Manipur | A triangle of flaming lines
Fragile equilibrium tips over after a lethal rocket attack, as Manipur's ethnic cauldron pulls in even the Naga side
Immunity is granted to no one in manipur. Not even to those in uniform. Before dawn on April 7, two projectiles arced over the hills of Bishnupur. General purpose lethality was writ all over their flight path. After all, the village on that side of Manipur’s infamous ethnic border, Tronglaobi, was Meitei. And the nearby hill slopes? Kuki-Zo territory.
Immunity is granted to no one in manipur. Not even to those in uniform. Before dawn on April 7, two projectiles arced over the hills of Bishnupur. General purpose lethality was writ all over their flight path. After all, the village on that side of Manipur’s infamous ethnic border, Tronglaobi, was Meitei. And the nearby hill slopes? Kuki-Zo territory.
One hit the home of a BSF jawan, out on duty in Bihar. His five-year-old son and five-month-old daughter were killed in their sleep; his mother was left gravely injured. By morning, the Imphal valley was on the streets, in large congregations of moving anger, burning tyres, even storming a CRPF post. Soon, three more Meiteis lay dead in retaliatory paramilitary fire near Gelmol.
The brittle calm that had held since chief minister Yumnam Khemchand Singh’s swearing-in on February 4 had collapsed in a morning. Between April 7-27, Manipur unspooled some more. A total of 11 lay dead, including the two in Bishnupur and a seven-year-old internally displaced girl found dead on April 6. Vehicles burned on national highways, security personnel were frisked by civilians, and a serving Manipur police constable was arrested for stoning his colleagues. A seven-day women-led shutdown paralysed the valley, joined by Kuki and Naga shutdowns in the hills.
The last one spoke of a disturbing new element to the three-year-old conflict. A pre-dawn assault on Mulam Kuki village and an ambush along NH-202 that killed a retired Naga Regiment soldier showed that the wound first opened on May 3, 2023, has not closed. Instead, it had split along a new edge.
ADMIN ON THE BACKFOOT
By installing Khemchand, a moderate Meitei, the BJP meant to soothe the air after N. Biren Singh’s allegedly partisan regime. A fresh face could perhaps buy time before assembly polls due in early 2027. The cabinet was engineered for inclusion: Nemcha Kipgen, a Kuki, and Losii Dikho, a Naga, were sworn in as deputy CMs. But the only thing that seems to have become more inclusive thereafter is the violence. The 2023 conflict was basically a Meitei-Kuki affair. The Naga hills mostly stayed out. That changed after a Tangkhul man was assaulted in Ukhrul on February 7, and suspected Kuki militants and Naga village volunteers engaged in a gunfight. Two Kukis, one Naga lay dead. The conflict map had widened—and darkened.
Khemchand has tried to broker peace—visiting Ukhrul villages, activating the NDA’s multi-ethnic MLA contingent, calling civil society for talks. “All issues can be resolved via dialogue,” he told a gathering at Wangjing-Tentha on April 22. But his words aren’t getting to the last mile: protesters had barricaded his path, forcing him to use a chopper.
Not all the action was in his lane. Around 8,500 CRPF men were pulled for West Bengal election duty at the worst time possible; Manipur detonated within that security void. On April 27, the mood must have been grim as Union home secretary Govind Mohan reviewed the situation with central and Northeast top brass. The plan now: mine-protected vehicles and CRPF’s CoBRA battalions, once Bengal is done.
But the barbed ethnic lines are for him to pacify. Meiteis frame the Tronglaobi attack as war. They want the ceasefire with 25 Kuki-Zo militias junked, and an Assam-style NRC aimed at “illegal Chin-Kukis” from Myanmar. Kukis, too, call the April 24 assaults on their villages “a clear declaration of war”. Neither side trusts the uniform. The other day, an Assam Rifles convoy was mobbed. It will take more than strategic procrastination.
