Beyond ethnic strife as militants fish in Manipur's troubled waters

For over eight months, Manipur has been aflame. When the violence first began on May 3, the fault-lines were distinctly ethnic in nature, pitting Manipur's most numerically dominant communities against each other. The Meiteis, largely clustered around the Imphal Valley versus the tribal Kukis, who live in the hill districts that surround the valley.

- Prawesh Lama

In all this time, the state administration has failed to quell the attacks and the arson that have left at least 200 people dead and 50,000 displaced. And yet, eight months into the clashes, Manipur's violence has grown beyond the ethnic. Increasingly, underground militant groups have regained support they had lost, rearmed themselves, launched attacks on security forces, and engaged in rampant extortion.

HT's conversations with multiple stakeholders in the state, from officers in the security establishment to people in both the Imphal valley and hill districts, show that far from heading towards a resolution, the situation is only becoming more challenging.

There's a near-total absence of any functional administration; the private militias have become de facto governments in areas under their control; gun running and drug trafficking, the two old malaises of the area, are back; and a refugee crisis set off by events across the border in Myanmar has only complicated matters.

It's no longer Kuki vs Meitei; it's now every man for himself.

Causes and profits

A senior police officer based in Manipur said that as the violence has gone on, militant groups have grown in strength, and in no small part because of growing extortion. "We have information that militants are extorting money, food items, even vehicles. They need a large supply of food, so they come into urban settlements, and ask shopkeepers to part with these items. There has also been a case when a militant group asked an automobile dealer to give them three Maruti cars. If the victims do not acquiesce, they are taken at gunpoint," the officer added, asking not to be named.

But while extortion is a resource-gathering exercise for some groups, it is the raison d'etre for others.