With Manipur’s Kuki-Zo community now caught in a conflict with both the Naga and Meitei communities of the state, the Kuki-Zo Council has, in a memorandum addressed to the Prime Minister, said these fractured relationships have made the demand for a separate Union Territory “an unavoidable necessity”.
Since May 2023, Manipur has been torn by conflict between the Meitei and Kuki-Zomi-Hmar communities, which has resulted in mass displacement and a deep social and physical divide. The conflict has largely restricted the movement of either community to areas where the other is in the majority. The flaring up of tensions between the Naga and Kuki-Zo communities earlier this year, which has now escalated, has opened up a new set of divides.
The Meiteis, the largest community in Manipur, largely reside in the state’s central valley. This valley is surrounded in all directions by hills, which are home to the tribes of Manipur, broadly categorised under the umbrellas of Naga and Kuki-Zo.
While the tensions between the Nagas and Kukis began in a part of the Tangkhul Naga-majority Ukhrul district, the tensions are currently highest in the neighbouring hill districts of Kangpokpi, which is a Kuki-Zo majority area, and Senapati, a Naga majority area.
Amid a hostage crisis, which has made the situation in these two districts volatile, the Kuki-Zo Council has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting help for people from the community who find their movements further restricted. Requesting helicopter services connecting Kangpokpi to Churachandpur, Moreh and Silchar, the council wrote, “Due to the ongoing tensions with both the Meitei and Naga communities, the Kuki-Zo people, especially those residing in Kangpokpi district, are facing extreme restrictions on movement. Many civilians are unable to travel safely outside their areas, even during medical emergencies and other urgent situations… Such connectivity would provide much-needed humanitarian relief and ensure access to healthcare, essential travel, and emergency evacuation.”
The council has sought the deployment of security forces “along sensitive boundary areas and buffer zones” between areas dominated by the Naga and Kuki communities, as has been in place for the past three years between areas where the Meiteis and Kuki-Zo communities reside.
It has also sought that exam centres for Kuki-Zo students and candidates be relocated to the Kuki-Zo majority districts of Churachandpur and Kangpokpi.
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They further pressed their long-standing demand for a “separate administration”, arguing that the new faultlines in the state have made this more urgent.
“The continuing conflict in Manipur has deeply fractured relations among the Meitei, Naga, and Kuki-Zo communities. The wounds inflicted by prolonged violence, killings, displacement, and destruction have created an environment where peaceful coexistence under the present administrative arrangement has become increasingly difficult. The Kuki-Zo people firmly believe that a lasting and peaceful solution to the Manipur crisis lies in the creation of separate administrative arrangements for the three major communities — the Meitei, the Naga, and the Kuki-Zo,” the council said in its memorandum.
Pushing for the demand of a separate Union Territory with a legislature for parts of the state where the community is in a majority, the Kuki-Zo Council wrote, “Today, the Kuki-Zo community faces existential threats from multiple sides. For our survival, security, and protection, separation from the present administrative structure has become an unavoidable necessity.”
The most recent escalation in tensions in Manipur took place when three church leaders from the Thadou Baptist Association were killed in an attack on their vehicles while they were travelling from Churachandpur to Kangpokpi. This spiralled into a hostage crisis with Kuki groups alleging that Naga groups were responsible, and both sides abducting dozens of villagers belonging to the other side.
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Despite both sides later releasing 14 hostages each, the situation remains precarious, with Naga groups continuing to hold six people captive while six individuals who Naga groups allege were abducted by Kuki groups continue to be missing.
