Is the Indian Government Enabling Majoritarian Oppression? Analyzing the Centre's Response to the State's Unrest and the Dilemma Facing the Kukis

The Home Minister’s response to the problems of Manipur during his press conference to address the achievements on “100 days of NDA government” puts one into dilemma, making one question if he is partial towards the dominant group i.e. the Meiteis in the state or if ground reality is not presented to him as it is? The government of India’s continual compromise towards the majority community is enabling the tyranny of the majority against the minority. Thus the question is, is the Constitution which safeguards the minority from the tyranny of the majority in a democracy made dormant for the Kukis by the government of India?

It’s a moment of humiliation for Indians when a sitting chief minister in his leaked audiotape confesses to disregarding the advice of the Home Minister of India and laughs it off. One could even say the CM pays no heed to the central government. Why else would he have the audacity to command the state forces to use bombs discreetly after it is reported that the Home Minister called him out for the crime? Will someone who pays no respect to the central government care about the victims of his own pogrom? India has to ponder deeply. If the constitution guarantees the right to live with dignity as a fundamental right and a part of right to life, there is no way Kukis will ever be treated equal in a state dominated by the likes of N. Biren. For instance, any criticism made against him by a few members among their community is necessarily followed by attacks. It is thus necessary to question the central government whether they themselves are afraid of Mr. Biren and his Arambai Tenggol.

The time has come for the central government to at least acknowledge the involvement of Biren in the whole fiasco. The BJP has more than 30 MLAs in the state. However, the central’s continual support for Biren – a man who has been accused by the Kukis as the mastermind behind the violence – as if it has no other alternative while his victims the Kukis are still expected to have a dialogue with him being a member of the party in the negotiating table. If this is not cruelty than what is? If this is not perceived by the Kukis as the central government being partisan towards the majority community, then did the government of India give Kukis another option to perceive them as fair and impartial?

Going by how the government has tackled the demands sought by the two communities, the majority community have always had the say. Dialogue can be a solution when both parties agree, but how can it be a dialogue when the majority community’s demands are the agenda the Kukis have to accept? How can it be a dialogue when peace after granting all the demands of the Meiteis will still be portrayed as a ‘goodwill’ the Meiteis have shown towards the Kukis by not completely annihilating them? The tone and actions of groups representing the Meiteis is telling of these outcomes, be it civil society like COCOMI, or the Meira Paibis, the government and other politicians, artists and ordinary Meitei people. Is it a crime to be tribals who know their rights in this country?

The government of India has compromised and granted the demands of the dominant group on multiple occasions, sidelining the demands and cries of the Kukis. Any organisation would have been declared a “terrorist” had they committed the same crime of attacking the constitution and its office bearers like what the Arambai Tenggol had publicly done in the ultra Kangla fort meet. But the government of India chose to compromise and fulfill their demands. What result does it yield other than emboldening the dominant groups to openly execute their pogrom to either attack or dehumanise their victims like all other ethnic cleansers and genocide criminals did towards their victims by using terms like slaves (minai), descendants of monkey (yong macha), illegal immigrants, etc. in their own country among others? The hatred against the Kukis is too deeply entrenched in the minds, souls and bones of not only the present generation but of their future generations as well that they shout the slogans in their rallies to annihilate all the Kukis. If citizens of India have equal value of votes then why does not it have equal value of life? Why are Kuki lives not worth as much as Meitei lives? If we are of equal worth, our demands will have the same weightage as the majority community does.

The Home Minister says there is no religious angle involved in this. But Meiteis like actor-turned-politician Maheswar Thounaojam knocks at the door of Hindu radicals to garner their support and sympathy. And as a result the radical news websites like Swarajiya and organizers among others yoga guru Baba Ramdev and many right wing social media influencers like Rami Niranjan Desai have toed the Meitei narrative and defamed the Kukis, portraying the conflict as a persecution against the “Hindus” of Manipur. Love makes people irrational, and the Meiteis took advantage of their religious card to influence such radicals. It is preposterous that a community that controls the politics, economy and judiciary in the state is claiming to be persecuted? But did the government in the state and at the centre hold such propaganda-peddlers to account for adding fuel to fire in what they term as a sensitive issue? This is one such instance where the arm of the law is crippled to favour the Meitei. Even procurement of military equipment and crowd funding money for an organization that looted government armories and utilized it to commit heinous crimes seems permissible too, going by how the arm of the law never reaches their doorstep. The government can at least curb these menace outside Manipur who are catalyzing and justifying the atrocities against the innocent Kukis, but Kukis are let down in this area too. The likes of Arnab Goswami are using Hamas images and Myanmar videos to defame Kukis in the name of national security as if they don’t know who the real threat to the integrity and sovereignty of India is.

It is a well known fact that many in the Meitei community thinks that the merger agreement of Manipur into India is illegal as it does not represent their voices., hence the rise of secessionist insurgency in the state of Manipur. Thus, their agenda is to work their secessionist movement along with their Plan B until Manipur becomes an independent country. They will make a state only for the Meiteis where other Indians have no say in the state. Removal of ASFPA and the Assam Rifles was the first step, implementation of ILP is the second and ethnic cleansing and dehumanizing of their perceived enemies is the present strategy. And if they succeed it will not be surprising if they attack Nagas after the death of Muivah. They will avail all the benefits of being a part of India but will never whole-heartily become Indians themselves. Secession movement in a close and homogeneous society will then be a difficult and complex issue India will have to tackle later on. Thus, to all Hindu right-wingers, the people whom you support for being Hindus would rather become a country like Nepal than join you all in the movement of “Akhand Bharat” because their identity as Meiteis come first before their religion.

If today Kukis are asked why their loyalty and allegiance are with the Assam Rifles, their impartiality is one of the reasons but they are the Indian para-military forces that defend us from Meitei terrorists operating in the hills who raped our girls and used our villagers as human shields and slaves. Kukis are not ungrateful people. If today Meitei sings derogatory and lewd songs of Kuki women and AR, it reflects and mirrors their mentality. Truth be told, the AR is more lenient towards the Meitei than the Kukis in this conflict but since the Meiteis have a debt to settle with them for removing their freedom fighters of Kangleipak from the hills. But the government of India agrees even to this demand.

Myanmar is bordered by four different Indian states and it has porous border across all this state. Any one invested in the security of Northeast is aware of the fact that numerous insurgents and terrorist groups operating in the north eastern states take advantage of this porous border. Some of them like the insurgents groups belonging to the dominant community wage war against India using the porous border. Yet our national media’s lack of understanding about Northeast is so clearly visible when they use images of sophisticated weapons as proof of ‘foreign hand’ in the conflict. Are they too poor to buy books for their further research on insurgents groups operating in Northeast? How come they don’t even know who associates with China to fight for their sovereignty in India? They make the innocents out of all the scapegoat. The owners of their channels should invest on buying them books from the earnings they invest on defaming the Kukis. And where is the government authority that is sometimes very proactive in arresting people for spreading hatred, communal disharmony and fake news? These unscrupulous and biased propagandists masquerading as journalists are spreading all the three at one go in the national media.

If illegal immigration is an issue, it is an issue pertaining to all states that have porous borders with Myanmar. Yet the term is used specifically to dehumanize the Kukis as illegal immigrants. It is understandable that the Meiteis use them because they have to dehumanize the Kukis first to justify their crimes. But what of other Indians who fall in the lies of the Meitei community? If not the Home Ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office, at least the Ministry of Tribal Welfare should have come to our rescue or the Judiciary should have passed an order to prohibit them from using the term!. If we talk about illegal immigrants, there are Meitei illegal immigrants too and also from people belonging to other communities. Why specifically target the Kukis? It is a classical case of “the psychology of cruelty” done to the Kukis, but the government is least bothered about it.

As Nobel laureate William Faulkner once said, “Peace is not the absence of conflict, it is the presence of justice,” no big conflict in the past three months as thus declared by Home Minister Amit Shah is not a sign of return of normalcy. It only means that the dominant, majority community had paused the attacks during these three months. It is necessary to underscore the fact that the recent attacks started yet again when the Kukis held rallies calling for holding the chief minister N. Biren Singh accountable with regards to his leaked audiotape confessions. Recognizing the problem for what it is than mere dialogue between the two communities is thus the first step towards bringing a solution in the state. Unless the problem is diagnosed correctively, justice will remain a far cry. It is important to diagnose the problem correctly because JUSTICE PRECEDES PEACE. The central government can achieve this by fulfilling the demands of the Kukis as their past strategies of trying to compromise and meet the demands of the dominant Meitei community have always resulted in failure.

Unless Kukis’ demands for justice are given the same importance, any effort will still lead to the tyranny of the majority against a minority due to failure to uphold the constitution and its values by the concerned authority .