Photograph: Abhishek Chinnappa/Getty Images
How did the conflict in Manipur begin?
Manipur is a state in north-east India with a population of around three million. It has been embroiled in an ethnic conflict since early May, fought between the majority Meitei community and the minority Kuki tribe.
India’s north-eastern states have a history of ethnic rivalries dating back to before the country became independent in 1947. In Manipur, violence has erupted between the Meitei and the Kuki communities several times before.
Tensions had been simmering between the two communities recently, driven in part by the Meitei-controlled state government. The government was accused of pursuing policies that discriminated against Kukis, including forced evictions that threatened the security of their land, and through an attempt to cast them as illegal immigrants.
The violence was sparked by a court ruling in March that granted the majority Meitei “scheduled tribal status”, entitling them to the same economic benefits and quotas in government jobs and education as the minority Kuki.
It also allowed Meiteis to buy land in the hills, where the Kukis predominately live, further fuelling fears that their lands, jobs and opportunities would be taken away.
This prompted protests, mostly by Kuki student groups, which were met with violence and by early May, it had escalated into all-out violence.
In the state capital, Imphal, Meitei mobs began targeting Kuki homes and attacked Kuki people who tried to flee the city for the hills, where they control much of the land. Kuki villages were also burned to the ground by Meitei militias numbering in their hundreds, sometimes thousands.
The court ruling was later stayed by the supreme court, which called it “factually wrong”, but by then the conflict had already taken hold.
How has the violence unfolded?
The majority of the violence was initially perpetrated by Meitei groups against the Kuki villages and communities. As the clashes spread, villages were burned down and more than 250 churches belonging to the Kuki community, who are Christian, were destroyed.
As fake news and misinformation circulated, claiming that Meitei women had been raped and killed by Kukis, Kuki women began to be systematically targeted in revenge attacks, which included rape, torture and assault. There have also been several reports of beheadings.
The state was swiftly bifurcated along ethnic lines, with the Meiteis in the valley and the Kukis in the hills, defending their territory against violent mobs, with a buffer zone created in the middle.
To enter the territory of the opposing tribe was soon considered to be a death sentence. Much of the violence has been fought with thousands of weapons stolen from police and army barracks.
So far, more than 140 people have died in the violence and 60,000 have been displaced. The internet remains shut down in large parts of the state.
Though the state and central government – which are both ruled by the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) – have claimed that the situation has begun to calm down, intermittent clashes have continued to erupt and those fighting on both sides have warned that Manipur remains on the brink of civil war.
The clashes have renewed and strengthened a longstanding demand by the Kukis for their own separate state. Kuki groups say the violence has proved they can no longer live safely under the oppressions of a Meitei-dominant state and have pledged they will not stop fighting until their own state is granted. The Meitei community and the state government fiercely oppose the creation of a separate Kuki state.
How has the government responded?
Even as the violence escalated, the response from the central BJP government was notably muted. The BJP state government – dominated by the Meitei community – has been accused of being complicit in the violence against the Kuki minority by allowing Meitei gangs to carry out violence with impunity.
Prime minister Narendra Modi maintained a months-long public silence on the conflict and has yet to visit Manipur since the violence broke out.
It was only after a viral video of two Kuki women being forcibly stripped naked, publicly groped and then allegedly gang raped by a Meitei mob caused outrage across the country that Modi commented on the issue.
Modi said that “what happened to the daughters of Manipur can never be forgiven” and that the “entire country had been shamed by the incident”.
However, he has faced criticism for not addressing the broader conflict or referring to those who have died in the fighting. Some allege that the Hindu nationalist Modi government is not stepping in to protect the Kukis, who are Christian, from the Meitei, who are Hindu.
India’s home minister, Amit Shah, visited Manipur at the end of May, but he failed to bring about a ceasefire between the groups or bring the two parties together for negotiation. The “peace committee” set up by Shah has been shunned by Kuki groups, who allege it is dominated by Meitei figures, including the BJP chief minister.
Police have been accused of refusing to assist those in the Kuki community who have been attacked and have not investigated reports of rape, torture and violence against the Kukis. It wasn’t until the video of Kuki women being stripped naked, assaulted and allegedly gang-raped went viral that the police arrested four Meitei men – more than 70 days after the attack took place.
The supreme court also chastised the government for not getting the situation in Manipur under control. Chief justice Dhananjaya Chandrachud said: “It’s time that the government really steps in and takes action because this is simply unacceptable”
