In the Next Episode of Biren's Drama Productions…

On 16 September 2024, the troubled state of Manipur and subsequently the entire nation was shook by the release of an unofficial note (UO) by the Secretary to the Chief Minister claiming that reports had been recieved that over 900 Kuki militants, newly trained in use of drone-based bombs, projectiles, missiles and jungle warfare had entered Manipur from Myanmar. The state’s Security Advisor Mr. Kuldiep Singh later held a press conference on the issue, and upon being asked about the veracity of the report, he replied that unless proven otherwise, it had to be taken as 100 percent correct.

Note that the keywords used in the UO, terms such as “drone-based bombs”, “projectiles” “missiles” “…from Myanmar” all follow a pattern of narrative adopted by the Manipur state machinery and ever more so since the first week of September when fresh round of violence broke out in the state following the explosive revelation of the existence of an audiotape wherein a voice said to be of the Chief Minister is heard boasting about his role in initiating the war on the Kukis, his authorisation of the use of bombs and mortars by the state forces on said Kukis, among other things. The state police used the fresh violence to plant bombs, rockets and missiles in the hands of Kukis, thus intending to mitigate the state’s use of bombs and mortars.

National media immediately picked up the state’s narrative, amplifying the alleged use of drone bombs by Kukis and heavily insinuating a ‘foreign hand’, with Arnab Goswani on his Republic TV channel even showing purported vidoes of Kukis using rockets and other projectiles. In this instance, the foreign hand turned out to be literally that - foreign - as those videos he showed were verified to be from Gaza and from fights between the pro-democracy and Junta forces in Burma, all of which had no connection to the war in Manipur. But the damage was done. The Kuki community were vilified and the news of the leaked confessions of the state chief minister got drowned out and erased from public discourse.

As such, when this UO from the Chief Minister’s Office got to the public, the entire Kuki community immediately contested the claims made in the CMO’s UO, calling it propaganda and another attempt to demonise and villify the Kuki community once again while also keeping national attention away from the leaked confessions. The Indian Army was also caught unawares as it immediately sought details of the sources of the report on which the CMO’s UO was made. One would presume that an intelligence of such magnitude involving trans-border transgression would have been collected first by the Army.

The Army later deleted its post on X for reasons we can only speculate. But even if they hadn’t, they wouldn’t have got any answer as later, late in the evening on the 25th of September, the state security advisor and the Director General of Police issued a joint Press Release clarifying that the input (for the UO) was verified from different quarters (other intelligence agencies, in all likelihood) but could not be substantiated on ground, assuring all communities of their safety and advising them not to believe in any rumours or unverified information. But in this instance too, the damage was already done.

The oddly specific and intentionally exaggerated “900” caught national headlines once again, painting the whole community in bad light, of using drone bombs and having foreign connections, entering en-masse illegally from across the border. This served the state’s narrative well once again as the Kukis have been accused of being illegal immigrants and the perpetrators of the current violence and not the victims by the state under its chief minister Biren Singh in order to justify his genocide. The suspiciously indicated date, 28th September also turned out to coincide with a significant day in Manipur history as it was on thay day in 1949 that the first sitting of the Manipur State Legislative Assembly abrogated the Manipur Merger Agreement signed only a week prior, thereby refusing its merger into the Indian Union, and hence a day when Manipur’s secessionist idea can be rightly said to have been born.

Ever distrustful of the Manipur government’s intentions ever since the 3rd of May 2023 when it perpetrated ethnic cleansing upon them, the Kukis saw the day as ominous, suspecting it to be another pre-planned justification to carry out more atrocities on the Kuki community. Remember, the state had just acquired several 7.62mm medium machine guns (MMGs) - a weapon not allowed to be used even by the Army in internal security situations. Hence several civil society organisations within the Kuki community called for an alert, to be on the watch for whatever the state may have had planned for that day. It included measures like the closure of borders, the closure of educational institutions and businesses, the restriction of travel and beefing up of security measures along buffer zones.

On the Meitei side, an organisation called Ima Leibak Kanba Lup issued a public notification based on the security advisor’s press conference, calling for a preemptive strike on Kuki areas and preparation for an all-out war, mobilizing all concealed weapons of the Meitei revolutionary outfits to completely eradicate the Kukis from Manipur. Even the leader of the Arambai Tenggol put in his 2 cents, posting on his Facebook page that he couldn’t wait for the 28th.

For nine days, the UO and its aftermath stretched the existing tension in the state to its limit until the evening of the 25th when the DGP and the security advisor released their joint statement. A bit long, but they seem to have taken the time to be sure that the CMO’s UO was false before they came out public with it. It is hard to say whether this will deflate the tension as both communities have seemed to have chosen their stance - the Kuki community has chosen to hunker down tight and beef up security while the Meiteis have called for preemptive strikes and an all-out war. Only time will tell.

But what is fascinating here at the moment is the effect this whole charade orchestrated from the Chief Minister’s Office seems to have on the reputation and image of the state security advisor when the brunt of the blame should have fallen on Biren and N. Geoffrey, his Secretary who issued that unofficial note, not based on any intelligence input but with a deeper nefarious intention behind it all.

Consider this, the CMO chose to put out an unofficial note, knowing full well there was no intelligence behind it, and passed it to the security advisor while also leaking it to the public. This puts the security advisor in a spot. If he ignores it, the Biren drama machinery is well capable of orchestrating something on the 28th or any other day to put the blame on the security advisor for ignoring the UO. If he went public with it (which he chose to do) he would give it an air of legitimacy and Meitei groups could use the opportunity and amplify it (which they did).

It may be recalled that it was only recently, in the first week of this month that Biren Singh met the governor of the state twice to demand control of the Unified Command - a group of 12 top officials from governmental agencies and currently headed by none other than Kuldiep Singh who is also the Security Advisor. For this purpose, Biren’s government declared a two-day holiday for all educational institutions within the state so that students could come out in the streets, echoing his demands of control of the Unified Command. The student protest turned violent, with them clashing with state and central security forces and leading to internet shutdowns and the governor fleeing from the state for his own safety. However, Biren did not get his way, and the control of the Unified Command remained with Kuldiep Singh.

The man whose position Biren wants to take over, a man whose image and reputation he targeted, a man whom the entire Meitei community united against in the first week is now being called out by the Kukis for his lending of legitimacy to the fabricated UO of the CMO. He is currently detested and pressured from both sides and it does not look good for him at all. One cannot help but think that Biren may have orchestrated this entire episode to weaken his position so that it would be easier to take over eventually. After all, when it was just him and his community against the security advisor, one could accuse him of being partisan but now that both sides have lined up against him, we have to ask ourselves - are we all acting in a play scripted by the Biren Drama Machinery?