Manipur blockaded on road to nowhere

Yengkhom Jilangamba

A TEST OF TOLERANCE: People waiting in a queue to buy goods in Imphal city. Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar
These protests are the weapon of choice in the expression of rival ethnic claims, are testing the people's tolerance beyond endurance, turning the State into a socio-political volcano that could explode anytime.
Since August this year, Manipur has been under an economic blockade called by the Sadar Hills Districthood Demand Committee (SHDDC). This and a counter-blockade by the United Naga Council (UNC) on the national highways have caused severe shortages of food, medical supplies, fuel and other essential items. There have been reports that hospitals are running short of medicines. Petrol, diesel and LPG are in short supply, and are being sold at exorbitant prices. Onion, potato, rice and dal are similarly scarce and expensive. There have been instances when rumours have set off incidents of small-scale violence. The scarcities have created an atmosphere befitting the description of a humanitarian crisis in a war-zone.
The tolerance of the people in Manipur is being tested beyond endurance. It is fortunate that traditions of mutual exchange and interdependency among all communities have helped ward off major incidents in such trying times. But that is no guarantee that the situation will not worsen.
Surprisingly, neither the State nor the central governments have shown any signs of dealing with this crisis. This catastrophe, as usual, has not caught the attention of the national media or democratic voices in other parts of the country. A blockade has been historically a form or a component of war. In its early incarnations, it would often be deployed between two parties, one belligerent force blockading another power, or between belligerents. Its maximum impact is felt in the everyday lives of the common people who are helplessly caught in the situation.
Driven by ethnic politics
An economic blockade has often been deployed as a form of protest by different groups to draw attention to their cause. Though the intention of those who use it as a form of protest may be to highlight their grievances and wanting it to be addressed by the authorities, it immediately puts pressure on the population. Blockades in Manipur, driven largely by ethnic politics and the geographical circumstances, at times, begin to look more like a form of collective punishment.
The logic of a blockade seems to be that considering the experience of majoritarianism being meted out by the Meiteis against the other communities, a protest against the Government of Manipur should necessarily target the Meitei population. The polity of Manipur is seen to be largely driven and controlled by the Meiteis. Thus, suffocating the supply lines through the national highways seem an unfortunate but unavoidable choice to make the government listen to the demands of the aggrieved party.
Sadar Hills issue
Such smooth political logic is blind to the fact that an economic blockade of this magnitude affects all people, irrespective of ethnicity. Their suffering can often be measured against the rhetoric of sacrifice: the rich and the powerful cut across community boundaries and, more importantly, are not affected as they get around the high prices and scarcities with ease. Rather, they often use moments like this to project themselves as champions of the suffering by carrying out symbolic acts of sacrifice. Such acts are in turn mobilised as propaganda for their ethnic politics. Moreover, moments of economic scarcity are also boom time for traders. Prices are disproportionately increased. Even though essentials are in short supply in the open market, almost everything is available if one is willing to pay in the black market. And there seems to be a thriving market run by crisis profiteers.
This time round, the blockade on the national highways 53 and 39 was first imposed by the SHDDC from August 1. Its demand was the creation of a separate district of Sadar Hills out of the current Senapati district of which it is a part of. This otherwise simple administrative procedure is extraordinarily complicated in the context of Manipur. Senapati district happens to be inhabited largely by different communities of the Kukis, the Nepalis, and the Nagas. Within the district, Sadar Hills is dominated demographically by the Kukis.
A demand for a separate district of the Sadar Hills is resented by the Nagas. They fear it would jeopardise their claim for a ‘greater Nagalim.' Interestingly, the whole of Senapati district is included in the map of “Naga inhabited areas,” a phrase that has gained currency after it was modified from the earlier “Naga dominated areas.” Therefore, the UNC called for a counter economic blockade on these highways from August 21 onwards fearing the possibility of Senapati district being bifurcated.
Given the history of ethnic clashes between the Nagas and the Kukis in the hills of Manipur beginning in the early 1990s when Senapati district was one of the worst affected, the atmosphere has been tense.
In the context of the larger politics of Manipur, the demand for the creation of a separate Sadar Hills district has to be weighed alongside two other vociferous demands — for the creation of Jiribam and Phungyar as separate districts.
In all three demands, there have been fierce contestations from rival ethnic groups, a pointer to how in Manipur's politics, and also more widely in the North-East region, there has been a tendency to fit ethnic identity perfectly on to a particular territory. This is how “homeland” politics is conducted, but fusing ethnic exclusivity with territoriality can create a combustible mix.
That Senapati district has witnessed abnormal population growth rates both in the census counts of 2001 and 2011, has led to its own share of controversies. In some areas within the district it has been more than 100 per cent. This has been interpreted as a move to legitimise one community's claim to being the majority in a particular territory, creating simmering animosity and hatred.
To critique the increasing tendency of ethnic exclusivist politics is not to negate the genuine concerns of the different marginalised groups that get subsumed within a majoritarian ideology, but to open a more progressive form of politics. Manipur today is sitting on a latent socio-political volcano. If all parties concerned do not take action immediately, there is a danger that it might well explode.
(The author is at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi.)