In early May 2023, widespread violence broke out in the Indian state of Manipur.
Since then, over a hundred people have been
killed and tens of thousands have been forced to flee their homes.
But while the situation has received little international attention,
it's raised some important questions about managing inter-ethnic relations
in the world's most populous and perhaps diverse country.
So, what exactly is the issue all about?
And could we see the creation of a new federal state in India?
Hello and welcome. If you're new to the channel, my name is James Ker-Lindsay and
here I take an informed look at international relations, conflict, security, and statehood.
We tend to think of separatist conflicts in terms of what we call external self-determination.
This is where a group wants to break away from an
existing country and form its own separate sovereign state.
But this is rarely possible.
Almost always, independence is out of the question.
Apart from the political difficulties of breaking away and gaining international acceptance,
in most cases, a parent state will fight hard to stop a territory from seceding.
Instead, the focus will shift to internal self-determination.
This is the right to a degree of autonomy within the existing borders of a country.
While this may be centred on greater cultural rights,
it can also include territorial arrangements.
But even these can be highly problematic and become a source of conflict.
A good example centres on Manipur in India.
For many years, tensions have lingered between several different groups.
This has now erupted into fresh violence.
And with it have come calls for the state to be divided.
Manipur lies in the northeast corner of the Republic of India,
where the country neighbours China, Bangladesh, and Burma.
At around 22 300 square kilometers or 8 600 square miles, it's the 25th largest of India's
36 territorial units - the 28 federal states and the eight union territories.
To the north and west, it neighbours several Indian states,
including Nagaland, Assam and Mizoram.
To its south and east, it marks India's border with Burma, also known as Myanmar.
Its population is around 3 million.
This is made up of several key groups.
Located in the lowland Manipur Valley, a central region that
consists of about 10 percent of the state's territory, are the Meitei.
They speak Manipuri, a sino-tibetan language,
and broadly follow Hinduism, the predominant religion in India.
Meanwhile, the remaining population lives in the
mountainous 90 percent of the state surrounding the Valley.
Known as the hill tribes, they comprise several ethnic groups.
To the north of the Naga.
However, for our purposes, the key focus is on the Kuki.
Located in the south and central mountainous areas surrounding the valley,
like the Meitei they also speak languages related to Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese.
However, unlike the Hindu Meitei, most Kuki are Christian or follow local animist religions.
Tied to the Mizo, they make up part of a larger tribal group that not only spans
neighbouring Indian states to the south, but also reaches across the
borders into Bangladesh and Burma, where they're known as the Chin.
Manipur has a long and fascinating history.
While the first recorded mention of the region stretches back around 1100 years,
and it later became an independent kingdom, for our purposes the story
really starts with the growth of British rule in India in the 18th century.
In 1762, the local ruler of Manipur reached an agreement with the British East India
Company to defend a territory against attack from the neighboring Burmans.
Having been reconfirmed in 1826, when Britain signed a peace treaty with Burma, over the
rest of the 19th century Britain continued to protect Manipur as a minor dependent state.
However, following a dynastic dispute,
the territory came under formal Imperial British control in 1891.
This saw it become one of the 700 or so princely states that made up British India,
alongside the 55 percent of Indian Territory that came under direct British rule.
But while Manipur was a single political entity, it was already divided into two broad parts:
the Meitei-controlled Valley and the hill tribe areas of the Naga and the Kuki.
Even before Britain took control of Manipur,
relations between the British and the Kuki had been strained.
Having long opposed colonial encroachment into the wider area,
following the British conquest of Manipur in 1891, the Kuki-dominated regions had
become increasingly mutinous and large parts never accepted British rule.
To counter this, an effort to convert the Kuki to
Christianity was launched in the early 20th century.
But while this achieved a considerable degree of success, the tensions nevertheless continued.
This came to a head in 1917.
As the First World War raged in Europe, Britain sent out a demand for Indian labour.
However, the Kuki refused, launching an uprising and calling for self-rule - a
rebellion that was finally put down by force two years later, in 1919.
Over the following years, the British Imperial authorities attempted to
consolidate their control over the region.
However, the Kuki quest for a homeland nevertheless continued,
even as Manipur became one of the front lines of the Second World War,
following Japan's invasion of what was by then British-ruled Burma.
But after the end of the Second World War, Britain finally decided to give up control of India.
But rather than keep the country together as a single territorial unit, it was now partitioned.
While the predominantly Hindu areas under direct British rule became the Dominion of India,
the Muslim regions in the northeast and northwest became the Dominion of Pakistan.
As for the princely states, they were given a choice.
They could either join India or Pakistan, or become independent states in their own rights.
But while Manipur initially chose to become a separate kingdom, this was short-lived.
Two years later, as India stepped up pressure to unite all the lands
formerly under British rule into a single country,
it agreed to a merger, and on 15 October 1949 Manipur formally joined the Dominion of India.
In the years that followed, Manipur's status gradually
evolved originally under the direct control of the central government.
In 1956, it became a union territory.
Then, on 21 January 1972, it formally became a state of India,
with complete internal control of its affairs.
The union with India also changed the situation for the tribes.
Soon after Manipur joined the country, the Kuki, along with other Hill Tribes, were given special
privileges under the so-called 'scheduled tribe' stipulation in the Indian constitution.
This granted them preferential treatment in certain areas, such as quotas for government
jobs, and prevented non-tribal members from purchasing land in their areas.
But while this gave the Kuki valuable rights and protections,
many were unhappy about their place in the country.
Arguing that Manipur's integration had been coerced, they sought to break
away and unite the various Kuki-held territories into an independent state.
On top of this, tension steadily grew between the
Kuki and the majority Meitei and between the Kuki and the Naga.
This all came to a head in 1980, when the Indian government designated Manipur a disturbed area
thus giving the Army significant powers to deal with threats to public order.
However, hopes that this would pacify the area was short-lived.
Instead, the following decade saw the emergence of numerous militant groups, many of which eventually
came together as the Kuki National Organization, and its armed wing, the Kuki National Army.
In the end, most of the fighting came to a halt in 2008 when most
of the cookie groups agreed to a ceasefire with the Manipur State Administration and
the national government in India, under the so-called Suspension of Operations agreement.
Under the terms of the deal, which was to be renewed annually,
Kuki militants withdrew to specially designated camps where their weapons
would be held securely and subject to regular inspection.
But while the agreement ended calls for a separate independent Kuki state,
it didn't halt calls for a change of internal boundaries.
Many Kuki called for the area to be given a news
status within India as a federal state or as a union territory.
According to maps drawn up, the territory would incorporate most
of the highland areas in the central and southern regions of the state,
stretching around the Meitei-dominated lowland Manipur Valley areas.
More to the point, such hopes were given greater impetus in 2014,
when a new Indian federal state, Telangana, the first new state to be created since 2000,
was established after splitting from Andhra Pradesh, in south central India.
So, what sparked the latest violence?
In truth, it's the result of two separate developments.
The first of these came in March 2023.
Following reports that Kuki on militants were fomenting protests and unrest, the Manipur
government suddenly announced that it wouldn't renew the Suspension of Operations agreement.
Following on from this, the second step came when the Manipur High Court
issued a ruling calling for the state administration to petition the Indian
government to give the Meitei scheduled tribe status alongside the hill tribes.
Fearing that this would undermine their quota of government jobs and
open the way for Meitei to buy land in their areas, riots broke out.
And, from there, things escalated rapidly as Kuki and Meitei villages were attacked and burned.
Meanwhile, as the two sides blamed each other for the violence,
both the Manipur state government and the Indian government were
also accused of failing to do their duty to ensure peace and stability.
But, for its part, the Indian government insists that it has
been trying to take steps to quell the violence.
This even included a high-profile visit to the state by the Indian home minister.
Nevertheless, all this has seen an exodus of Kuki from Meitei areas, with many fleeing the violence
to the main Kuki city of Churachandpur, as well as to refugee camps and even to neighbouring states.
Aside from the human tragedy of the situation,
the collapse in inter-ethnic relations also has potentially dramatic political effects.
With growing claims that coexistence is now impossible, it's re-energised
calls to establish a separate Kuki federal state or territorial unit.
This view has even been endorsed by all 10 Kuki members of the 60-member Manipur
State Legislature, including the eight members from the BJP, India's ruling party.
But for now, the creation of a separate unit seems unlikely.
For a start, the idea has been roundly rejected by Manipur's Chief Minister, N Biran Singh.
Vehemently opposed to the suggestion,
he's already vowed that there will be no moves to divide the state.
On top of this, there seems to be no indication that the
national government is willing to consider a change of status.
Naturally, all this will lead to fears that this could start a new cycle of sustained
violence in the state, and return of a full-scale armed militant campaign.
This is something that India certainly doesn't want to see
happen as it faces growing tensions with nearby China,
as well as the fallout from Burma's escalating civil war across the border to the south.
Indeed, some argue that the violence in Manipur is being
driven by developments in neighbouring Burma.
But even if calm is restored and the current constitutional structure is retained,
many feel that lasting damage has now been done.
This will only strengthen the estrangement between the Kuki and the Meitei.
In this sense, while Manipur will remain a single political unit,
it will continue to be heavily divided - as it seems to have been for much of its modern history.
Of course, the tensions in Manipur are not the only major issues India is facing.
Here's, another video that you might find interesting.
Thanks so much for watching, and see you in the next video