How Manipur Caught Fire

Manipur – meaning “Land of Jewels” – is the oldest surviving state in Northeast India, tracing its history back to 33 AD. It is composed of a beautiful, lush, green valley that is surrounded by several mountain ranges. During the summer months, its lakes are filled with lotus and lily flowers. The first Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, called Manipur the “Switzerland of India.” It is also the state where one of the defining battles of World War II was fought between the Allies and the Axis Powers: the Battle of Imphal, which took place around the state capital from March to July 1944.

Manipur has its own language and script and is recognized around the world as a culturally rich state, including serving as the birthplace of the game of polo. It is currently home to 3.3 million people belonging to 39 ethnic groups and boasts the world’s oldest and strongest women-led political movements.

In spite of this rich tradition, Manipur’s past is excluded from India’s textbooks today, and hence very few people in the country and the world know its deep history. Yet this little-known state is at the epicenter of a violent conflict that erupted in May of this year and continues even as this issue goes to print. Manipur has become one of the world’s least known conflict zones.

Colonization and Armed Resistance in Manipur 

Manipur has been colonized four times in its recent history. The first could be termed a “religious colonization.” In the 18th century, Vaishnavism was introduced to Manipur by Shantidas Godsai and forcibly made the state religion. To the present, the people of Manipur remember the burning of the Manipuri Puyas, the manuscripts that were destroyed in order to eliminate any evidence of pre-Vaishnavite Indigenous religious and spiritual traditions.

The second wave of colonization came in the 19th century with the invasion of Manipur by the Burmese kings. Known as the Chahi Taret Khuntakpa, or “Seven Years Devastation,” the invasion took place from 1819 to 1826.

The third colonization happened when the British took over Manipur in 1891 after the Anglo-Manipuri War, and the fourth took place when Manipur was made a part of the independent Union of India on September 21, 1949. Against this backdrop, the violence that erupted in the state on May 3 is seen by many as an attack on Manipur’s distinct identity.

The “merger” of Manipur with India is a topic that Manipuris continue to discuss and debate. After all, Manipur has a long and proud history as an independent state – one with its own constitution, the Loiyumba Shinyen, dating back to the 11th century. In another example, Manipur’s Royal Chronicle, the Cheitharol Kumbaba, documents the history of Manipur, its rulers, and its courts since 33 AD. In 1947, just ahead of India’s independence, Manipur issued its own modern constitution.

While some Manipuris agreed with joining the Union of India, some protested the merger, calling it unconstitutional. Several scholars believe that the then-king of Manipur, Maharaj Bodhchandra, was put under house arrest in his summer palace in Shillong and made to sign the Manipur Merger Agreement of 1949 under duress. However, by 1949 the king of Manipur was only a titular head. Under the Manipur Constitution Act of 1947, elections were held in Manipur under a universal adult franchise, which resulted in the appointment of a Council of Ministers headed by a chief minister. The Council of Ministers argued that the king of Manipur’s signature on the Merger Agreement was not binding, and as a result several members of the council, most prominently Hijam Irabot Singh, left Manipur and crossed the border to Burma (Myanmar) to launch an anti-colonial struggle.

This sowed the seeds for the emergence of several dissident groups in Manipur from the 1960s through to the 1990s. In the 1970s and 1980s, armed groups – among them the United National Liberation Front, the Revolutionary Peoples’ Front (RPF), the People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK), and others – launched guerrilla warfare against the Indian military establishment.

Meanwhile, at around the same time, several Naga armed groups also started operating in the Naga Hills – including the hills of Manipur. Two major groups in particular, the Naga National Council and the National Socialist Council of Nagaland–Isaac Muivah group, operated in Manipur.

To quell these rising insurgencies, the government of India passed the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in 1958, which gave full powers to the Indian military to shoot and kill on mere suspicions.

Since the 1950s, Manipur and the Naga Hills in Northeast India have been a conflict zone, replete with killings and human rights violations. Several massacres have occurred, including the Heirangoithong Massacre in 1984 (the aftermath of which I witnessed as a child), the Oinam Incident of 1987, and the Malom Massacre of 2000, among many others. Altogether, more than 20,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the long Manipur conflict.

There have also been many cases of sexual violence committed by Indian security forces against civilians during this conflict, such as the rape (and later suicide) of 20-year-old Rose Ningshen in 1974, the rape of Ahanjaobi – one of the few women to publicly come forward to tell her story – in 1996, as well as the rape, torture, and murder of Thangjam Manorama in 2004.

The end result of these traumas is what I call a “slow genocide” targeting the Indigenous peoples of Manipur state. This continues today.

A Fractured State

Adding to the complexity, Manipur’s conflict is not a simple binary of Indigenous people versus the security state. Rather, the entire region – Northeast India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar – is home to myriad different “imagined homelands,” to paraphrase Benedict Anderson’s classic notion of nations as “imagined communities.”

These homelands often overlap and thus are sources of contestation. And when these imagined constructions are weaponized, it can lead to serious conflicts.

My research identified a new phenomenon emerging in the state of Manipur in the 1990s: the arming of ethnic communities. The arming of several small Indigenous groups, sparked by previous rounds of inter-ethnic clashes, particularly several episodes in 1997, created a phenomenon that I call “a war within a war.”

Currently there are anywhere between 30 and 60 armed insurgent groups operating in the tiny state of Manipur. These different armed groups also dabble in politics, and thus we also have a phenomenon that I dub “democracy at gunpoint.”

On top of this, both armed groups and those close to political power have stakes in the illegal drug trade that has been ravaging Manipur since the early 1980s. As I have written elsewhere, the “Golden Triangle” – a hotbed of drug production in the Laos-Myanmar-Thailand border region – can be more accurately described as the “Golden Pentagon,” adding in the Vietnam-Cambodia border area and Nagaland-Manipur in India’s Northeast.

During my research at Jawaharlal Nehru University, I found that some violent extremist groups were being set up in the region solely to protect the drug trade in the Northeast region, which has transnational ramifications. These groups were supported by those with ties to political power who later participated in elections, forcing people to vote for them at gunpoint. The story of Northeast India’s small wars and insurgencies is thus also a story of guns, drugs, and cross-border human trafficking.

All these factors converged to make the current violence in Manipur so devastating.

Manipur’s Uncivil War of 2023: A Chronology

2023 started in Manipur as a comparatively calm year. The spring saw various sports festivals and moonlit dances conducted during the popular spring festival of Yaoshang, followed by the Femina Miss India finals being held for the first time in the capital, Imphal, on April 15. Beauty queens representing different states in India arrived in Manipur, along with an entourage of Bollywood stars and national celebrities.

It felt as if India had finally arrived in Manipur. Throughout the month of April, images of Manipur’s eclectic cuisine, diverse cultures, breathtaking landscape, and historic markets were showcased in various short videos that began circulating around the country. There was a fleeting feeling of gaiety everywhere.

And then suddenly everything changed.

The Manipur conflict erupted on May 3 – just over two weeks after the conclusion of the Femina Miss India finals. In a dark twist, the stadium that had hosted the beauty queens and a who’s who of Manipur elites became one of the sites housing hundreds of displaced families from Moreh and other parts of the state belonging to the Meitei community whose homes and Indigenous places of worship were burnt down.

The period since May 3 has been arguably the darkest period in the recent history of Manipur. Homes have been torched, people have been shot, lynched, and hunted down, and thousands have fled – some to other sites within Manipur, some to neighboring states in India, and some across the border to Myanmar. As I write this article, nearly five months later, Manipur continues to be engulfed in conflict, with no end in sight.

The root of the problem can be traced back to the British colonial policy of “divide and rule” in Manipur and Northeast India. The British had separate policies for the hills and the valley. After the fall of the Raj, and after Manipur was merged with the Union of India in 1949, this colonial divide and rule policy continued. One such rule relates to land sales: the communities living in the hills were permitted to buy land in the lush green Imphal Valley, whereas those from the plains – namely the Meitei community – were unable to buy land in the hills. This has been a bone of contention for a very long time.

The initial spark for the violence in May was an attempt by the Meiteis to overturn what they saw as their unfair treatment, through mechanisms such as the land purchase restrictions, by obtaining Scheduled Tribe status. But the peoples of the hills, especially the Kuki community, saw this effort in turn as an attack on their very identity and way of life.

The events of May 3 started with a Solidarity March protest by the All Tribals Students’ Union. Some 60,000 protesters marched against a court ruling in response to petition brought by an organization in Manipur, with the goal of giving the Meitei people Scheduled Tribe status.

According to several reports, armed Kuki protesters began attacking and burning homes in Tuibong and Churachandpur. Houses belonging to the Meitei community were also burnt in Churachandpur, Kangpokpi, and Moreh. That wave of the violence started around 11 a.m. on May 3 and lasted until 6 p.m.

As news of the burning and looting spread, several parts of Imphal were also engulfed in violence, as some members of the Meitei community sought retaliation for what happened in Moreh, Churachandpur, and Kangpokpi. Homes belonging to the Kuki community were targeted and people were beaten, raped, and murdered in the streets.

Nearly 70 people were killed in the initial explosion of violence from May 3-5, and 32 were reported missing. By May 5, violence had spread throughout Imphal West, Imphal East, Bishnupur, Thoubal, Pherzawl, Kangpokpi, Churachandpur, Chandel, Jiribam, and Tengoupal districts. From May 3-7, the majority of the Kuki residents of Imphal Valley, and Meitei residents of the hill districts – in other words, those living in areas dominated by the other ethnic group – fled to refugee camps or family homes. The total number of internally displaced persons is currently around 70,000.

In the subsequent days and weeks, the violence worsened as ammunition and guns were seized by combatants on both sides. Messages of impending attacks sparked raids on armories and gun shops. Over 4,000 arms were snatched from security forces and state armories, with more than 700,000 rounds of ammunition stolen. People clamored for more guns. Prices skyrocketed on bullets and people shopped for high-tech gear as well, including drones and night vision goggles. More and more young men and women – even children, contrary to international law – were recruited to join the fight.

According to a statement made by the Manipur police, as of September 14, “security forces have successfully recovered 1,329 arms, 15,050 rounds of ammunition, and 400 explosive devices,” which speaks to the scale of the deadly weapons that poured into Manipur’s towns and villages. In addition, the statement said Manipur police “have registered 9,332 First Information Reports (FIRs) and made 325 arrests” linked to the violence.

In another sign of widespread militarization in Manipur since May 3, 300 bunkers were created all around the warring zones and “buffer zones” were established, manned by Indian security forces. When Manipur celebrated India’s Independence Day on August 15, armed groups belonging to the Kuki community wore military clothing and openly carried sophisticated weapons which are banned under Indian law in the hill areas of Manipur. No one has been arrested.

This is a phenomenon unprecedented in the history of conflict in Manipur. Armed groups generally stay underground; they hardly ever emerge and carry guns in full public view. That changed in the spring and summer of 2023. Weapon carrying became a “norm” rather than an aberration.

As Manipur’s conflict raged on, the body count increased. So did the brutality. The atrocities were shocking to behold:  the gouging out of eyes, beheadings, videos of multiple dead bodies. So far, no one has been arrested for these violent crimes.

While the scale of the violence shocked and stunned India, equally shocking was the silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As violence was unleashed in Manipur throughout the month of May, Modi traveled to Australia, the United States, and Egypt. Even after his return, he took less than 24 hours to offer condolences for the deaths of 200-plus Indians in a train accident in Odisha, yet he kept mum about the violence in Manipur. In June, he went to celebrate 100 years of Delhi University and visited metro commuters, yet he did not say a word about Manipur.

It was only on the 100th day of the crisis that Modi spoke up, after horrific videos of the sexual assault of two women from the Kuki community in Manipur went viral. Meitei women also alleged rape and spoke out against the violence. As women’s bodies became sites of war, Manipur’s women came out strongly in this recent crisis. They protested, they slept on streets, and kept vigil throughout the crisis.

What Is the Way Forward?

The oppression and killing of the Indigenous peoples of Manipur must stop. The government of Manipur and the central government in New Delhi, working with civil society, can lead the way for peace to come in the state and bring a solution to the crisis. It is in their interest to do so: Manipur is a place of immense geostrategic value, as India’s only overland link to Southeast Asia. India’s Act East Policy will only be successful if peace and democracy returns to the state and the region as a whole.

That said, anything that India or any other country does to appease only one group will simply help sustain the war. Nation building and the nurturing of democracy cannot be done at gunpoint, nor by “divide and rule” policies. The violence that has long defined Manipur – and the government policies underpinning the violence – must come to an end.

To that end, it is time to pay heed to the voices and efforts of the citizens of Manipur, especially the Indigenous women and communities who have been working hard at the grassroots over the years. These groups must be heard in order to usher in peace, deepen democracy, and ensure justice and rule of law. In particular, women must be made key stakeholders for peace in Manipur.

In a nation like India, where girl children are frequently killed even before they are born, the emergence and involvement of the women of Manipur have astounded the country and the world in the current conflict. These women have come out into the streets and have been there at the frontlines. This did not happen in a vacuum.

Manipur has a strong women’s movement that is over 119 years old. It started with the first Nupi Lan (or Women’s War) of 1904, followed by the Second Nupi Lan of 1939. These “Women’s Wars” were non-violent struggles against the then-British colonial rulers and their policies.

After the British left Manipur in 1947, and after the government of India started counterinsurgency operations in the 1950s, the mothers of Manipur again emerged. The 1980s saw the rise of the Meira Paibis, meaning “Women Torch Bearers.” These women came from all walks of life, but their shared mission was to protect their children at a time when Manipuri youths were being detained, killed, sexually assaulted, or disappeared – all with impunity under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

Ojha Arambam Lokendra, formerly a professor at Manipur University, once called the Meira Paibis “soldiers in sarongs.” Having spent years studying them, I have observed that it is a combination of raw courage and maternal instinct that has driven them out to protect their children. The strength and spirit of the Meira Paibis must be seen in the context of their history and their struggle – and not as an aberration, as it has sometimes been made out to be. The work of Manipur’s Meira Paibis, the Naga Mothers’ Association, the Kuki Mothers’ Association, the Northeast Network, the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network, and the Northeast India Women Initiative for Peace all bear witness to the resilience of the women of Manipur and the region.

For peace to return in Manipur, women across ethnic communities be recognized as important stakeholders. There are 17 peace talks ongoing in India’s Northeast and not a single woman is involved. Without women, without the mothers of Manipur, there will be no peace.

The Northeast India Women Initiative for Peace 

On April 29, four days before the fateful day that set Manipur ablaze, and around 500 kilometers away, women from Manipur and Northeast India were meeting for the fourth Northeast India Women Initiative for Peace in Guwahati, in the state of Assam. They consisted of female leaders belonging to various ethnic groups, including the Meitei, Kuki, Chin, Naga, Assamese, Garo, Khasi, Sikkim, Arunachal, and Mizoram communities – and more.

The women met for a whole day. They shared their stories and their struggles and resolved to work collectively for peace and justice. The women bonded together in a safe, shared collective space – a rarity in India’s Northeast, where each region and tribe has long been isolated. The meeting gained a tragic resonance when the violence broke out in Manipur. One of the leaders in attendance never went home afterward, as her house had been burned to the ground.

In May and June, the women kept in touch and looked out for one another even as the inferno spread across Manipur. The women worked together and submitted a memorandum to the prime minister, home minister, and other stakeholders that serves as a blueprint for ending the current conflict. This important work of women from Manipur and Northeast India can be a vital element in restoration of peace in the region.

Among their recommendations are calls for the prime minister to visit Manipur and personally work to stop further killings; for the state and central governments to urgently prepare a platform for negotiations between warring communities; for the formation of a Manipur Truth and Reconciliation Commission with a view toward long-term peace; and for a thorough investigation into the trafficking of drugs, arms, and people, and the role these criminal networks (and their political allies) have played in the current crisis.

The violence that has racked Manipur is multifaceted and has deep historical roots. But local civil society organizations have been working on these complex issues for decades, attempting to bring peace to the state. Now that the need is more urgent than ever – now that Manipur faces bloody violence and ethnic divisions not seen before in its history – these local peacemakers’ voices must be heard.