s anti-Chakma ADC attitude in the past, when they were seated in the opposition benches” (27 May 2003).
109 MNF-Hmar Volunteer Welfare Association Agreement dated February 17, 1998. Personal papers of Hmingchungna, past President, HPC, Aizawl.
110 BNLF and Mizoram Government signed a Memorandum of Understanding on 26 April 2005 (South Asia Intelligence Review, 3:42 (2 May 2005).
111 ‘Centre asks Zoramthanga ….to talk to NSCN (IM)’, Times of India (Guwahati), 13 July 2004.
112 It has been argued by Baruah that protective discrimination regimes, especially those seeking connection of group entitlements to collective goods (such as ADCs for specific communities), have exacerbated ethnic contestations in the North East (Baruah, 2005, p.11). This has found favor with other commentators (Chandoke, 2005, p.25). While there may be a grain of truth in the contention, the crucial point is that protective discrimination regimes are not new to Indian policymaking; their legacy can be traced to colonial times. Hence it may be a bit late in the day to reverse their impact. Further, as demonstrated by the comparison of the state’s response to autonomy/decentralization demands in Manipur and Mizoram, a policy favoring accommodation is better suited to maintaining peace than otherwise. Moreover, as again demonstrated by the two cases, demands for protective regimes become intense when groups begin to feel excluded. Demands for ‘homeland’ by Manipur’s minorities could be a case of playing out of competitive identity mobilization. But underpinning these demands is the exclusion of minority communities from the power structure.
113 Interview, Vanlalchuanna, Political analyst (Aizawl, 25 June 2004).
114 ‘Successful BPL scheme’, North East Tribune (Aizawl), 19 June 2005.
115 Based on discussion with R. Thanhawla, Secretary FCS Government of Mizoram (Aizawl, 2 July 2004).
116 North East Tribune (Guwahati), 11 & 28 September 2005.
117 Deborah Yashar, Demanding Democracy: Reform and Reaction in Costa Rica and Guatemala (1870s-1950s),
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997, pp.215-229.

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*** The author is with the Development Studies Institute, LSE

*** This is a publication of the Crisis States Programme, Development Research Centre, DESTIN, LSE, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE.

*** The paper has been republished with due permission from Crisis States Programme, Development Research Centre, DESTIN, LSE, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE.

*** You may visit www.crisisstates.com for further readings.

Concluded.....