"Proof Of State Complicity": Manipur BJP MLA Claims Ethnic Violence Was Avoidable

Manipur violence: The BJP MLA didn't spare the Chief Minister too, saying he "is known to be hand in glove" with radical groups like Meitei Leepun and Arambai Tenggol.

  The Manipur BJP MLA said he believes that PM Modi has "misplaced priorities".

New Delhi: One of the ten tribal legislators from the northeastern state of Manipur, Paolienlal Haokip of the BJP, claimed "complicity of the state" in the ethnic violence as one of the reasons why it took so long to subdue in a letter to Chief Minister N Biren Singh in May. The letter demanded a separate administration for the Kuki-dominated districts in the state.

"Proof of state complicity can clearly be discerned from the fact that what started out as a purely ethnic-communal violence was later on attempted to be portrayed by the Chief Minister as the state's war on 'narco terrorists'," Mr. Haokip wrote in a newspaper article for India Today.

The 10 MLAs who signed the letter in May, seven of whom were from the BJP, also claimed that the Meitei group, which makes up the majority in the valley, was responsible for the violence and that the BJP-controlled state government "tacitly supported" it. In response, the Chief Minister stated that "the territorial integrity of Manipur will be protected" and rejected the call for a separate government.

Paolienlal Haokip wrote that the "narco terrorists" narrative appeared to be intended to justify the use of state forces to assist the radicalized Meitei militia in attacking and destroying Kuki-Zo settlements in the foothills surrounding the Imphal valley, beyond which it doesn't seem to hold much water, and that another reason for the protracted violence was a dispute over constitutional rights that had been simmering since before the state's inception.

The ethnic violence, according to Mr. Haokip, "is perceived as war of liberation from such gross injustices by the tribal Kuki Zo people, while the Meitei militia see it as a war to claim tribal land." He repeated claims made by several Kuki leaders of bias in resource allocation, stifling of the powers of the Hill Areas Committee, and vested parties "managing" reservations in state jobs to curtail due representation of Scheduled Tribes.

The BJP MLA further targeted the Chief Minister, claiming that he "is known to be hand in glove" with extremist organizations like Meitei Leepun and Arambai Tenggol, who he claimed were "the main executors of the ethnic cleansing of Kuki Zo community."

Notably, Thounaojam Brinda, a former "super cop" in Manipur, said in a court document that Biren Singh had put "pressure" on her to free a "drug lord" from detention. 

She later ran in the state's assembly elections last year against a BJP candidate, who was supported by Home Minister Amit Shah, after returning the state's Police Medal for Gallantry that had been given to her by the Biren Singh administration.

According to Mr. Haokip, "a biased government anywhere is harmful to peace, and although such bias was always present in Manipur to some extent, it was accentuated under the current Chief Minister."

The BJP MLA from Saikot in Manipur's Churachandpur district claimed in a separate interview with Newslaundry that he thinks Prime Minister Narendra Modi has "misplaced priorities" and that he and many other MLAs from Manipur are still attempting to meet with PM Modi. He continued, nonetheless, that he remains confident that only the federal government can make the state peaceful.


the hilly region Kukis claim that the N Biren Singh-led BJP administration in Manipur has been deliberately pursuing them out of the jungles and their homes in the hills while using the war on drugs as a pretext.

However, data from the state's special anti-drug unit Narcotics and Affairs of Border (NAB) shows that poppy growing in Manipur has increased across 15,400 acres of land in the hills between 2017 and 2023.

The Meiteis are concerned that their position in the valley would dwindle with time because they are unable to purchase land in the hills while the tribals who reside in the hills are permitted to do so. 

The Kukis respond that if the Meiteis are granted ST status, they will spread out into the hills and seize their property.




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