IN-DEPTH: India Faces a Narrative War Over Unrest in Violence-Torn Border State

A woman walks through the wreckage of a building that was set on fire and vandalized by mobs in Khumujamba village on the outskirts of Churachandpur on May 9, 2023, in an area hit by violence in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. Arun Sankar/AFP via Getty Images

NEW DELHI—India is witnessing record violence in Manipur, a state bordering Burma, also known as Myanmar. The situation has come to a head, as India’s parliament authorized a vote of no-confidence in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his reaction to the crisis.

Burma’s extremist groups and displaced civilians, under the heat of the country’s civil war, are infiltrating India and destabilizing the border state, experts say. The situation worsened after the military junta took over in 2021 and began counter-insurgency operations.

In a complex turn of events since May 3, Manipur, which shares nearly 250 miles of forested and extremely porous border with Burma, has witnessed violent clashes between the majority Meitei, non-tribal locals, and the minority Kuki ethnicity.

Kukis, originally from Burma, are today spread across northeastern India, Bangladesh, and Burma.

The violence in Manipur, one of these northeastern states, has killed more than 150 people. Over 70,000 are displaced and have currently taken shelter in various relief camps across four northeastern Indian states, according to Rights and Risks Analysis Group, a New Delhi-based think tank.

Illegal immigrants continue to flee across the border from Burma as well, with the latest influx of 718 illegal refugees reported on July 22 and July 23.

As the tense situation continues, news of violence has been trending across news channels and social media. Among the various narratives are fake videos that have attempted to paint the ethnic conflict in religious terms.

Experts told The Epoch Times the false narratives will fuel wider polarization in Indian society. The situation is threatening long-term peace in the region, they say, and fuels what amounts to a malign influence campaign against India, a country in which social and religious identities have traditionally been a sensitive issue.

Last week, the crisis reached the Indian Parliament, where the majority government of Mr. Modi will soon face a no-confidence motion on the issue. The date of that motion will be decided on July 31.

An Indian army soldier walks past the remains of a house that was set on fire by a mob in an area hit by ethnic violence, in Senapati district, in India's Manipur state, on May 8, 2023.  Arun Sankar/AFP via Getty Images

Atrocities Ignite Global Outrage

Mr. Modi was forced to break his silence on the rising violence after a Meitei mob snatched two men and three women from a Kuki village. The mob killed the two men, then stripped and sexually assaulted two of the women, including the wife of a veteran who fought for India in the 1999 India–Pakistan conflict.

A trending video of the mob parading the women through the streets went viral on July 20, leading to global outrage.

Women have in fact been most victimized by the conflict.

Even elderly women have not been spared, as in the case of an 80-year-old Meitei grandmother—the widow of a hero of India’s pre-independence struggle against the British—who was burnt alive in her home, allegedly by a Kuki mob. Her family claimed they could only find her head for cremation, according to local reports.

The violence has also badly impacted inter-ethnic couples, many of whom are forced to live separately for fear of reprisal.

Violence against inter-ethnic couples has led to atrocities like that of an injured 7-year-old boy who was burned alive in an ambulance along with his mother, who was a Meitei. The boy’s father was a Kuki.

The issue has reached global multilateral forums like the European Parliament, which condemned the violence and adopted an “urgency resolution“ concerning the matter on July 12.

However, the legislative body described the violence as “intolerance towards religious and belief minorities, including Christians.”

In response, India called the resolution “interference in India’s internal affairs“ and described the European Parliament’s attitude as one motivated by a ”colonial mindset.”

The U.S. State Department also condemned the viral video of the sexual assault of the two Kuki women, and released a cautionary travel alert for U.S. citizens traveling in the region.

Protests Against ‘Scheduled Tribe’ Status

The unrest began percolating when Manipur’s High Court suggested that the state’s government give the majority Meitei community “scheduled tribe” status.

Scheduled tribes are among the most disadvantaged socio-economic groups in India. The Indian Constitution lays down certain principles of affirmative action for members of scheduled tribes, such as hiring preferences, university quotas, and educational benefits.

The special status would also let members of the Meitei community buy land in the hills populated by Kukis and other tribal groups.

The Kuki, who already enjoy a scheduled tribes (ST) status, began protesting against sharing reservation benefits with the Meitei.

A protest was called by the “All Tribal Students’ Union of Manipur” (ATSUM) on May 3 in the hilly districts of Manipur. ATSUM has a history of calling protests seeking more financial and administrative autonomy for the hill districts that share a border with Burma.

While the May 3 protest remained largely peaceful in many districts, it turned violent in four, leading to reports of arson, vandalism, and violent confrontations.

Since then the violence has been sporadic, killing dozens, displacing thousands, and causing 17,000 police to be deployed.

In just one month starting May 3, the violent mobs destroyed 1,988 Meitei homes, 1,425 Kuki homes, 17 temples, and 221 churches.

The ethnic violence has further increased challenges to Manipur’s already struggling economy.

High Court Suggestion Leads to Violence

Rami N. Desai, an author, anthropologist, and scholar with 15 years of field experience in India’s northeast regions, told The Epoch Times that the High Court had simply given a suggestion. By itself, the court has no authority to give ST status to the Meitei community.

A recommendation on the issue of ST status for the Meitei people had been pending in the government for a decade. The situation turned tense when the court directed the Manipur government to consider the inclusion of the Meitei community on the ST list expeditiously, preferably within a period of four weeks.

The Meitei and Kuki peoples historically have an ethnic rivalry, Ms. Desai said; however, the violence is largely triggered by fringe elements.

“You will realize that there has been some amount of mistrust between these communities,” Ms. Desai said, noting that a push by Manipur’s chief minister to remove illegal settlements from the state’s protected forests was not well received.

Activists from the All Tribal Students Union Manipur (ATSUM) hold placards during a protest amid ongoing ethnic violence in Manipur, in New Delhi, on May 31, 2023. Arun Sankar/AFP via Getty Images

Illegal Settlers a Factor in Tension

Illegal settlers from across Burma are another factor aggravating the tense situation, according to Indian authorities. Sharing ethnic roots with the Kukis, over 2,000 illegal settlers from Burma are already living in Manipur, according to reports. The recent batch of 718 refugees caused fresh panic.

Ms. Desai said while 40,000 refugees are registered in the neighboring Indian state of Mizoram, the actual numbers in Manipur are not known because they are unregistered with state and U.N. agencies.

India’s settlement policies for Kuki refugees from Burma started as early as 1968. The Epoch Times obtained copies of two letters from the Manipur administration, dated June 6, 1968, “regarding re-settlement of Kuki refugees from Burma.” The two letters are widely circulating on social media.

Vinit Naik, a Mumbai-based political analyst and finance professor, told The Epoch Times over the phone that the Kuki settlement in Manipur was started by India’s first political party, the Indian National Congress. The resettlement policies were a continuation of colonial British policies. Over time, the Kuki population substantially increased in numbers, gaining more political influence.

“Now those refugees are burning villages of Meiteis and want a separate state of their own,” Mr. Naik alleged.

Some of the Kuki groups have called for a separate state within India. These groups also support the resettlement of Burmese refugees in India. They allege that the current Manipur government, led by Mr. Modi’s Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), intends to label genuine Indian Kuki tribes as illegal immigrants.

The government has a different story to tell. A ministerial subcommittee said in a June report that illegal Burmese immigrants had set up their own villages. These settlers were adverse to living in government-established shelters, the report said.

“The illegal immigrants have raised strong objections to the proposal, and it is one of the reasons for the violence that broke out recently,” said the report, available through the Indo-Asian News Service.

Illegal Poppy Cultivation

The issue of illegal settlers from across Burma is further compounded in Manipur because of the large-scale illegal cultivation of poppy in some of the illegal refugee settlements. Furthermore, some of these settlements are also in reserved jungles, which are accorded a certain degree of protection under the Indian constitution.

A release by the Manipur Home Department on May 16 said that 873 Burmese Kuki-Chin migrants, 1,083 Muslims, and 381 Meitei growers were arrested by Manipur police for illegal poppy cultivation and drug trafficking between 2017 and 2023.

As part of its increasing campaign against illegal poppy cultivation, the state government destroyed ​​15,496 acres of poppies, of which over 13,000 acres were located in the Kuki-Chin community.

Activists of the Tamil Nadu Youth Congress take part in a demonstration against ongoing ethnic violence in India's north-eastern state of Manipur, in Chennai on July 21, 2023. India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on July 20 that the country has been "shamed" by a video showing a mob parading two women naked in a northeastern state where ethnic violence has claimed many lives. R.Satish Babu/AFP via Getty Images

Anuradha Oinam wrote in an analysis last year for New Delhi-based Centre for Land Warfare Studies that drug trafficking is not a new trend in Manipur. The growing illegal cultivation of poppy is a threat to India as a whole, particularly the northeast region of India that shares borders with Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, China, and Burma.

“Drug mafias or drug kingpins have developed a strong network with Manipur and Myanmar to smuggle poppy out to [the] Golden Triangle and vice versa,” said Dr. Oinam. The “golden triangle” refers to one of Asia’s principal areas of illegal drug trade—the area between China, Thailand, Laos, and Burma.

Ms. Desai said the issues of reservation and land rights, ethnic mistrust, the illegal influx of Burmese refugees, and illegal opium cultivation have together resulted in the current violence.

Meanwhile, on June 15, the National Unity Government, a Burmese government-in-exile formed by anti-coup and pro-democracy activists, issued a public notice to Burmese immigrants in India to stay out of the illegal trafficking of drugs and wild animals. Refugees were advised to “be cautious and avoid unnecessary involvement in political and administrative matters of the state where they are taking refuge.”

Misleading Narratives

The violence in Manipur has triggered fresh threats for the rest of the country as fake videos trending on social media tend to misinform, polarize opinion, and instigate strife, according to experts and Indian reports.

Among the many videos widely circulating is the graphic roadside execution of a teen girl. The video was investigated by the BBC, which said it was not the “killing of a Kuki woman by armed men, presumed to be from the Meitei community,” and didn’t happen in Manipur but in neighboring Burma, in June 2022.

The Epoch Times found the same video circulating in north India with misleading messages that indicate that the girl was a Hindu and the killers were “Christian Kuki.”

A misleading message circulating on social media portraying the graphic, violent June 2022 video of a girl's killing in Burma as the killing of a girl in Manipur. This message describing the girl as a Meitei being killed in "ISIS style" was found in a WhatsApp group in India's northern border region, Jammu. Venus Upadhayaya/Epoch Times

Some reports also suggest that international drug cartels are behind the larger violence.

“Being a bordering state, these situations are being taken advantage of by our adversaries. It suits them to fund fake news and circulate [it] within India to create social unrest within the country,” retired Vice Admiral Shekhar Sinha, former chief of India’s integrated defense staff, told The Epoch Times.

Ms. Desai said that the situation in Manipur is unique in the world, and cautioned against portraying either of the two communities as completely violent.

“There’s some sort of external agency at hand in it. Right now, we are not clear. Investigations are still on, one can only conjecture at best at what may have happened. And that when the two communities clashed, there was violence against each other,” she said. “But obviously, there are fringe elements, making either of the communities sound very, very violent.”

Vice Adm. Sinha said that with India’s national security in mind, conclusions must be drawn with care. Misleading narratives distract from real issues needing resolution, he said.