Tags:
Journalism of Courage
In June 2021, about 200 people gathered at a community hall in southwest Manipur’s Churachandpur, often referred to as the heartland of the state’s Kuki tribe. As people from Kangpokpi, Tengnoupal and other Kuki-dominated districts poured in, fiery speeches were made. At the end of the two-hour-long meeting, the Kuki People Alliance (KPA) was born.
Come February 28, when 38 out of 60 constituencies of Manipur go to polls, taking on big players like the BJP and the Congress will be the little-known KPA, formed by two retired bureaucrats, a practising doctor and a lawyer.
With the KPA contesting only two seats (Saikul in Kangpokpi district and Singhat in Churachandpur district), it is unlikely to have much of an impact on the results. But its formation is a significant development in Manipur’s political landscape, where tribal aspirations play a major role.
Says Gracy Lamkholhing, a 25-year-old Churachandpur-based teacher, who was at the meeting in Vegnom Hall that day: “A political platform for the Kukis was the need of the hour.”
Distinct from the Meitei-dominated valley, the hills of Manipur are home to two major tribal groups – the Nagas and Kuki-Zomi tribes. The latter falls under the larger ‘Zo’ ethnic umbrella, which has a presence in India, Myanmar and in Chittagong hill tracks of Bangladesh. Apart from the Kukis, smaller Zomi tribes, like Gangte, Kom, Mate, Paite, Simte, Tedim Chin, Zou and Vaiphei, also make up the diverse landscape of Churachandpur.
While the Naga movement is the country’s longest-running insurgency, underground Kuki groups, too, have fought the Indian government for an ‘independent Kuki homeland’, spread across Manipur.
Lamkholhing remembers that she first heard of this “homeland” when she was five, when a bomb went off near her home. Twenty years later, all the Kuki underground groups are in talks with the Centre. And, Lamkholhing feels, priorities have changed. “We need jobs, we need development, we need our voices to be heard. Without a political party, you can’t achieve anything.”
On Wednesday, as Union Home Minister Amit Shah promised the end of Kuki insurgency, at a rally in Churachandpur, a small crowd gathered at a two-storeyed house nearby to seek votes for Chinlunthang, the KPA candidate for Singhat. A 47-year-old lawyer, Chinlunthang, an ethnic Zou, is one of the founding members of the KPA.
David, 41, a college lecturer, echoes Lamkholhing. “So far, most Kuki politicians have been a part of national parties like the BJP and Congress… When you are with big parties, you have to stick to their guidelines, and indigenous interests are sidelined,” he says, adding that parties have only been fielding Kuki candidates to get the Kuki vote before forgetting all about them.
His friend Lianzagou, 36, also a teacher, rattles off incidents where tribal interests were “sidelined” by Biren Singh’s “Meitei government”. These include the government’s recent move to make Mount Koubru in Kangpokpi district a protected government site, as well as the inauguration of a ‘Maharaja Chandrakriti Memorial Park’ at Chivu Lake in Churachandpur district in 2020. “These are all tribal lands, belonging to tribal people…but the government has been quietly trying to make incursions,” he says.
Chinlunthang is facing JD(U) Manipur chief T Hangkhanpau, the Congress’s Tuankhan Kiamlo Hangzo (a retired bureaucrat) and the BJP’s Ginsuanhau Zou. Earlier with the Congress, Zou is expected to be Chinlunthang’s main rival.
Thangbem, 42, a farmer from Singhat, is torn between the two. “While we appreciate what Chinlunthang is speaking up for, we can’t ignore the work Zou has done,” he says.
In Saikul, in Kangpokpi district, the KPA fielded the young Kimneo Haokip Hangshing, after she was denied a ticket by the BJP. The wife of the self-styled chairman of the outlawed Kuki Revolutionary Army (KRA), Kimneo says her main focus is “safeguarding tribal rights”.
In both Singhat and Saikul, the Kuki Students’ Organisation (KSO) as well as the Kuki Inpi, the tribe’s apex body, are backing the KPA. In Manipur, where civil society influences elections strongly, such support goes a long way.
Sasang Vaiphei, President, KSO refers to the Kuki National Assembly (KNA), a Kuki political party that fizzled out over the years, adding: “In other areas in the Northeast, tribes enjoy the Sixth Schedule, but when it comes to Manipur, we have no privileges, no protection.”
While the KPA’s main poll planks are what the state’s tribal communities have demanded for long (a repeal of the AFSPA, a push for the ‘Autonomous District Council Bill 2021’, as well as strengthening of Article 371-C, which safeguards the rights of the hills of Manipur), the other push for the party comes from insecurity about the Nagas.
The two hill tribes have had a strained relationship since the 1990s, which saw bloody clashes over imagined territorial homelands. The Kukis feel the Nagas have an upper hand as the Naga People’s Front (NPF) is an ally of the BJP government in the state.
“The Nagas have the NPF, the Meiteis are the dominant group… so where does this leave the Kukis?” asks Seilen Haokip, the spokesperson of the Kuki National Organisation (KNO), an umbrella group of armed outfits fighting for a homeland for the Kukis. These groups too are tacitly supporting the KPA.
Wilson L Hangshing, a retired IRS official and a KPA co-founder, says a number of recent incidents had led to the formation of the outfit. “Local villagers would call us, unhappy with the government’s moves. We made frequent visits, and realised we were not going anywhere with bigger parties.”
According to him, it was only in January 2022, a month before the polls, that the approval of them as a party came through, and hence many of their candidates moved to other parties.
Leaders and supporters agree the task ahead is uphill. But, as Lamkholhing puts it, “I do not expect the KPA to pull off a miracle in the coming elections. But we have to start somewhere, don’t we?”
