With Meitei-Kuki Peace Talks A Non-Starter, Only Solution To Manipur Crisis Is To Go After Kuki Terrorists

A well-intentioned exercise earlier this month to kickstart peace talks between Meitei and Kukis, brokered by the Union government, has turned out to be a non-starter.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had invited members of the legislative assembly (MLAs) from the Meitei, Kuki, and Naga communities of Manipur to a private meeting venue at New Delhi’s Khan Market area on 15 October.

The objective was to get elected representatives of all ethnic groups in the trouble-torn state to meet face to face for the first time since the outbreak of violence in early May last year. 

Getting legislators belonging to the Meitei and Kuki communities to break the ice in the presence of Naga MLAs, who would act as neutral facilitators of the peace talks, would have been the first step towards restoring peace in Manipur. 

However, the Kuki MLAs refused to meet their Meitei counterparts and only met MHA representatives. They said peace talks would hold no purpose without a “separate administration for Kukis.” 

The Kuki MLAs were clearly acting on instructions from the all-powerful community organisations like the Committee on Tribal Unity (COTU), the Kuki Inpi, the Kuki Students’ Organisation (KSO), and the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF), who want a separate state carved out of Manipur for Kukis. 

These Kuki bodies, over which various Kuki terror outfits hold sway, are hell-bent on achieving the political objective of a separate administration for Kukis, many of whom are recent illegal immigrants from Myanmar. 

These Kuki civil society organisations, as well as Kuki terror outfits (including ones from Myanmar), have no interest at all in peace and eventual reconciliation with Meiteis. They want a separate state for Kukis and have demonstrated time and again that they are willing to go to any length to achieve this objective.

That is why Kuki terror outfits have kept up their offensive against Meiteis. These outfits, which have sophisticated military hardware in their arsenal, continue to carry out attacks on Meitei villages.

Their objective is clear: to keep the ethnic pot boiling and thwart all attempts at peace and reconciliation.

By attacking Meitei villages and killing Meiteis, Kuki terror outfits aim to deepen the existing ethnic divide between the two communities and take matters to the point of no return.

Last weekend’s attack on two Meitei villages — Koutruk Ching Leikai in Imphal West district and Tronglaobi in Bishnupur district — by Kuki terrorists demonstrates the sinister intent of these Kuki outfits.

Kuki terrorists fired at the villages with sophisticated weapons and hurled bombs. Though no casualty was reported, many villagers have since fled the area.

Similar attacks on Meitei villages in Jiribam and other districts of the state have resulted in Meiteis fleeing those areas and taking shelter in relief camps. 

The Kuki outfits, as is clear by now, want to drive away Meiteis from all parts of the hill districts, as well as the foothills in Imphal Valley, before populating the areas with Kukis, especially the illegal immigrants from Myanmar.

It will then be easy for the Kuki outfits, and the Kuki civil society organisations that the outfits control, to claim all the areas that they have cleansed of Meiteis and settled Kukis in as the mythical ‘Kuki homeland’.

The entire ethnic conflagration in Manipur was triggered last year by unprovoked, intense, and brutal attacks on Meiteis staying in Kuki-dominated areas of the hill districts on 3 May last year.

The attacks on Meiteis sparked retaliatory violence against Kukis in the Meitei-dominated areas of Imphal Valley and plunged the state in a vicious and never-ending cycle of attacks and counter-attacks.

It is also now clear that the violence was premeditated by Kuki terror groups and civil society organisations who were upset with the Manipur government’s crackdown on illegal poppy cultivation since late 2022 and the drives against encroachment of forests in the hill districts. 

Kukis are hugely invested in illegal poppy cultivation. The yields from the resultant drug trafficking are a major source of revenue for Kuki terror outfits. The yields from illegal poppy cultivation are often the only source of sustenance for the illegal Kuki immigrants from Myanmar.

Also, most of the illegal Kuki immigrants from Myanmar had encroached on forests and set up new villages. This is evident from the huge increase in the number of new Kuki villages over the past two to three decades.

Since the N Biren Singh government in the state struck at Kukis’ (illegal) interests, the Kukis decided to strike back.

And the only way, they reckoned, to permanently safeguard their interests was precipitating an ethnic war in the state to pave the way for their demand for creation of a separate Kuki state. 

The Kukis are steadfast in their objective of achieving a separate state for themselves and will stop at nothing to achieve this objective. 

Thus, no initiative to hold peace talks and bring about a reconciliation between the Meiteis and Kukis is succeeding.

Instead, the insistence of the Kukis for a separate state for themselves, and their use of all means to bolster this demand, will only invite more retaliation not only from Meiteis but also the Nagas. 

For the Meiteis, the issue of Manipur’s territorial integrity is an emotive one that is close to their hearts. The Nagas, who view Kukis as encroachers on their lands, are also vehemently opposed to the demand for a Kuki state being carved out of Manipur. 

It is, thus, clear that for lasting peace to return to Manipur through a reconciliation between Meiteis and Kukis, the Kukis will have to drop their demand for a separate Kuki state and agree to live in Manipur. 

But as long as the Kukis are in the grip of Kuki terror outfits, they will find it impossible to relent on their demand for a separate state. The Kuki terror outfits have a vice-like grip on their community organisations and, by extension, on the entire community. 

Disobeying the Kuki terror outfits and even going soft on the demand for a separate Kuki state is beyond the imagination of any Kuki public figure. 

Thus, Kukis need to be freed from the excessive influence of the Kuki terror groups. And the only way to do that is to carry out coordinated and intensive military operations against the Kuki terror groups.

Only then will Kuki civil society leaders and public figures muster the courage to sit across the table with their Meitei counterparts and smoke the peace pipe.

Neutralising Kuki terror outfits should, hence, be the number one priority of the Union government. As long as Kuki terror outfits exist and operate freely, peace may never return to Manipur.