Assembly Elections 2022: Manipur goes to polls under the shadow of guns and AFSPA

Several government committees, most notably the Justice BP Jeevan Reddy Committee in 2005, and the Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) headed by Veerappa Moily in 2007, have said that the Act had outlived its utility. (Representational photo, Credit: PTI)

The first act in the theatre called the Manipur state assembly elections was no sundry event. It involved laying down arms – quite literally.

Last month, ahead of the Manipur polls, 15,240 licensed arms were deposited in the state after the model code of conduct came into force, the state’s chief electoral officer (CEO), Rajesh Agrawal told reporters.

Just how mammoth this exercise is can be gauged from the CEO’s next statement: “As of now around 58 percent of the licensed arms have been deposited and the deposit of arms is a continuous exercise,” adding “We hope that it not only crosses 60 percent but achieves more than what we have achieved in 2017 (polls).”

Licensed arms

There are 25,299 licensed arms in Manipur.

Obviously, the arms don’t exist in a vacuum. They are used by individuals and groups, and the state government has identified 588 hamlets as vulnerable and restrictions have been placed on 1,430 persons.

Something is rotten in the state of Manipur. ``There are close to 15-20 insurgent groups in the state. They began with separatist demands but have now degenerated into extortion. The Meitis of the Valley, who are Vaishnavaites, are among the most anti-Indian groups in the state… They are convinced that the Indian state only listens to violence and long-standing talks with the Nagas are evidence of their conviction. Hence their feeling of alienation,” Prakash Singh, former head of the BSF, who has also headed the UP and Assam police, told Moneycontrol.

While the Manipur hills account for nine-tenths of the total geographical area, they are sparsely populated, with most of the population concentrated in the valley. The Meitei community forms a majority in Imphal Valley, while the surrounding hill districts are inhabited by Nagas and Kukis. Come election time and these ethnic fault lines come out into the open – a living embodiment of time-tested vote bank politics.   

Manipur, a land of militant groups

In Prakash Singh’s estimate, there is a difference between militancy in Manipur and Nagaland; the insurgency in Nagaland is among the oldest in the country, but they do not have as many groups as in Manipur, which is practically out of control because both local and national politicians have lost any real interest in tackling it.    

The 2017 assembly election marked a watershed in Manipur politics, when the BJP ended the Congress’s dominance in the state by forming its coalition government. After an uninterrupted 15-year rule, the Congress had then failed to clinch a simple majority in the northeastern state, despite emerging as the single largest party. But the grand old party was outsmarted by the BJP, which cobbled up the majority number by forming alliances with smaller parties to put into place a government.

After attaining statehood in 1972, the period between 1980s to 2010s was marked by raging separatist insurgency, rooted in perceived resentment that Manipur’s merger with India was `forced’.  

Even though the first insurgent outfit, the United National Liberation Front (UNLF), came into existence in 1964, 1980s saw the formation of several valley-based extremist groups — the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak and the Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP) —their common demand being an `independent’ Manipur. These are now part of an umbrella organisation called the Coordinating Committee (CorCom). The Kuki militancy also began to rear its heads in the 1990s.

Read also: Why are demands of repealing of ASPA growing again?

AFSPA

The forthcoming election is significant for another thing. If the opposition Congress Party comes to power in the state, it has promised that the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA), pretty much the bug bear in India’s Northeast, will be scrapped. 

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh promised this at a packed house in Imphal recently. Among the other developed-driven agenda, which is par for course for a political party like the Congress trying to regain office, AFSPA tops the list.

Pradip Phanjoubam, editor of the ‘Imphal Free Press’ and author of ‘The Northeast Question: Conflicts and Frontiers’, told Moneycontrol: ``The AFSPA may be removed bit by bit.’’

AFSPA for 64 years

``Amidst a chorus of demands for revocation of the AFSPA in the wake of the botched Oting ambush in Nagaland by the Army killing 14 civilians in December 2021, the Centre has decided to extend the promulgation of the controversial law in the state for another six months. The Act can be extended only in areas declared disturbed and this status can only be for six months at a time, indicating AFSPA was meant as an emergency measure, not a permanent remedy. The fact that this emergency has lasted for 64 years is itself an indication of something seriously wrong in the Act’s effectiveness,” Phanjoubam, one of the most influential voices in Manipur, told Moneycontrol.

Read also: AFSPA in Nagaland extended by another six months

The significance of repealing the AFSPA can hardly be overstated–several government committees, most notably the Justice BP Jeevan Reddy Committee in 2005, and the Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) headed by Veerappa Moily in 2007, along with several human rights organisations, have proposed that the Act had outlived its utility.   

But it is quite clear that no matter what the lip service by political parties to remove AFSPA, when it comes to the crunch, it remains a mere promise. The BJP has been in power in Assam and Manipur, yet no steps were taken to remove the Act, labelled draconian, and enacted, by the Congress for the first time.

Army on board

The Act itself is such that it cannot be repealed without taking the Army on board, said Phanjoubam. Politicians create situations that go out of hands of the local police and the military must be called in, he said. Neither is any political party willing to reform the police, whose main job it is to maintain law and order inside the country. So, where does the buck stop?

Could China be helping such groups in the Northeast? 

Ajai Sahni, founding member and executive director, Institute for Conflict Management and South Asia Terrorism, said: ``China has been meddling in this region for years, but it is not into arming a bunch of rag-tag gunmen to undermine India. If you have a 10,000-strong group of rebels, it is a different matter.”