North-east India was a historically independent sovereign land and later it was strategically added to mainland India by a treaty called Yandabo Treaty in 1826, signed between the British and the Burmese without any consent of the Ahom kingdom, Kachari kingdom, or the other territories ruling the region. As a result, the sovereign region was politically firmly added to mainland British India and various parts of the entire region, with its new identity as North-east India, politically lost their sovereignty and identity forever. In 1947, there were only 3 states in this region- Assam, and the two ‘princely states’ of Manipur and Tripura. At present, North-east India is divided into eight states- Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim. Manipur remained a 'Princely State' from 1891 till 1949.

The cause is not clear, but the region seems to be treated as primarily ‘Vote Banks’ and as 'not-so-important' citizens by the Centre. Along with forever exploitation of the region's resources, especially crude oil and tea and selling and leasing the public sector assets to big industrialists from mainland India in the name of development, the Central Government, with the help of some greedy politicians of the State Governments, has often turned ignorant to the problems of the region. But the scenario temporarily becomes opposite at the time of Assembly Elections. The latest example of this statement is – burning of Manipur in extreme communal clashes and bloodshed undergoing in the state. Still, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not uttered a single word regarding the matter, set aside his duty of visiting the burning state as if no state named as Manipur exists in India! Instead, the Prime Minister departed for the United States and Egypt on June 20.

Manipur shares international border with Myanmar. Manipur is the connecting point between the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia to Southeast Asia, East Asia, Siberia, regions in the Arctic, Micronesia, and Polynesia. This results in the migration of people, cultures and religions. At the centre of the state is a valley surrounded by mountain ranges. The capital of Manipur- Imphal, is located in this valley. There are three major ethnic groups in Manipur- the Meiteis in the valley, the Nagas and the Kukis in the hills. Around 53% consists of the Meitei people, 24% consists of various Naga tribes and 16% consists of various Kuki tribes. Meitei community also occupies the majority part of the properties in the state. Chief Minister of Manipur, N. Biren Singh and 40 MLAs out of total 60 MLAs of the state belong to Meitei Community. Since this dominant community follows Hindu religion, and BJP is clearly inclined to Hinduism, therefore, keeping Meiteis satisfied is supposed to be much beneficial for the party for staying in power in Manipur.

The recent violence in the state began when the Manipur High Court asked the State Government to consider Scheduled Tribe (ST) status for the Meitei community, which would allow the Meitei extended access to benefits, including reserved seats in Government. It made other communities offended. Since the Meitei community has already been enjoying majority benefits, therefore Manipur High Court’s this order made the tribal communities furious. A protest rally was held in the Churachandpur district of the state by All Tribal Students Union of Manipur on May 3, this year. The violence began the same day when the protesters clashed with a group of people in an area bordering Bishnupur district. Sudden violent clashes occurred between the people in the rally and the Meitei community. The extent of this sudden violence was so high that the State Government had to issue 'shoot-at-sight' orders in 'extreme cases' and fifty-five columns of the Army and Assam Rifles had to be deployed immediately. The Government also imposed curfew. The civilians in Manipur looted arms from police armouries during the violence. Over 4,000 weapons were looted by miscreants. At this point, the role of police present in the police stations at the time of loot comes under suspicion. Central Home Minister Amit Shah visited Manipur and stayed there since 29^th May till 1^st June, holding meetings for bringing the situation under control. He met Kuki and Meitei representatives. He directed the officials of the state to deal strictly with activities disturbing peace in the state. In these crucial meetings, Amit Shah took five decisions to restore peace. He also spoke of an investigation by the CBI into the violence. The five decisions taken by Amit Shah at the cabinet meetings, were- to take necessary action to improve law and order, to expedite relief measures, to provide compensation of ₹ 10 lakh to the families of people who died in the ethnic clashes, to provide a job to one family member, and to re-opening of BSNL telephone lines to dispel rumours, as internet connection is cut in the state for long time.

Internet ban in Manipur is extended till July 10. But all the measures by parties involved in the attempts for peace and normalcy restoration in the state have come to no effect in Manipur, where there is still no end in sight to the violent ethnic conflict. Assam CM and convenor of North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) Himanta Biswa Sarma visited Manipur on June 10. Union minister Rajkumar Ranjan Singh's official residence in Imphal was burnt down by a huge group on June 15. Till now, more than 115 people are killed and 40,000 people displaced from their homes amidst the violence, the numbers increasing day by day. But the situation there is so chaotic that the exact number of deaths is being hard to count.

But this story is not as straight as it seems to be. This is not the issue of only ST status to an already powerful community having Scheduled Caste (SC) status and Other Backward Classes (OBC) status, but many other more dangerous hidden factors are acting behind this rage. Besides the Meitei people supporting BJP for being in a beneficial position due to its religious similarity, another important twist in the scenario is that as compared to the tribes in the hills, it is said that Meiteiteis do not have enough land to live in the valley. Only 10% of the total land area of the state belongs to the Meitei community and the rest 90% of the state is occupied by the tribals. Meiteis say that being classified as non-tribals, they till now can not buy land in over 90% area of the state. On receiving ST status, the Meitei community also will be able to buy lands in the hills, and the Kuki and Naga communities have been strongly opposing this. Another issue involved here is illegal immigration from Myanmar across the international border at the mountain areas and establishment of villages in the jungles of the hill areas of Manipur. A report filed by Manipur Cabinet Subcommittee on identifying illegal immigrants says: "Illegal immigrants have set up villages. They are assured that they shall be provided shelter homes, but the illegal Myanmarese immigrants strongly refuse to move to designated shelters. A total of 2187 illegal immigrants have been identified at 41 locations. Also, the Manipur Government's ‘war against drugs’ campaign has badly affected the illegal poppy cultivation and narcotics business run by Myanmarese in Manipur. As a result, the recent violence in Manipur was fueled by influential poppy cultivators and drug lords from Myanmar settling in Manipur."

Basically we can refer this to the MANIPUR LAND REVENUE AND LAND REFORMS ACT, 1960, where Section 15(1) says- ‘Any person who occupies or continues to occupy any land belonging to Government without lawful authority shall be regarded as a trespasser and may be summarily evicted therefrom by the competent authority and any building or other construction erected or anything deposited on such land, if not removed within such reasonable time as such authority may from time to time fix for the purpose, shall be liable to be forfeited to the Government and to be disposed of in such manner as the competent authority may direct, provided that the competent authority may, in lieu of ordering the forfeiture of any such building or other construction, order the demolition of the whole or any part thereof.’ The Kuki tribe in Manipur accuses the Government of taking advantage of these Acts to torture them. Again, denying the belief that Meiteis cannot buy land in Manipur’s hills and it is just a myth, Mr. Doungel, the chairman of Kuki Inpi Manipur (KIM) stated, “Section 158 of the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act, 1960 restricts the non-tribals (including the Meiteis) from directly purchasing tribal land, but they can through the consent of district councils. There are many Meitei localities in the hill areas. The State Government has been strategically branding the Kuki people as ‘illegal immigrants’ to take over land by driving the tribals away”.

Chapter XII of the MANIPUR FOREST RULES, 1971 also stands with this.

Added to this is the INDIAN FOREST (MANIPUR AMENDMENT) ACT, 2018. Section 4 of this Act says- ‘When there is a reason to believe that a forest offence has been committed in respect of forest produce, such produce, together with all tools, boats, vehicles, cattle, carts, ropes, chains or any other article used in committing any such offence, may be seized by any Forest Officer or Police Officer.’ The Kuki tribe in Manipur hill is continuously complaining of such activities by the Forest Department although they have been indigenous people of the areas in hills for cernturies.

Imphal Free Press Bureau writes that two months before all these violence started, the Centre for Research and Advocacy (CRA), Manipur and the United Voluntary Youth Council (UVYC), Imphal, jointly conducted a consultation on ‘indigenous people and forest rights in Manipur’ on February 27 this year, where the indigenous people participating in the meeting insisted the State Government on recognising indigenous people’s rights over their land and forest and on amending and abolishing forest laws that are harmful to the rights of indigenous communities. They also complained about the sudden show-cause notices for announcement of protected areas, reserved forest, national parks and the urgent threats to them with forced displacement, land separation and resulting impact on their culture and identity. The meeting concluded with decisions to approach all redressal mechanisms including the Human Rights commissions, legal mechanisms and even international indigenous peoples’ Human Rights bodies to recognise indigenous peoples’ rights over forest land, and to strengthen empowering all communities on indigenous people’s forest rights.

The latest addition to all the land and forest related Acts and rules in India, is the FOREST (CONSERVATION) AMENDMENT BILL, 2023 brought by the ruling party- BJP. This Bill is proposed to amend the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 to make it applicable to certain types of land and also to exempt certain types of land from the scope of the said Act. However, the Bill is being criticised by some experts on the basis of dangers or inconveniences it has chances of bringing to the tribal people living in hills and also the natural ecosystem of the forest areas in the hills. Among others, one major problem is land alienation. Before and after independence lakhs of tribals have been evicted from their own land without any proper rehabilitation and compensation because of different developmental project implementation in the forest areas. A report by a high-level working group constituted by Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy says that the Bill, on becoming an Act, may put the immense territory of ecologically important forests in danger and leave out several so-called ‘forests’ that cover around 15% of India’s total forest cover. Hence, the tribes in the hills of Manipur also shall be in danger.

Now, here come the issues of illegal poppy cultivation in the hills of Manipur and Narcotics transport in and through Manipur to other parts of India. An officer from Manipur who does not want to get the identity revealed, stated- "Satellite imagery has detected large-scale cultivation of opium in the forests and hills of Manipur, and so Chief Minister N. Biren Singh intensified the drive to destroy poppy cultivation under his ‘War on Drugs’ campaign. Over 18,000 acres of poppy cultivation have been destroyed so far since 2017. This has badly affected the poppy cultivation and narcotics drug business run by Myanmarese in Manipur. The poppy could not be harvested this year due to the crackdown, and so the drug mafias and the poppy growers lost a lot of money. So they were looking for an opportunity to create trouble and stop the drive against drugs. The poppies are taken to Myanmar through the porous Indo-Myanmar border, where the same is processed to produce heroin before being smuggled to other South-East Asian markets". Manipur Government stated on July 31, 2019 in its website- “Drug mafias have developed a strong network with Manipur and Myanmar to smuggle poppy out to Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia (Laos, Myanmar and Thailand) and vice versa. To uproot such detrimental threats from the soil, the State Government launched campaigns such as ‘Nisha Thadoklasi’ and ‘War on Drugs’ in 2018. Under this campaign, the CM of Manipur N. Biren Singh aimed to destroy illegal poppy cultivation in hill regions, curtailing its distribution and trade using coercive and non-coercive methods”. ‘E-PAO’- an online platform for Manipuris reported on its Editorial of November 22, 2021 that in Manipur, drug trafficking remains no longer a local trade; it is a multi-national, cross-border trade as indicated by the seizure of drugs which originated from Manipur in different parts of the country, including Assam. There are reports of involvement of drug mafias from foreign countries such as China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Today, Manipur portrays many conflicting claims to ethnic and communal homelands — and there are armed insurgent groups there to defend those claims. There are lots of armed insurgent organisations in the state who frequently support and help candidates in the political field in Assembly Elections.

More than two months have passed since the first day of ethnic violent clash, but the situation is worsening despite deploying huge number of armed forces in the state. Extreme violence, massive killings and, burning of houses and properties, burning of people alive are continuing from both sides, and not even the armed forces are being able to control the situation completely. At this time, more than 30000 central security personnel are deployed in Manipur, besides state police forces. While getting reliable information from Manipur has been difficult, still, images, videos and reports from the state show it as an ongoing civil war, with heavily armed militants aiming the securing personnel to attack, villagers arming themselves, and a sharp deterioration in trust between citizens, governance and security.

Questions are arising and discussions are continuing on the best possible ways of bringing the situation in the state under control, as after-effects of a 'war-like situation' are also showing up, like shortages of food and medicine; closed shops, schools and offices; affected people taking shelter at unsanitary refugee camps; chances of fear, hatred and insecurity among some of the Meitei and Kuki students studying at places of mainland India and an attitude of non-cooperation and compromise from all the parties involved or affected, even after such a bloodshed disaster. Some are suggesting on withdrawal of the order by the High Court to give ST status to Meiteis, whereas others are discussing whether imposing 'President Rule' will be best for the state now. The Kuki community is demanding a separate state for them to stay safe and prosper by themselves without any chance of domination and hatred from any majority counterparts, like now. Getting no other option, some people agree with that demand too, that is, giving the Kukis a separate state. Is that the safest and best solution to the burning situation in Manipur?

Still, the PM has not felt any need to be aware of and look into the matter, to interfere in the situation, or to say or do just anything. It is proved that probably the PM needs and 'loves' the people from North-east India only to win elections every time. Shouldn't he speak at least one sentence on the bloodshed in a state of the country where he is in the position of a Prime Minister?

When the PM was abroad, the Central Home Minister Amit Shah organised an all party meeting on June 24 to discuss the situation in Manipur, after 52 days of the first violent outburst in the state on May 3. The meeting was attended by Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi. In that meeting, the ruling BJP was represented by its national president J. P. Nadda. The opposition parties- the Indian National Congress (INC) was represented by former Manipur chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) by its leader in Rajya Sabha Derek O’ Brien, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) by Sanjay Singh, the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) by Priyanka Chaturvedi, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) by Tiruchi Siva, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) by Manoj Kumar Kha, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) abbreviated as (CPM) by John Brittas, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) by M. Thambidurai and the Samajwadi Party (SP) by Ram Gopal Yadav. Chief Minister of Meghalaya, Conrad Kongkal Sangma and Chief Minister of Sikkim, Prem Singh Tamang also attended the meeting. The main opposition party INC (in short, Congress) demands immediate removal of Manipur’s Chief Minister N. Biren Singh and the imposition of President’s Rule. It has been accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of maintaining a silence on the situation in Manipur. Congress said, “Any effort for peace must take place in Manipur, where the warring communities are brought on the discussion table and a political solution is arrived at. This effort will lack seriousness if it is done sitting in Delhi. Home Minister Amit Shah's call for an all-party meeting is too little, too late. At the outset, the PM's absence from such a serious meeting shows his 'cowardice' and 'unwillingness' to confront his failures. Even when multiple delegations sought meetings with him, he had no time for them.” Other party representatives also placed their opinions in the all party meeting. After the meeting was over, Okram Ibobi Singh said that he was not given adequate time to put forth and was not allowed to elaborate his suggestions on the topic. Therefore Congress released the eight points that it had prepared to suggest to the government at the meeting on June 24. Those are:

This meeting should have been chaired by PM who has not said a single word on Manipur in the past 50 days.

This meeting would have been better if it had been chaired by PM and had been held in Imphal. This would have sent a clear message to the people of Manipur that their pain and distress is also a matter of national anguish.

All armed groups must be disarmed immediately without any compromise.

The state government has failed miserably in providing effective governance. The CM N. Biren Singh himself has admitted publicly his failure in handling the situation and deal with the crisis. On March 11, 2023 he unilaterally withdrew the state government’s commitment to the tripartite Agreement on Suspension of Operations (SoO) with certain militant groups claiming to be upholders of Kuki interests. This was later rejected by the Central Home Ministry but by then enough damage had been done. Therefore the CM should be replaced immediately.

The unity and territorial integrity of Manipur should not be compromised with in any manner.

Grievances of each and every community must be heard and addressed sensitively.

Steps should be taken by the Union Government to ensure availability of essential commodities by keeping the two national highways open and secure at all times.

A package of relief, rehabilitation, resettlement, and livelihood for the affected people must be prepared without delay. The relief package announced is grossly inadequate.

Vice-President of Congress and Opposition Party leader Rahul Gandhi went to Manipur on June 29. Firing continued on that day also and two suspected armed rioters were killed and five were injured in the exchange of fire, as Indian Army reports from Manipur. Rahul Gandhi visited people in Relief Camps and the Governor. However, Assam CM as well as NEDA convenor Himanta Biswa Sarma only criticised Rahul Gandhi’s Manipur visit as mere ‘media hype’ whereas Manipur’s BJP state president Sharda Devi appreciated Rahul Gandhi's visit to the strife-torn state. Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma’s this stand and interference in other states’ internal matter is criticised by many civilians and many parties while there are lots of burning issues running in his own state Assam. The Imphal Free Press Bureau states- “The central leadership must understand that Himanta Biswa Sarma is not representative of the voice of the North Eastern states. Assam has its own stubborn problems which it should be dealing with. For example, Assam has border disputes with almost every state except Manipur and Tripura. Yet, Himanta Biswa Sarma finds enough time to go to Imphal with a mission. What a shame!” He is the same Himanta Biswa Sarma, who, as alleged by the armed Kuki insurgent group United Kuki Liberation Front (UKLF) Chairman SS Haokip in a letter written to the Central Home Minister Amit Shah in 2019, took help in the year 2017 from them in winning Assembly Election. The letter was attached to the affidavit filed by militant Haokip in an NIA Court on June 8, 2023.

Indian Army is posting videos on Twitter showing how the women of the matriarchic society of the state are creating disturbance in conducting operations, blocking the security forces’ routes, hence hindering timely responses by Security Forces during critical situations to save lives and property. Indian Army is seen requesting to all sections of the population to support their attempts in restoring peace and also the women are seen strongly arguing with them. A huge group of people led by women forcefully took away 12 Meitei militants belonging to Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL) on June 24, from the custody of the Indian Army. Added to all these are attack from the militant groups on the Security Forces and clashes are going on.

Whatever, amidst all these, a high-level drama was seen on June 30, regarding resignation of the Manipur CM N. Biren Singh, who decided to resign from his post and prepared the resignation draft. Knowing that, a huge crowd of women gathered near CM’s official residence against his decision of resignation. Minister L. Susindro Metitei read out the resignation letter draft of the CM. He handed over the draft to some of the women and they tore the draft. After this, N. Biren Singh ‘changed his mind’ and dropped the decision of resignation.

On June 19, a total of ten political parties in Manipur, including Congress, wrote a letter to the PM questioning his silence on the continuing ethnic violence and severe bloodshed in Manipur and seeking his immediate intervention to resolve the situation. But although PM has returned from his foreign tour on June 26, he is still ignorant of the Manipur situation and does not care to say a word for the citizen of the burnt state or on the continuing bloodshed. Should we assume that he is waiting for the bloodshed in Manipur to go much worse than the 2002 Gujarat bloodshed when he was the Chief Minister of Gujarat and a prime accused? Can we also assume that he is waiting for the ‘perfect time and situation’ yet to come by the heavy violence in Manipur, through which he would be able to play some great ‘Gimmick’ to win the 2024 election?