PUCL’S TRIBUNAL REPORT ON MANIPUR ANGERS MEITEIS, LEAVES KUKI-ZOS HAPPY

The report of ‘The Independent People’s Tribunal (IPT) on the Ongoing Ethnic Conflict in Manipur’ released on August 20 by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has become a bone of contention between the Meitei community in Manipur [and beyond] and PUCL, which had constituted the tribunal in 2024 under the chairmanship of former Supreme Court judge Kurian Joseph. Its members included other retired judges, ex-IAS officers, an ex-IPS officer, an advocate, a social scientist, a feminist historian, a journalist, academics and activists. Considering the ethno-social nature of the conflict, PUCL decided against IPT’s having members from Manipur. The members visited several affected districts, held hearings and received submissions [both as hard copies and virtual]. The report runs into 696 pages.

The findings and observations can be summed up thus: Since May 3, 2023, when violence broke out with the Manipur High Court’s recommendation of ST status for the Meiteis as a trigger, the state witnessed a complete breakdown of legal, judicial and constitutional mechanisms. The tribal groups – the Kuki-Zos and the Nagas – perceived the recommendation as a threat to their constitutional protections. The state’s BJP-led coalition ministry headed by Biren Singh and the Union government failed to implement the rule of law
and adherence to the Constitution. The police and the bureaucracy failed to ensure accountability at all levels. The situation was already bad because of pre-existing factors – historical ethnic divisions,  sociopolitical marginalization and land disputes. A systematic hate campaign played out through the
digital media and the political leadership’s statements aggravated the situation. The print media was
partisan and lacked “investigative rigour”.

The jury was presented with a stream of narratives that dominated the discourse around the conflict. The Meitei deponents were unanimous in their contention that continuous immigration of the Kuki- Zo community people from Myanmar and their involvement in poppy cultivation and other undesirable activity had brought about a qualitative decline in Manipur’s environment over the years. Biren Singh’s oft-repeated
war on drugs, the pivot of which was clearing fields of illegally raised poppy plants, gradually turned into a propaganda against the Kukis. This was strongly countered by the Kuki deponents as a conspiracy to demonise them when in fact the key players came from different communities, specially those who held important positions in the state government.

A significant observation of the tribunal in this specific context is : “…… it was found from a study of the data that the allegation of population influx raised by the Meiteis and propagated by the political leadership holds little ground”. The tribunal members came across many instances of grossly inadequate, unduly delayed and unevenly distributed relief for the 60,000 plus internally displaced persons (IDPs) put up in the camps. In this respect too, the jury has made a significant observation. Which is: “There is great disparity between the quality of life [the] Kukis have, compared to [the] Meiteis in their respective camps ….”

The team members heard ‘unconfirmed’ reports being in circulation about the conflict being orchestrated by vested interests who would want to destabilize the region so that “the state-corporate nexus could take control of the Hills and the forests to harness (plunder) the natural resources …. “ Such clandestine geopolitical interventions would be detrimental to the interests of the state’s people. It is important that the state and the Centre come out transparently regarding the corporate business interventions that are being planned in Manipur and beyond.

The findings and observations have angered the Meitei community. Their representative outfit The Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (Cocomi) has condemned the report, saying it is a biased, misleading and politically engineered narrative that seeks to vilify the Meitei community while legitimising the separatist aspirations of Kuki-Chin narcoterrorist groups. Upon careful review, Cocomi is convinced that
it is deliberately structured to appease separatist agendas. It, therefore, rejects the report.

Lok Sabha member of Congress from Inner Manipur constituency Angomcha Bimol Akoijam too is highly critical of the report. Akoijam says: ….. “the report comes to me as an embodiment of not only insensitivity, intellectual bankruptcy and ideological blind spots but also a hangover of racist orientalism. Strong words, one may say. But it is what it is ….” The report suffers from an avoidable orientation that seeks to conflate Meitei as a community “with the BJP simply because the former is a primarily Hindu community. We ought to remember that there were Kuki cabinet ministers in Biren Singh’s government”. Referring to the preaching in the report to move beyond victim and perpetrator roles for peace to return, the Lok Sabha member has found that there is simultaneously an attempt to perpetuate one community as a victim and another as a perpetrator and that is “nothing but sheer hypocricy”. He also has declared that he is not going to file an FIR against the report’s authors, “but shall be calling them out in detail later”.

The Kuki-Zo Council (KZC) is happy that PUCL has mustered courage to set up an independent tribunal to record the voices of victims, survivors and stakeholders. At a time when narratives are often distorted or silenced, such third party fact-finding initiatives provide the nation with an unbiased understanding of the ground reality. The divide between the Meiteis in the Valley and the Kuki-Zos in the Hills is now undeniable and irreversible. Therefore, New Delhi must act with moral courage and political clarity. The time has come
to officially recognize this separation and grant the Kuki-Zo people a separate administration within the Indian Union. That will be the real healing touch for Manipur, KZC has contended.