In the war of perceptions, one needs to scientifically look at patterns and that is exactly what two separate studies by neutral researchers did and astonishingly came up with startling patterns of how the narratives were being manufactured and organically built on X. They shared their findings with The Reporters’ Collective.
Most media reports suggested that the conflict began with a sudden and unexpected outbreak of violence on May 3. Similar to the situation on the ground, social media users were quick to respond, the research suggested. More than 100 handles were created in the first few days of the violence. Their research showed that initially, handles sympathising with or affiliated with the Kuki community mushroomed and tweeted actively with well-coordinated messaging.
Meitei-associated handles got into the narrative game later but quickly came up to speed and were actively tweeting, including with aggressive attacks on opposing views and disinformation campaigns. The first bump in social media activity was seen around April 28, fired up by the burning of a gym in Churachandpur that the state’s chief minister was due to inaugurate. The next spurt happened on May 3 following the violence triggered after several tribal groups held a protest against a demand by Meitei groups for ST status.
The pro-Kuki-Zo community was quicker to organise. For instance, they said, 86 new accounts with high activity from the pro-Kuki-Zo side were set up in the first week of May. Pro-Meitei content saw 24 new accounts. To study the patterns and differences between how members and backers of each community have tweeted about the ethnic riots, they also looked at a set of highly engaged X users: The pro-Meitei set contained 77 accounts with 6,339 original tweets and 7,837 retweets whereas the pro-Kuki set had 308 accounts, 31,462 tweets and 94,909 retweets.
The researchers analysed 2,765,151 tweets relating to Manipur from May 1 to June 5 and found evidence of coordinated activity. Only 11.6 per cent, or 322,094 tweets, out of that total were original posts.
Well, we once would like to reiterate that it has always been a war of perceptions right from the beginning of the ethnic strife or before it actually began on May 3. Another thing which had emerged from the study is about the spurt of media activity which preceded the May 3 violence.
Right from Day One, the Kuki-Zo narrative centred around ‘victimhood’ in which the state government led by BJP Chief Minister N Biren Singh was the villain ‘who spewed hate while usurping lands which belong to tribals.’ The Kukis tried wooing the Nagas through the platform of All Tribal Students Union Manipur (ATSUM) in the May 3 Tribal Solidarity rally. The Naga students did organise rallies in district HQs, but it all ended peacefully.
On the other hand, it was a gross display of anti-Biren and anti-Meitei rhetoric and violence before and after May 3 all the way in Churachandpur and Kangpokpi besides Moreh. The Kuki bodies and their MLAs have every right to express their misgivings and air grievances against the Chief Minister N Biren Singh and his policies.
But, the whole Meitei community should not have been dragged into the mess and the High Court ruling on ST status for Meiteis was not so much of a game-changer as made out to be. Somewhere, there is a missing link or ‘unseen hand’ which sucked the Meitei community as a whole into the ethnic cauldron.
The Meitei population, including land and properties in Churachandpur, Kangpokpi and Moreh, was targeted on Day One itself. A fake narrative of Meiteis burning a gate supposedly honouring martyrs during Kuki rebellion (in their words, Anglo-Kuki War) was spread far and wide. When Meiteis retaliated the next day, the narrative of victimhood began in right earnest which was grabbed by headline hungry anchors in the national media. The narrative was further pushed internationally at UN forums, European Union and numerous Christian lobbies.
