One of the cardinal principles of a functioning and modern democracy is that only the state, led by a government that is elected by the people, has a legitimate right to use or to authorise the use of physical force. When civilian groups resort to violence against state actors without repercussions, one has to call into question the maintenance of law and order in the State of Manipur. In late February, cadres of the Meitei chauvinist group, the Arambai Tenggol, allegedly abducted a police officer, assaulted him and vandalised his home. Police officers protested the attack, lamenting their inability to take action against the group. It is another matter that the group has managed to source its weapons from the looting of police stations in the valley following the ethnic conflagration last May. Many of the weapons are yet to be seized or returned despite the government’s appeals. The police in the valley are heavily ethnicised with barely any representation from the Kuki-Zo minority. Yet, the impunity with which the Arambai Tenggol has acted against a police official, and even assaulted a leader of the opposition in the recent past besides administering oath to legislators from the valley to pledge for its majoritarian cause, suggest that such actions have either the nod of the leadership of the State government or have been deliberately ignored. The severe ethnicisation in the valley and the hills has also granted a degree of popularity to groups such as the Arambai Tenggol and counterparts in the hills, making law enforcement difficult to achieve.
It is now incumbent upon the Union government and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to take into account the severity of the ethnic polarisation and the dangers posed to law and order. Humanitarian concerns related to the displacement of people apart, the predominance of extra-legal forces in public life in the valley and the hills points to the delegitimisation of the idea of the state alone having a monopoly over the use of physical force in establishing law and order. The rampant radicalisation provides an opportunity for the muzzled civic voices in Manipur, and in the valley in particular, to raise their concerns about the impunity enjoyed by such forces. Unless the Chief Minister, N. Biren Singh, cracks the whip on the Arambai Tenggol, the radicalisation of Manipuri society will continue, making a return to a much-needed civic state of affairs all the more difficult. But with Mr. Singh acting less as a Chief Minister and more as a leader promoting majoritarian politics, it is incumbent upon the BJP leadership to yet again rethink its strategy to let the status quo continue in the State.
