Wasbir Hussain | Can Modi Visit Bring Peace In Manipur?

He came, he saw, and he left, telling the people of Manipur “I am with you”. The biggest message Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave to the people in violence-wracked Manipur on Saturday was when he told them his government at the Centre was with the state and its people.

This was Mr Modi’s first visit to Manipur since the violence between the majority Meiteis and the Kuki-Zo tribes began on May 3, 2023. There was a nationwide clamour for the Prime Minister to visit Manipur, where the violence took 250 or more lives on both sides and 60,000 were uprooted from their homes, forcing them to live in makeshift relief camps.

During his five-hour stay, the PM visited the nerve centre of the Kuki-Zo community, the district town of Churachandpur, 65 km from capital Imphal, as well as Imphal itself, the Meitei heartland. Mr Modi didn’t talk directly about the violence but said talks to restore peace are going on in the right direction. When he said, “I am with you and so is my government”, Mr Modi possibly wanted to send out a message that the peace initiatives at the behest of the Union home ministry have his blessings. Addressing the large gathering at Imphal’s historic Kangla Fort, the PM said dialogue or talks was the only way to find an acceptable solution and resolve the conflict.

The PM laid the foundation for projects worth Rs 7,300 crores and inaugurated other projects totalling Rs 1,200 crores. The big question now is whether development, or the talk of ushering in development, can bring in peace in Manipur or reduce the trust deficit between Meiteis and Kukis.

What Manipur is witnessing is clearly a turf war between the two communities. On Saturday, Mr Modi drove from Imphal to Churachandpur. But on this road, Meiteis cannot travel to Churachandpur or Kukis cannot go to Imphal, obviously for reasons of security. This is the ground situation.

The PM stressed on dialogue and referred to the ongoing talks between the Centre’s representatives and community groups. Recently, the Centre, through a PIB statement, said the Kuki-Zo Council, a leading organisation, had reached an agreement with the Centre to open National Highway 2 for goods and movement of people. This is the highway that links Manipur to the rest of India through Nagaland and Assam. But within hours of the statement being made public, the Kuki-Zo Council itself issued a clarification saying NH-2 was never closed but there was the “buffer zone” that had to be respected or adhered to. The question is, if the “buffer zone” is to remain undisturbed, meaning people from both clashing communities cannot cross a certain point, how can anyone say the highway blockade has been lifted. Again, a group representing the Kuki-Zo Village Volunteers openly lashed out at the Kuki-Zo Council, saying it had entered into a unilateral agreement with the government without consulting the people. Such voices and statements raise the question whether the Kuki-Zo community is united or there are cracks within it.

The Prime Minister did visit Manipur to provide a healing touch. Will this lead to peace that the masses may actually want? Well, things may not be that easy. The ten Kuki-Zo MLAs, who had not set foot in the Imphal Valley since the violence in 2023, met the Prime Minister and submitted a memorandum reiterating their demand for a “separate administration” in the form of a Union territory. In the memorandum, signed by all ten MLA, including a few who belong to the BJP, the legislators said only granting the Kuki-Zo community a “separate administration” will bring about a resolution to the problem in Manipur facing the two communities.

This clearly means that the Kuki-Zo community is in no mood to talk and settle for anything less. Of course, the PM, in his Churachandpur address, talked about strengthening the local government bodies, perhaps meaning the autonomous councils that function in accordance with Article 371C of the Constitution, and not under the Sixth Schedule, as in Assam, for instance. The general feeling is that these autonomous councils are not powerful because they are almost under the control of the state government, unlike councils under the Sixth Schedule that have a fair amount of autonomy.

Now, here lies the problem. The Meiteis are in no mood to allow a dismemberment of Manipur and will oppose any move to divide the state. In this scenario, what could be the solution? Can the Meiteis and Kukis live together like they had been doing before? An answer to this may come if the internally displaced people can have their desire fulfilled -- that of returning to their homes from where they were uprooted. This will mean the Kukis returning to their razed homes in the Imphal Valley and the Meiteis returning to their burnt homes in Churachandpur and elsewhere in the hills.

But this may be a really difficult task. On its part, the government made some pre-fabricated homes for the displaced people, but many are unwilling to move in to them. The living condition of the displaced living in relief camps are very poor and if reports are to be believed, they have to make do with Rs 80 per person per day as assistance from the government.

Again, there is constant talk in Imphal about the need to form what is being termed a “popular government”. This is because although President’s Rule was imposed in February this year, the State Legislative Assembly has not been dissolved but kept in suspended animation. The term of the present Assembly is on till early 2027. The question, however, is that if a “popular government” is to be formed, it must have representation from the Kuki-Zo community as well, that has ten elected legislators. Now, Kuki-Zo community groups have clamped a ban on these ten MLAs to refrain from any government formation process, and, going by the fact that these ten MLAs have submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister seeking a Union territory for the Kuki-Zo people, it is clear they would not like to be part of any new government in Manipur in the near future.

The Meitei groups are relatively silent at the moment but the calm could lead to a possible storm if the government comes up with moves that may seem, even remotely, like recognising the hill areas as an entity in itself, away from the idea of an unified Manipur. The job of bringing peace in Manipur is challenging, to say the least.

Wasbir Hussain, author and political commentator, is editor-in-chief of Northeast Live, Northeast India’s only satellite English and Hindi news channel. The views expressed here are personal.