IT News
Imphal, June 8:
All sort of thing that has been happening in Manipur is the direct impact of the primarily counter-insurgency oriented policies of the Government of India, said a statement of the Indigenous Peoples’ Front of Manipur (IPFM) signed by its advisor Jagat Thoudam.
Justifying its statement Jagat Thoudam stated that the deep involvement of the Assam Rifles (AR), the best counter-insurgency force in India, in the present crisis in Manipur is a perfect example.
“According to the Assam Rifles Act and Assam Rifles Rules 2001 (amended), it has three key roles. The first role is providing security of the 1643 Km long Indo-Myanmar borders (IMB). One third of its approximately 67,000 personnel (47 battalions) are deployed in this task. Second role is counter-insurgency operations in areas specified. And finally, its role is to aid civil authorities for maintenance of law and order,” the IPFM statement said.
The statement said that guarding of IMB by AR instead of the Border Security Force or any other agency specialised for border security points towards handling the border security to an agency which has the expertise of counter-insurgency. The crisis of Manipur revolves around this same force in itself proves that the crisis is all about counter-insurgency. Precisely, on this count, the Suspension of Operation (SoO) with the Kuki Militant outfits has resulted in providing the room for making them grow rapidly manipulating the system under the nose of AR, which fits into counter-insurgency operations of the Indian Military, it added and said that a very important issue in the present crisis is about the policy of Government of India towards the people of Manipur especially the Meiteis. The chains of events culminating to the present crisis clearly illustrate the continuation of the Indian perspective of looking at Manipur from the point of view of counter-insurgency.
The statement by the IPFM said that the policy measures are tilted towards facing the highly inflated threat to national security rather than nurturing an integrative value or policy. This is despite some laudable attempts made by the BJP Government at New Delhi. For example, the Union Home Minister Amit Shah on 16th October, 2021 on eve of renaming of Mount Harriet to Mount Manipur at the Andamans as tribute to the freedom fighters of Manipur acknowledged that Manipur was the only Princely State that had its own constitution before India adopted the present constitution in 1950. Deriving power from this Constitution, Manipur established a democratic form of Government. Very sadly Manipur was reduced to the status of a District after merger to India in 1949 and put under a Chief Commissioner appointed by the Central Government as the head of the Administration of Manipur. Manipur as an Asiatic power before Anglo-Manipur War of 1891 was acknowledged by the judgement of the Calcutta High Court in 1885 as, “Manipur was an Asiatic power in alliance with Queen Empress” (Quoted by Prof. Gangmumei Kamei in A History of Modern Manipur 1826-2000, published in 2016). However, instead of recognising this unique position of Manipur and approaching the insurgency issue politically, like Union Home Minister Amit Shah is doing, Policy of Government of India dominated by the Security/military experts continue to look at the Meiteis very suspiciously who use their unique constitutional position of the pre-Merger days demanding restoration of its lost sovereignty from India. What needs to ponder here is how a population of Meiteis, majority of whom were devout Hindus with strong cultural and religious connections to mainland India got alienated and took up arms against the Indian State.
