Eradicating Kuki Militancy In Manipur Must Now Be A Priority; Modi Government Must Empower The State To Tackle Them

Manipur erupted in flames once again Thursday (15 February) evening, when Kuki mobs stormed a high-security government complex in Churachandpur district and torched vehicles and buildings. 

The mobs, which included Kuki militants, even tried to set the offices and residences of the district police chief and the deputy commissioner on fire. 

The Kukis were angry over the suspension of a head constable, one Siamlalpaul, who had taken a selfie with Kuki militants. When the photo of the head constable posing with Kuki militants went viral on social media, he was placed under suspension. 

Kuki community leaders demanded that the suspension be revoked, and when the superintendent of police of Churachandpur — a district where the Kukis are in a majority — refused, mobs stormed the government complex, vandalised offices and set vehicles and some buildings on fire. 

The brazen attack on the offices and residences of the district police chief and the administrative head (the deputy commissioner) is the latest in a series of similar displays of audacity in challenging the state and even the armed forces by Kukis. 

Earlier this week, videos of armed Kuki militants stopping an armoured vehicle of the Assam Rifles from venturing into Kuki villages in Moreh along the Indo-Myanmar border and even forcing it to retreat, went viral on social media and caused a lot of disquiet and justified outrage. 

“There have been similar incidents of Kuki militants, many of them illegal immigrants from Myanmar, putting up shows of defiance and even challenging not only the state police, but also the Assam Rifles and the Army,” a DIG-rank police told Swarajya over phone from state capital Imphal.

Kuki militants, says N Sunil Singh who heads a civil society organisation, have been emboldened to defy the state police and the armed forces because they have been mollycoddled for far too long by the union government. 

The Kuki militants, it is well known, enjoy the complete support of the community. Over the past few months, their numbers and arsenal have been buttressed from Myanmar — well-armed militants from that country have crossed over to Manipur and are helping their brethren prepare themselves for a planned armed uprising to demand the formation of a separate Kuki state carved out of Manipur. 

It is this plan that should worry the union government. Entry of arms and well-trained Kuki men from Myanmar poses a grave security threat and will turn Manipur into a devastating battlefield.

“There are enough signs that the Kukis are preparing for a protracted armed struggle to realise their political goal of a separate state. This holds dangerous consequences for the entire nation,” said a retired police officer who headed the state intelligence branch. 

State intelligence officers told Swarajya that Kuki boys and men are receiving training in arms and guerilla warfare in the interior areas of the Kuki-dominated hills of Manipur. 

What’s alarming is that Kuki veterans who had served in the Assam Rifles, Army and the state police are imparting training in arms and tactics to the militants and new recruits. 

According to state intelligence reports, a few thousand young men and boys have been secretly recruited to the ranks of some Kuki militant outfits in recent months. 

What needs to be pointed out here is that over the past few decades, illegal influx of people belonging to the Kuki-Chin-Zo ethnic group from Myanmar has led to a sharp increase in the population of this community in Manipur. 

“The influx has been engineered to bring about a demographic change in the hill districts with the aim of claiming a separate Kuki state,” said Oinam Sanjay, who heads an NGO that has been involved in children’s education in the hills.

Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh told Swarajya that the illegal immigrants from Myanmar had settled down in reserve forests in the hills and established new villages. “They (the settlers) started cultivating poppies not only for their livelihood but also to generate huge funds for the Kuki militant groups,” said the Chief Minister. 

The state government launched a concerted and intense crackdown on poppy cultivation along with a campaign to uproot encroachments on forests from the end of 2022. 

That hurt the interests of the illegal Kuki immigrants and angered them. And it was this anger that spilled over and resulted in the brutal attacks on Meitei residents in the hill districts on 3 May last year, triggering counter-attacks by enraged and outraged Meiteis in the Imphal Valley. 

Since then, Manipur has descended into a spiral of violence that has claimed more than 210 lives, devastated families and displaced tens of thousands. 

An Army veteran, a Meitei, who retired from the rank of a Brigadier and did not want to be named, told Swarajya: “These Kuki settlers and the militants have extra-territorial loyalties and that poses a grave danger to our country.”

Meitei politicians say there’s no denying the fact that Kuki militants have been treated with kid gloves by security forces, especially the Assam Rifles, for so long. 

That’s because the Kuki militants were being used as a counter to the valley-based (read: Meitei) insurgent groups. 

But in the process, a Frankestein’s monster has been created and this monster now threatens to further destabilise Manipur. 

A senior officer of police’s intelligence wing told Swarajya that Kuki militants and their civil society backers are testing the waters now. 

“The standoff with Assam Rifles at Moreh, and similar incidents in other parts of the state, as well as the attack on the government complex in Churachandpur last (Thursday) evening, are signs of Kukis testing the waters. They want to see how far the state police and armed forces will go when provoked. What will follow is a full-scale insurgency and civil war that will be hard to control,” said the intelligence officer. 

Manipur is now facing the real risk of being ravaged by a civil war. To prevent that from happening, the union government has to give the state a free hand to launch a fierce crackdown on Kuki militants and their civil society backers. And, also, ask the Assam Rifles and Army in unequivocal terms to unreservedly help the state in the operations against Kuki outfits.

After all, the union government has a bounden duty to protect Indian citizens from diabolic machinations and onslaughts of illegal immigrants from another country.