Dear Karan (Thapar),
This is a nice interview, sharp and interrogative as always. However, I respond only because you mentioned an article by me in The Asian Age on the crisis and since the reference was only to a passage, I thought I needed to put certain things in perspective. I wrote five articles for different mainstream newspapers, all on request, and since it was one for each, I had to touch on the background in all of them therefore some overlaps were inevitable. However, I suggest you also read the first of these articles I wrote for the Indian Express, for that has a little more on the forest eviction issue you particularly zoomed in on.
There are altogether 59 Reserved Forests and Protected Forests, under the Manipur Forest Department. As you would know, Reserved Forests are those in which no activities are allowed except those permitted by forest authorities, and Protected Forests are those in which those already living in them are permitted to carry on with all their activities except those prohibited by the authorities. Among these is setting up of new villages.
There are also 19 more proposed reserved and protected forests. I have the full set of documents compiled and published in a volume by the Manipur Forest Department. At the very onset, let me also clarify that in the top bureaucracy of the Manipur Forest Department, there are no Meiteis now and seldom been in the past, lest these figures come to be seen as Meitei orchestrations.
The case of the eviction of K Songjang village was mentioned, so a little more on this. This evicted village of 15 houses was located in the Churachandpur-Khoupum Protected Forest.
According to a Manipur Forest Department clarification, the village claimed it was an extension of Kungpi Naosen, a village recognized in 1926, though they are 2.5 km apart.
According to satellite imageries, K Songjang did not exist in 2020, had three houses in 2021 and 15 houses in 2022.
This Protected Forest was declared in 1966 though the intent to do so was notified in 1950 and surveys and negotiations followed.
In 1950, Manipur was a Part-C state and not even a Union Territory. In 1966 it was a full-fledged Union Territory with a territorial council introduced in 1956. In other words, these decisions were of the Indian Parliament.
Earlier still, the Kingdom of Manipur started its reserved forest declarations from 1913, after its defeat by the British in 1891 to become a Protectorate State, and a new colonial styled administrative mechanism introduced.
Initially, these were in the valley area, such as Cheiraoching, Nongmaiching, Chingeiching, Waithouching etc., before extending the policy to the hill areas as well.
Most of these forests were uninhabited at the time. The consultative processes with those settled in and around these proposed sites before making the final declarations usually extended 10 to 15 years.
After Manipur’s merger with India in 1949, the Government of India decided to adopt and absorbed the policy.
You had mention that I wrote Kukis suffered from a sense of persecution, accentuated by the forest eviction move of the government. Some figures are telling.
Since 2015, the government has evicted 24 villages, either partially or fully, depending on the state of encroachment, totalling 413 houses. Of these 24 villages, only K Songjang is Kuki. Most of them are Meitei, Meitei Pangal (Muslim) and Kabui Nagas mostly in the valley area. Others are mix of different communities, including Nepalis.
There are many more things I would have like to clarify, but let me restrict myself to just two more. One is that there are more Naga villages in the valley than there are Kuki settlements.
Kabui Naga villages are the oldest and are spread across the valley while Kukis are generally in the urban areas.
So the May 3 violence could also easily have been between Nagas and Meiteis, but this was not the case.
In the past, there have been dangerous tensions between Meiteis and Nagas too, but they did not resort to extreme responses as arson attacks on each other, as happened in Churachandpur on May 3 afternoon, the fire from which spread to bring the tragedy the state is faced with today.
I am not defending the condemnable spread of the fire, but it is also important to know where the fire started.
One more point before I conclude on the growth of Kuki population from 1901 to 2011. The base you have taken may be a little faulty.
In 1901, there was a category called “Any Kuki Tribe” into which the British fitted all tribes they did not think were Nagas. In later years many in this category denied they were Kukis and left.
If those who left this category were to be subtracted from the figure in 1901, probably the Kuki’s number would be smaller then. But let me throw in a qualifier. Percentage can be deceptive. One unit becoming two units is a 100 per cent growth though in number it is just an increase by one unit. But one crore units growing by one per cent is an increase by one lakh units. In other words, the growth in actual numbers of Kukis may still be very small, even if the percentage of growth is more than what you presumed.
I hope there is an inquiry done to get the full truth out before rash decisions foretelling more tragedies for the state are meditated.
The state has seen many cataclysmic communal blood-letting before, but things were allowed to heal so that worse consequences are avoided.
For the sake of everybody in the state, and to save further trauma of permanent dislocations, thousands would be subjected to, I hope all displaced are given the confidence to return to their homes, and however hard it may be, to begin the healing process.
The government has failed miserably in this, but there are ways to tackle this too. To insist, there is no way out, seems almost like there were always politicians waiting for such an opportunity to push their private agendas.
(Pradip Phanjoubam is the founder editor of Imphal Free Press and presently editor of Imphal Review of Arts & Politics | Pradip’s letter is in response to Karan Thapar’s latest interview on Manipur crisis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-r6_BeyD_I&t=5s)
