Churachandpur/Kangpokpi: The boundaries between districts are administrative necessities that show up as dotted lines on official maps, but can hardly be made out on the ground.
In Manipur, however, nothing illustrates the state’s deep ethnic fault lines better than the bordering areas dividing the plain and hill districts, home to the Meitei and Kuki communities respectively.
Concertina coils, armoured vehicles, armed security personnel, sandbag bunkers — be it at the border between Bishnupur and Churachandpur, or Imphal West and Kangpokpi, the checkpoints almost resemble boundaries between hostile nations.
“We cannot live together anymore” goes the refrain in the hills, where the demand for a “separate administration” for the Kuki-Zomi tribes pervades the air as the Lok Sabha elections knock on the door.
The hill districts, which also include Naga-dominated Ukhrul and Chandel, fall under the outer Manipur parliamentary seat, parts of which go to polls on 19 April, and the rest on 26 April.
Siamkhum Guite, the principal of the Churachandpur government college, told ThePrint the nub of the matter is that “the problem between the communities runs very deep” and “even the Congress will not be able to solve it”.
“The situation has come to a pass where even routine communication between us and the Manipur University to which we are affiliated has broken down. Even answer sheets have to be sent to Imphal via helicopters. I will be killed if I step into the plain areas. And a Meitei will meet the same fate in the hills. What meaning do elections have in a climate like this?” said Guite.
The Outer Manipur constituency, reserved for the Scheduled Tribes, has been represented by six Naga and five Kuki leaders so far. This time, all the candidates in the fray are Nagas, with no Kuki throwing their hat into the ring following the call of influential pressure groups to abstain from contesting.
Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF) secretary Muan Tombing, who has been booked by the Manipur Police for advocating “self rule”, said the “hard truth that no Kuki candidate will be able to win” from the seat this time guided the decision of the community. Of outer Manipur’s eight lakh strong electorate, Nagas are the largest cohort with 4.61 lakh voters, followed by Kuki-Zomi (3.21 lakh).
Eight assembly constituencies of the peripheral areas of the valley districts — with a combined voter strength of nearly 2.51 lakh — are a part of the Outer Manipur seat. In the past, Meitei groups have demanded that these segments be made a part of the Inner Manipur seat instead which is represented by a member of the community.
“Also, the Kukis and Zomis have differences on several issues despite sharing the same ethnic roots and have rarely voted as a bloc,” said Guite. The Nagas and Kukis share a bitter past as clashes between the two communities roiled Manipur over the decade beginning 1990.
Thangso Baite, a Kuki, from the Congress represented the seat in 2009 and 2014. Since 2019, the seat is being represented by L.S. Pfoze of the Naga People’s Front (NPF), whose candidate Kachui Timothy Zimik is pitted against the Congress’ Alfred Arthur Kangnam this time.
The BJP, which had come second in 2019 having fielded a Kuki candidate, has officially announced its backing for the NPF candidate
Two independent candidates S. Kho John, who is a popular Naga civil society face, and Alyson Abonmai are also contesting from the seat.
“The voters of the eight assembly segments in the valley areas who form nearly 30 percent of the seat’s electorate will not vote for a Kuki candidate. They will back the Naga candidate en bloc. On top of that over 60,000 Kuki voters of the constituency are not in the state,” said Tombing.
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Voting not on priority for the displaced
In the relief camps of Churachandpur district, where Kuki families that fled the violence in the valley areas have taken shelter in, no collective decision has been taken on boycotting the polls, but the idea of voting doesn’t enthuse the displaced families.
“All our lives have been spent in a peripheral area where the plains and the hills meet. Most such villages had a mixed population and Meiteis and Kukis lived together. Now we just cannot live with them. That’s why we want our Kuki land,” said Ngamkhol Haokip, who fled from Khamanlok village of Kangpokpi district bordering Imphal west after the violence erupted on 3 May last year.
While the Election Commission has announced that over 24,500 internally displaced people have been identified as voters for whom special polling booths are being set up near the relief camps, many are not aware of the arrangement.
For instance, Hekim Touthang, staying at a relief camp in an under construction campus of a private educational institute in Churachandpur, said her family members have all lost their voter identity cards. “How are we supposed to vote even if they set up camps?”
Moreover, the civil society groups such as ITLF, along with Suspension of Operations (SoO) groups are playing a key role in determining the position of the Kukis on the question of voting which became apparent when they allegedly prevented W.L. Hangshing, a former customs officer, from filing his nomination.
The SoO groups are essentially insurgent groups with which the Manipur government and the Centre had signed ceasefire agreements in 2008. While the Manipur government unilaterally withdrew from the pact in March 2023, the Centre’s position remains unclear.
The 10 Kuki MLAs, including seven from the BJP, who demanded a separate administration have thus far maintained silence. They had initially favoured backing Hangshing, but backed out when the pressure groups resisted the move.
“The BJP is trying to get them (MLAs) to announce support for the NPF candidate and they may be successful in doing so as well. But it will have very little resonance. The final call lies with the church bodies and civil society groups that are in consultations. A final decision on which candidate to back will be taken in another week,” said a Kuki MLA.
Pressure is also being mounted on the parties through other means. For instance, the ITLF has “invited” all the candidates in the fray from the outer Manipur seat to visit Churachandpur and meet its representatives for discussions on their manifestos and agendas.
While the NPF has so far desisted from doing so, the Congress has held one round of meetings with Kuki civil society groups. Congress candidate Kangnam visited Churachandpur on Tuesday, becoming the first candidate to step into the hill town since the announcement of the polls, and held meetings with the party’s office-bearers as well as representatives of bodies such as ITLF and Kuki Inpi Manipur.
Quite expectedly, the confusion and uncertainty prevailing at the level of the decision makers finds reflection among the people on the streets of Churachandpur and Kangpokpi, the two hill districts visited by ThePrint.
Alex, a Kuki, used to work at a hotel in Delhi’s Aerocity before the conflict drew him back to take up the role of a village volunteer in the border area between Churachandpur and Bishnupur where abandoned houses are being used by the security forces as makeshift camps.
Asked if he plans to vote, the prompt response is a “No”. At Kankgpokpi, however, Solenmang Haokip, also a volunteer, said the need of the hour was to “vote out the BJP”.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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