Manipur is virtually under siege, as heavily armed rebels escalate their campaigns of intimidation andviolence. During the past fortnight, rebels have announced the award of 'capital punishment' to a Lok SabhaMember of Parliament (MP) from the state; bombed the residence of a minister; ambushed a Superintendent ofPolice who was on patrol on a road over which the state Chief Minister was to pass; and accused a minister andhis brother of swindling government development funds to the tune of Rs. 1.5 million.
The rebels' sway in this frontier state of 2.3 million people can be gauged from the fact that as many as five insurgent groups active in the Imphal Valley, dominated by the majority Meitei community, are in the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs' (MHA) list of proscribed organizations under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA): the Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP), Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL), People's Liberation Army (PLA), People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK), and the United National Liberation Front (UNLF). Besides, at least nine other rebel groups are active in Manipur, making thestate Northeast India's rebel heartland.
The turn of events in the past few weeks has reinforced the near total collapse of state authority in Manipur.Thounaojam Chaoba Singh, Lok Sabha MP and the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Manipur unit president, wasawarded the 'death sentence' by the KYKL for his alleged 'activities' against the rebel group during the 1999parliamentary election campaign. On January 29, 2004, the KYKL asked the state BJP to expel Singh by February15 or be prepared to 'face action.'
Singh's response to the rebel move was both surprising and representative of the general state of insecurityin the state. He went public to seek 'pardon' from the KYKL and urged the rebel group to 'reconsider itsdecision' on the award of 'capital punishment.' According to media reports, he urged the KYKL 'to excuse himfor any incident that had taken place before the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, which might have caused harm orhurt the sentiments of the KYKL.' While seeking pardon, Singh, however, made it clear that other party leadersin the state had no powers to remove him from the post of the state BJP president, and that they were all'innocent.'
The very fact that Singh, despite being an MP from the BJP that heads Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee'sruling coalition at Delhi, had chosen to assuage the 'hurt feelings' of a rebel group by seeking forgiveness,goes to indicate that a vast section of people who matter in Manipur have no faith in the capabilities of the stategovernment to protect their lives.
On its part, the beleaguered state Police hurriedly put in place some additional security cover around Singhand advised him against avoidable public appearances. The MHA, according to the state's acting police chief,C. Peter, had sent in express instructions to the Manipur government to provide Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF)cover to the BJP MP, a directive that has been complied with. Bhorot Singh and three other BJP MLAs in the statehave also been provided extra security guards. Such steps are, of course, routine precautionary measures thatthe authorities draw up from time to time, and would be normal under circumstances of an enhanced threatperception.
That the rebels increasingly call the shots in the state is illustrated further in an unprecedented event inAugust 2003, when a top Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, I. S. Laishram, then the state's RevenueCommissioner, surrendered himself to the KYKL. The outfit had asked Laishram to surrender by September 10,2003, and face 'trial' for alleged corruption during his tenure as Education Commissioner. Earlier, in March2003, suspected Kuki rebels waylaid the two-vehicle convoy of Chandel Deputy Commissioner T.K. Singh andkidnapped him after disarming his eight security guards without any resistance.
On February 15, 2004, suspected UNLF rebels attacked the residence of Food and Civil Supplies Minister PhParijat Singh in Imphal, the state capital. No one was injured as the grenade failed to explode. Parijat Singhlater claimed that the UNLF had demanded Rs. three million from him. Manipur's acting police chief Peter toldthis writer that the UNLF has sought between Rs. Two and Three million from some ministers in the state.Rebels making extortion demands on ministers and the ministers themselves admitting to having received suchdemands are unheard of in the rest of India.
Groups like the KYKL, formed in 1994 with an aim, among other things, of purging Manipuri society of itsevils, including the drug menace, have succeeded in securing the confidence of sections within the state'scivilian population largely because of the prevailing corruption in the government machinery and the lack ofdirection in the state due to political instability. The PLA has similarly embarked on moves to clamp down oncorruption and other social ills. The masses appear to be fed up with the absence of good governance and lendtacit support to the rebels' action against those accused of corruption.
The government too takes the rebel charges seriously. On February 18, 2004, the outlawed PLA charged stateFamily Welfare Minister Bijoy Koijam and his younger brother of swindling Rs. 1.5 million out of fundsallocated by the federal government for some population control schemes. Within less than 24 hours, ManipurChief Minister O. Ibobi Singh convened an emergency meeting of his Cabinet and directed the Chief Secretary,the highest-ranking bureaucrat in the state administration, to conduct a probe to ascertain the truth.
A weak and seemingly apathetic police force, crippled by political interference, is another reason for this stateof affairs. The inability of the state Police to nab the culprit behind the killing of eight-year-old Elizabeth Lungnila, daughter of Francis Ngazokpa, a minister in the Ibobi Cabinet, in November 2003, is a case in point. Ultimately, it were the rebels of the Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN-IM), another rebel group operating in the Naga-inhabited hill areas of Manipur, who captured the main accused and is currently threatening to announce a verdict on him in accordance with the Naga customary laws!
In fact, Manipur is the only state in India's insurgency-wracked Northeast where a state police force hadmutinied in recent years. In December 2000, an estimated 1,000 personnel belonging to the Manipur Riflesstaged a 'guns down' stir to press the state government to clear their arrears in their salaries. Manipur'sthen Police Chief, S. Grewal, is on record stating that the agitation by the Manipur Rifles had affectedanti-insurgency operations in the state. The Manipur Rifles personnel, the backbone of the state's law andorder machinery, have been demanding outstanding arrears of salary, due to them since 1996, leading to theunprecedented 'guns down' protest in 2000.
It is not surprising that Chief Minister Ibobi Singh cannot easily leave his base in Imphal these days. Forinstance, he did not attend a crucial meeting of the North Eastern Council (NEC), the regional planning body,at Shillong, capital of Meghalaya, last week. His government was engaged in putting fire-fighting measures inplace to get some respite from the rampaging insurgents, who, unlike many of their counterparts in theNortheast, are far from ready to talk peace.
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Wasbir Hussain is Associate Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi; Consulting Editor, TheSentinel, Guwahati. Courtesy, the South Asia Intelligence Review of the South Asia Terrorism Portal
