ये तस्वीरें यूक्रेन युद्ध की नहीं, मणिपुर की हैं : मणिपुर में एक बार फिर भड़की हिंसा, कई घर फूंके; कर्फ्यू लगा, 26 मई तक इंटरनेट बैन : रिपोर्ट

मणिपुर में 18 दिन बाद एक बार फिर हिंसा: राजधानी इंफाल में उपद्रवियों ने कई घर फूंके; सेना बुलाई गई, कर्फ्यू भी लगाया गया

मणिपुर में 18 दिन बाद एक बार फिर हिंसा हुई। राजधानी इंफाल में सोमवार को उपद्रवियों ने खाली पड़े घरों में आग लगा दी। हिंसा को देखते हुए सरकार ने इलाके में सेना तैनात कर दी। कर्फ्यू लगा दिया गया और 26 मई तक इंटरनेट भी बैन कर दिया गया है।

रिपोर्ट्स के मुताबिक सुबह 10 बजे न्यू लम्बुलेन के लोकल मार्केट में जगह को लेकर मैतेई और कुकी समुदाय के बीच झगड़ा हुआ। इसके बाद उपद्रवियों ने कुछ घरों में आग लगा दी। हिंसा को देखते हुए सेना को बुलाया गया। पुलिस ने दो उपद्रवियों को पकड़ा है, उनसे हथियार बरामद किए गए हैं।

राज्य में हिंसा की वजह से अब तक 10 हजार से ज्यादा लोग विस्थापित हुए हैं। सरकार ने दंगाइयों को गोली मारने का आदेश दे रखा है। हिंसक घटनाओं में अब तक 74 लोगों की मौत हो चुकी है। 230 से ज्यादा लोग घायल हो चुके हैं और 1700 घरों को जलाया गया है।

3 मई से जारी है हिंसा
मणिपुर में 3 मई को चुराचांदपुर जिले के तोरबंग इलाके से हिंसा भड़की थी। इस दिन ऑल ट्राइबल स्टूडेंट्स यूनियन ने आदिवासी एकजुटता मार्च बुलाया था। चुरचांदपुर में 4 मई को मुख्यमंत्री एन वीरेन सिंह के कार्यक्रम से पहले प्रदर्शनकारियों ने उनके मंच पर तोड़फोड़ और आगजनी की। इसके बाद राज्य के 10 से अधिक जिलों में हिंसक झड़प हुई थी।

सुप्रीम कोर्ट पहुंचा मामला
17 मई को मामले की सुनवाई सुप्रीम कोर्ट में हुई थी। कोर्ट ने राज्य सरकार को हिंसा प्रभावित लोगों को दी जा रही राहत, सुरक्षा, पुनर्वास पर नई स्टेटस रिपोर्ट दाखिल करने का निर्देश दिया है। सुप्रीम कोर्ट में मणिपुर ट्राइबल फोरम और हिल एरिया कमेटी ने याचिकाएं दाखिल की हैं। गर्मी की छुट्‌टी खत्म होने के बाद जुलाई में कोर्ट एक बार फिर इस मामले की सुनवाई करेगी।

हिंसा की वजह क्या है?
मणिपुर की लगभग 38 लाख की आबादी में से आधे से ज्यादा मैतेई समुदाय के लोग हैं। मणिपुर के लगभग 10% क्षेत्रफल में फैली इंफाल घाटी मैतेई समुदाय बहुल है। मणिपुर हाईकोर्ट ने राज्य सरकार को निर्देश दिया है कि मैतेई समुदाय की डिमांड पर विचार करें और 4 महीने के भीतर केंद्र को रिकमेंडेशन भेजें।

इसी आदेश के बाद मैतेई को अनुसूचित जनजाति का दर्जा देने की मांग को लेकर 3 मई को ऑल ट्राइबल स्टूडेंट्स यूनियन (एटीएसयू) मणिपुर ने एक रैली निकाली। जो बाद में हिंसक हो गई।

मैतेई क्यों आरक्षण मांग रहे?
मैतेई समुदाय के लोगों का तर्क है कि 1949 में भारतीय संघ में विलय से पूर्व उन्हें रियासतकाल में जनजाति का दर्जा प्राप्त था। पिछले 70 साल में मैतेई आबादी 62% से घटकर 50% के आसपास रह गई है। अपनी सांस्कृतिक पहचान के लिए मैतेई समुदाय आरक्षण मांग रहा है।

कौन हैं विरोध में?
मणिपुर की नगा और कुकी जनजाति मैतेई समुदाय को आरक्षण देने के विरोध में हैं। राज्य के 90% क्षेत्र में रहने वाले नगा और कुकी राज्य की आबादी का 34% हैं। इनका कहना है कि राज्य की 60 में से 40 विधानसभा सीटें पहले से मैतेई बहुल इंफाल घाटी में हैं।

राजनीतिक रूप से मैतेई समुदाय का पहले से ही मणिपुर में दबदबा है। नगा और कुकी जनजातियों को आशंका है कि एसटी वर्ग में मैतेई को आरक्षण मिलने से उनके अधिकारों में बंटवारा होगा। मौजूदा कानून के अनुसार मैतेई समुदाय को राज्य के पहाड़ी इलाकों में बसने की इजाजत नहीं है।

नाराजगी की एक और वजह
मणिपुर में हालिया हिंसा का कारण मैतेई आरक्षण को माना जा सकता है, लेकिन पिछले साल अगस्त में मुख्यमंत्री बीरेन सिंह की सरकार ने चूराचांदपुर के वनक्षेत्र में बसे नगा और कुकी जनजाति को घुसपैठिया बताते हुए वहां से निकालने के आदेश दिए थे। इससे नगा-कुकी नाराज चल रहे थे। मैतेई हिंदू धर्मावलंबी हैं, जबकि एसटी वर्ग के अधिकांश नगा और कुकी ईसाई धर्म को मानने वाले हैं।

All India Congress (AICC)
@IamMitesh86
Another Church Burned By Hindus in #Manipur, India👇👇👇

Chingkheinganba 🦉
@nongsemba
Ongoing situation at New Checkon, Imphal East #Manipur. 3 armed Kuki militants asked the nearby shopkeepers to shut down businesses. Security forces pressed into action and combing operations underway.

Source-
@FrontierManipur

Min Khooptong
@LamkaHigh
Live mortal used by #ArambaiTenggol in S. Kawtlian, #Lamka district in #Manipur. One question: Who funded this radical and extremist group? This is #ManipurBurning, this is #ManipurViolence, this is #ManipurOnFire started by the communal govt in sitting in #Imphal.

Deikim
@Deikimmisao
·
May 21
The Manipuri media nationally showcasing their sentiments of loathe towards us clearly substantiates how we have been relentlessly treated in our own homeland.

This hatred has been one of the driving forces behind the outset of this catastrophe.

‘Biren Singh’s BJP government is playing with fire in Manipur’

By SYED FIRDAUS ASHRAF

Violence in Manipur, which broke out two weeks ago, refuses to subside, with tensions between the Meiteis and Kukis continuing to simmer.

And to make the situation worse, 10 Kuki MLAs from Manipur have demanded a ‘separate administration’ for Manipur’s hill areas.

Of these, seven MLAs are from the Bharatiya Janata Party which rulES Manipur under the leadership of Chief Minister Biren Singh, whose government was pulled up by the Supreme Court on Wednesday, May 17, 2023.

Directing the Manipur government to take steps to foster confidence and ensure peace and tranquillity in the state torn by ethnic violence, the Supreme Court asserted that being the top-most court it can ensure that the political executive exercises its power and does not turn ‘a blind eye’ to the situation.

What is going on in Manipur?

Is it a new demand by Kuki MLAs for a separate administration from Manipur, or was it always there?

This is not new and was asked in the past, amongst others, by the Kuki National Organization (KNO) and United People’s Front (UPF) groups. They have been asking for separate administration for the hill areas including a separate ‘state within a state’ under Article 244A, a Union Territory and a territorial council modelled along the lines of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) under the Sixth Schedule (of the Constitution).

How do they expect to run this separate administration when the hill region is part of Manipur?

The demand for a territorial council by the SoO (Suspension of Operations) parties, namely KNO and UPF, for instance, by incorporating provisions of the Sixth Schedule and Articles 244A and Article 371C of the Constitution, is intended to give a semblance of a ‘separate administration’.

These demands in some sense draw from the experience of Meghalaya between 1969 and 1971 before it became a fully-fledged state, and the best practices of the BTC.

In fact, institutional frameworks of a separate administration are already there in the hill areas of Manipur under Article 371C wherein all ‘scheduled matters’ pertaining to the hill areas are mandated by law to be vetted by the Hill Areas Committee (HAC) which consisted of 20 members of the 60-member Manipur assembly; the provisions of the Manipur (Hill Areas) District Councils Act, 1971 which envisions ‘autonomous’ district councils in the hill areas, and the Manipur (Hill Areas) Village Authority Act, 1955.

Given that extant arrangements of ‘separate administration’ in the hill areas are either routinely bypassed by the state government or remain powerless and dysfunctional, the idea of a territorial council which the UPF and KNO negotiated with the Union government in the past under the umbrella of Suspension of Operations (SoO) pact signed between the central government, the Manipur government and Kuki-Zomi insurgent groups, was an attempt to overcome these.

The idea is to get more judiciary, legislative and executive powers while simultaneously incorporating more developmental mandate like the one that obtains in Assam’s Bodoland Territorial Council.

Among the Sixth Schedule provisions, the Bodoland Territorial Council has the most extensive powers when it comes to the executive, judiciary or legislature. BTC has a provision for a separate budget wherein funds allocated both by the Centre and the state are devolved within a specific time limit.

Is it not surprising that the BJP, which has a clear majority in the state assembly, is seeing this kind of violence? Is the double engine sarkar not working in Manipur?

By all accounts, it appears that the double engine sarkar does not work in Manipur. The collapse of law and order became fully evident as ragtag mobs were given a full night-and-a-day in the valley areas to engage in extensive ethnic cleansing and genocidal attacks on Kuki-Zomi inhabited areas in Imphal.

The delay in invoking shoot-at-sight order, which came only in the latter half of May 4, could not have been starker.

Apparently, the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 which has been enforced in the hill areas for quite some time, could not prevent counter-ethnic cleansing drives of the Meiteis undertaken by their counterparts in the hills.

There is now ample evidence to suggest that two radical and militant organisations, namely Meitei Leepun and Arambam Tenggol, are largely responsible for carrying out extensive ethnic cleansing and genocidal attacks of the Kuki-Zomi.

In fact, Pramot Singh, the president of Meitei Leepun, openly incited his followers in his Facebook post on April 28, 2023, (which is not taken down so far) to ‘annihilate our traditional rival on the hills’.

Given his proximity to Biren Singh and the massive organisational support he received across the state, the extensive attacks on the Kuki-Zomi unleashed by ragtag mobs in the Imphal and valley areas could not have come about without the complicity of persons in power.

That these militant organisations nurture a political agenda and ideology which not only seek to revive pre-Hindu Meitei indigenous religious (Sanamahi) tradition by repudiating the Hinduisation of the Meitei communities, a process which began since the early 18th century, but also to restore the glorious past of Kangleipak (Manipur’s ancient name), which they contended was undone by Manipur’s merger with the Indian State in 1949 under ‘coercion’, their ideology and programmatic actions are clearly anti-India, anti-Hindu, and anti-Hindi.

Biren Singh may have found these militant organisations very useful to aggressively push his integrationist and majoritarian agenda and conveniently use this to electorally consolidate his position by neutralising intermittent challenges from powerful factional leaders within the BJP.

Yet, it becomes increasingly apparent that his BJP-led government is playing with this fire for a short time electoral gain.

Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah should see through this gamble soon enough. They must immediately sack Biren and impose President’s Rule to restore trust and legitimacy of the State and its institutions.

That is a serious allegation,’genocidal attack’, that you are levelling.

Unfortunately, it looks like that because had it not been for the complicity of the state and Biren Singh’s leadership, these riots would not have spread this far and for so long.

A review of civil war literature in other places will show that the recent waves of riots/civil wars in Manipur clearly constitute ethnic cleansing, and Biren Singh’s regime presides over an ‘institutionalised riot system’.

The same thing is happening in Myanmar where the army junta is targeting Rohingya Muslims.

Is it not true that Kukis have also attacked Meiteis as they fear that the Meiteis will get Scheduled Tribe status?

It is true that the Kuki-Zomi groups have also attacked the Meiteis in retaliation. However, let us be clear that these retaliatory attacks have nothing to do with the Meiteis’ demand for Scheduled Tribe status.

The Kuki-Zomi and all the tribal groups in Manipur, including the Nagas, have genuine fear that giving ST status to the Meiteis will be the surest way to snatch tribal lands.

Come to think of it, the Meiteis demand for ST status is also likely to create a Constitutional anomaly as they have already got protective discrimination benefits (reservation benefits) under the categories of Other Backward Class, Schedule Caste and recently Economically Weaker sections.

If ST recognition is accorded to them over and above the three categories, it will go against the 50 percent reservation ceiling that the Supreme Court laid down in the famous Indira Sawhney Case, 1992.

It must, however, be noted that the point in contention is not really about the Meiteis’ desire to get additional reservation quota, but a calibrated attempt to have access to ownership of tribal lands, which is seen as a deliberate attempt to snatch away the tribal lands of Kuki-Zomi communities.

Right now, the tribals get Constitutional protection for their land in the hill areas, a privilege which the Meiteis do not get.