Selective Outrage, Selective Targeting: The Politics of Othering in Manipur

Thongkholal Haokip

Economic and Political Weekly, 2024.

In this article I discuss the politics of othering that has emerged from the war on drugs and
emergent forest policy in Manipur. While the war on drugs is not only anachronistic in its
approach but also selective in its outrage, the forest policy is mainly the re-manifestation of the
old colonial interest of enclosing the commons and establishing complete state control over the
forests. This renewed attempt at reservation of forests has been selective in its target thereby
engulfing the state once again into the long-drawn ethnic politics, leading to further
marginalisation of the hill communities. To conceal this selectiveness there is an attempt to build
a dominant narrative of demonising and pitting against marginal communities with impunity.
This disparity and deep seated prejudice have resulted in ethnic othering and thus exacerbating
ethnic tensions and widening polarisation in the state.

Keywords: War against drugs, forest policy, eviction drive, othering, selective outrage, selective
targeting, Manipur.

On 4 March 2023 the entire members of Manipur State Assembly unanimously undertook a
resolution and declared themselves as “warriors” of the “war on drugs”. 1 Armed with the
adoption of the global “war on drugs” campaign as a slogan, Manipur government has been
fighting the menace of drug trafficking and illicit poppy cultivation in the state since 2018.
Linking rampant illicit poppy cultivation to deforestation and encroachment of reserved forests,
protected forests and wild life sanctuaries, the state government also launched a drive to evict the
alleged encroachers. This allegation of encroachment arises only after an order that set aside the
exclusion of villages in the large swathe of mountainous forests from the proposed protected
forests four decades back. However, these attempts ended up in being selective in its outrage in
the war on drugs and also largely being selective in targeting who will be evicted. Thus the
issues have been stomped nosily and politicised along ethnic lines.
The prevalence of drugs menace in Manipur is largely due to the durable political
disorder and economic backwardness in the state, and coupled by its proximity to the golden
triangle and enduring political turmoil in Myanmar. The long and porous border with Myanmar,
its only neighbouring country – riddled with poor governance, durable armed conflicts and
general indigence, and once again a pariah state, is not effectively monitored. This proximity to
the golden triangle - a mountainous areas of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand which is regarded as
one of the world’s largest opium-producing areas, and Manipur being a natural gateway is one of
the preferred routes for both legal and illegal trade and transport, the problem of drug trafficking
has never subsided in this border state over the decades. Indeed, the golden triangle can be
literally extended to include Manipur hills as opium producing area today due to large scale
poppy plantations in the last two decades.

Uneven development and the illicit cultivation

In the discourse on uneven geographical development, capital is said to produce “the real spatial
scales” of uneven development, which “is social inequality blazoned into the geographical

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landscape”, and the simultaneous “exploitation of that geographical unevenness for certain
socially determined ends” (Smith 2008: 7, 206). Though Smith explores the geography of
capitalism to unravel spatial inequality, this framework is useful to understand politics in
economically dependent states in India with a geographical binary of the urban valley and the
rural hinterland in the hills. This capital, in the case of special category states in India, is the
“grants” that comes annually from the union government due to its non-viable nature of state
finances, and in the case of Manipur which is 90 per cent of the annual budget. 2 These grants are
controlled through maintaining status quo to the existing political and financial institutions of the
state. Furthermore, there is stark difference between the proposed budget and spending in all
departments between the hills and valley, where the proposals are high and the actual spending
abysmally low for the hills. For instance in the Department of Forests and Environment, proposal
for 2017-2018 was 40.85 crore for hills, and 70.90 crore for the valley. The expenditure actually
incurred was 19 crore for hills and 66 crore for the valley. This is a department where more than
90 per cent of the forests are located in the hills. On an average all budgets in the hills had less
than 50 per cent actual spending. 3
While developing a theoretical model on economic backwardness Acemoglu and
Robinson (2006: 115) explore the tendency of ethnic groups and political elites to block
institutional development because of what they call, a “political replacement effect”. The anxiety
over this effect is high, wherein “political elites will block beneficial economic and institutional
change when they are afraid that these changes will destabilize the existing system and make it
more likely that they will lose political power and future rents”. In financially unviable states like
Manipur this is achieved through opposition to delimitation in the state and demand for inclusion
of autonomous district councils in the Sixth Schedule (Haokip 2022). Left in the lurch from
enjoying the developmental pie and the increasing gap of uneven development, the longstanding
economic marginalisation forced many in the hills to resort to illicit poppy cultivation. It is an
alternative livelihood for those who have been left-out in trickle-down benefits from the
“capital” infused from New Delhi.

Of drugs and feign ignorance

The Special Cell of Delhi Police on 17 February 2023 nab two “key supplier[s] of international
narco drug cartel” and recovered from the duo “50 kgs [of] opium, worth more than 10 crore in
international market, [which] was brought from Manipur”. 4 When this news reached Manipur the
state Congress party vociferously demanded CBI inquiry. 5 The demand was mainly to uncover
the larger potential racket in this drug haul and address the problem of rampant drug trafficking
in the state, even among those in political power as certain cases earlier had indicated.
Since he came to power in 2017 the Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh attempted to
end the illicit poppy cultivation and drug trafficking in the state. The “war on drugs” that was
launched during his earlier tenure has been continued with renewed vigour in the second term.
As a part of this commitment he posted in his social media handles about the nabbing of drug
peddlers and details of contraband substances seized and also about destruction of poppy
cultivation sites day in, day out, in addition to the police department doing the same
simultaneously. Notwithstanding this proclivity he not only was conspicuously putting the Delhi
drug haul case under the rug by avoiding to post in social media, but was silent on the demand by
the state’s Congress party for a CBI inquiry into the case. There were several reminders by
concerned social media users about the Delhi drug haul case in response to his feign ignorance
despite the Chief Minister being known for replying often to those who interact with him on

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other issues. The flagrant obliviousness in certain cases yet quick, vocal and elaborately
providing details in other cases are crass exhibition of biasness and selective outrage to certain
section of people.
In the state of Manipur the linkage between drug trafficking and insurgency is well
established. 6 However the linkage between politicians and drug trafficking is yet to be properly
explored and studied despite being frequently discussed, debated and reported in the media.
Notwithstanding this, one of the top priorities of the state government is to end the endemic
problem of drug trafficking and illicit poppy cultivation. In the past religious organisations urged
the state government to provide alternative livelihoods to poppy farmers. The problem of poppy
cultivation in the hills of Manipur is largely a crisis of agriculture (Haokip 2020), and mostly a
result of neglect. In his study Kipgen (2019) claims that poppy farmers “are hitherto excluded
from development initiatives in the state” and argues that “the fight against opium poppy
production in Manipur can be won only if economically viable alternatives are provided to
farmers”. While questioning the efficacy of direct compensation schemes, Sangpui and
Kapngaihlian (2021) pointed out that the state government “promised to provide compensation to
those farmers whose crop (poppy) was destroyed during the police raid”, yet “when farmers
visited the concerned office to claim the compensation, they were tagged as ‘kaani victims’”.
They strongly made it clear that this kind of stereotypical categorisation “has made them uneasy
as it is offensive to them”. During the course of time there emerged a binary, of “those who want
to see the state provid[ing] alternative means of livelihood, and those who want total elimination
of illicit poppy cultivation with the use of brute force”. And “such views” are now “almost neatly
run along ethnic lines, thereby exacerbating division” (Haokip 2021: 11). Several studies around
the world have indicated that there is “huge damage wrought on poor and marginalised
communities by the war on drugs” (Meehan 2021).
The initial approach of UN to address illicit cultivation shifted from crop substitution in
the 1970s to integrated rural development in the 1980s, which “aimed at improving the overall
quality of life of the target population by addressing not only income but also education, health,
infrastructure and social services” of the cultivators (UNDCP 1993: 1). This “broader rural
development approach was required to address the factors driving cultivation in illicit drug
economies, the lack of marketing infrastructure, public services and agricultural know-how”
(UNDOC 2015: 80).

Enclosure of the commons: The encroachers and stereotyping

When colonial forestry began in India during the late eighteenth century, “forests were
increasingly viewed as an asset of the state with great commercial potential” (Poffenberger and
Singh, 1996: 58), which the first forest Act in 1865 mainly facilitated the acquisition of certain
forest areas to the state (Gadgil and Guha 1992: 108). This intention is what Gadgil and Guha
(1992: 109) call “annexationist” during the debate on the formulation of the 1878 Forest Act,
which “held out for nothing less than total state control over all forest areas”. Thus “the
predominant thrust of the colonial forest department was towards appropriation and
centralization of forest resources to serve the needs of an expanding capitalist economy” (Sundar
2000: 257). On the other hand, the populists view totally opposed state interference and was in
favour of giving exclusive right of forests to peasants. Besides these two extreme and totally
opposite views there were pragmatists who argued for state control of ecologically sensitive
forests and leaving the rest to village communities. Even a century and half later, as seen in the
case of Manipur, the two extreme positions on forest - the annexationists and populists, continue.

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 When a special order was issued by the forest department of Manipur government on 7
November 2022 setting aside the orders passed in objection cases by the then Assistant
Settlement Officer (ASO) between 1971 to 1988 which excluded villages and their lands from
the proposed protected forests and reserved forests, suddenly many tribal residents in the hills
become encroachers or trespassers. It claims that “orders passed in the objection cases”, about
four decades back were “technically imperfect, defective, erroneous and unacceptable”, and
hence the whole forest areas are “property of the Government of Manipur and the State
government has proprietary rights to the whole of the forest produce”. Thus eviction drives were
carried out by the state’s forest department after 37 years the objections were accepted. This is in
contradiction to the established tenet of India’s tribal policy which restricts “imposing anything
on them” by not over administering tribal territory, and specifically seek to respect their “rights
in land and forests”; however the evictions were carried out through the brute force of state
power. 7 Furthermore, the coincidence of the eviction drives with water stress months
exacerbated the problems, and the blame to such emergent circumstances also went to the
various illicit and traditional farming practices in the hills which lowland states have been
historically accustomed to in blaming and lambasting during such times.
What is conspicuous in this case is that among 36 reserved forests and 22 protected
forests in 14 forests divisions of the state, the state government is particular on certain forest
divisions such as Kangpokpi and Churachandpur districts and was made the target of eviction
drives. In order to give more teeth to the forest department the forest guards are newly equipped
with arms. As per reports on 7 March 2023 forest guards of six forest divisions of the state are
trained at Manipur Police Training College, Pangei, for arms handling and operation. 8 These are
in contradiction to the National Forest Policy of 1988 which attempts to associate tribal people in
joint forest management along with forest officials. The joint forest management is based on
mutual trust and defined roles and responsibilities for each of them. The policy goes on to the
extent of conferring tribals with certain ownership rights over trees, and vesting the rights of
felling trees to tribal institutions. This selective targeting also corresponds to ethnicity. As the
government is now entangled in these selective biases it will be hard to engage the aggrieved
tribal communities in a joint forest management programmes in future. With this the whole effort
to achieve sustainable forest management will be hard to achieve as various studies show in
other parts of the world that community-led forest management not only helps in maintaining
sustainable forestry but also recover forest cover as well.
The said office memorandum on 7 November 2022 by the forest department which cited
the decision of the state cabinet to appoint authority “to recommend measures for
rehabilitation/relocation”; however, such relocation and rehabilitation measures were never
carried out when K. Songjang in Churachandpur district villagers were evicted on 20 February
2023. Instead during the eviction metal sheet roofings and logs of the dismantled houses were
even confiscated. Apart from the historical injustice of evicting them from their habitat, they
were not even given the restorative justice that is needed if they are alleged to be encroachers.
Contrary to the quagmire in Manipur recently, about two decades back the Ministry of
Environment and Forests on 21 December 2004 issued a letter to all states and union territories
recognising the “traditional rights of tribals on forest lands”. Regarding this the Ministry said:
“no effective steps were taken (since independence) to simultaneously settle the rights of tribals
and other forests dwellers. Absence of records of rights which never existed for these people,
became the main constraint in resolving this issue. As a result, the rural people, especially tribals
and forest dwellers who have been living in the forest since time immemorial, have come to be

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erroneously looked upon as encroachers of forest lands.” Despite such advisory, the continued
discriminatory treatments lie at the heart of the ongoing political unrest in the hills of Manipur.
As per section 4(3) of The Indian Forest Act 1927, the state government is given the
power to appoint officers for the said purpose in which “one of whom shall be a person holding
any forest-office… to perform the duties of a Forest Settlement-officer under this Act”. In the
absence of the FSO it was the ASO that was the competent authority to decide as per the
provision in section 4(3) of the said Act. The forest act is wrongly weaponised to disposes tribals
of their land and forest. It demonstrated how dominant state agenda is bulldozed through state
power.

Unfairness and the legitimate expectation

These new grounds of review are unfair to the hill communities as they owned the land and
forests for more than a century. To them the “cancellation of orders for setting aside forest areas
in favour of different village(s)” lacks legitimate expectation, legal certainty and devoid of the
principles of natural justice. Regarding this Elliott (2003: 71) observes that, “The principles of
legitimate expectation and estoppel, which entitle individuals to rely upon official practice and
statements, are rooted in notions of fairness and legal certainty, and serve to promote public trust
in governmental institutions and the quality of public administration”. Thus “it remains possible
in exceptional circumstances to invoke promissory or proprietary estoppel against public
authorities” (Bamforth 1998: 196). Even if the “ASOs were not authorized or empowered to
exclude the lands from PF (protected forest)”, the “binding effect of unauthorised representations
remains a possibility” (Elliott 2003: 74). As in the case of English jurisprudence “the older cases
had invoked estoppel principles because ‘the public law concepts of abuse of power and
legitimate expectation were very undeveloped and no doubt the analogy of estoppel seemed
useful’” (Elliott 2003: 76). Hence the cases fall within “a very limited exception to the principle
of legality” in the operation of estoppel. In India the evolving doctrine of legitimate expectation,
as Jain and Deshpande (2019: 72, 63) claim, “is one of the founding values under guarding rights
against arbitrary administrative actions and due process of law”. It “can be invoked as an
interpretive standard as well as to concretize the abstract language of fundamental rights in part
III of the Indian Constitution”.

The protest and ethnic othering

To protest against such unfairness and discriminatory treatments peaceful protest rallies were
organised on 10 March 2023 by student and community-based organisations in Churachandpur,
Kangpokpi and Tengnoupal districts. However, the state government issued prohibitory orders in
the districts despite India’s constitutional guarantee of the right to assemble peacefully. In
defiance to the prohibitory orders the peaceful public protests were accomplished in front of,
what Scott (1990: 18) calls, “the intimidating gaze of power”. These public protests signify their
non-acceptance to the enclosure of their forests. The state government, instead of brining some
understanding to the predicament of the hill people, only increased the process of othering. As
Alon and Omer (2006: ix) aptly discuss about a negative spiraling in conflicting situation: “the
harsher the conflict, the more we tend to demonize the opponent”; the main intention of othering
is to exclude and demonise them, and is driven politically and promoted by hegemonic
institutions in the state.
When the whole protesters are collectively demonised as “poppy planters and forest
encroachers” and illegal immigrants, it becomes much easier for the government to evict them

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from their lands. 9 Such brazen stereotypical representation was evident when the Chief Minister
harangued, in an interview with Northeast Live television on 10 March 2023, saying: “these
people are encroaching everywhere. The indigenous communities are cooperating with the
government and only few illegal immigrants wanted to expand poppy plantation and drug
business”. 10 Powell asserted that: “demographics play a crucial role in the process of othering”,
and the political instability in Myanmar and influx of Myanmarese in the border areas of
Manipur is adding fuel to the fire, and it is “used to divide and dehumanise groups, and capture
and reshape government and institutions”. As in the case of United States during Trump regime,
“the rhetoric and language coming from” Manipur’s Chief Minister “has begun to both define
and normalise othering”. His language now “not only activates people’s anxiety and fear around
a perceived other, it creates new processes of exclusion and dehumanization” (Powell 2017).
The engagement in stereotyping and demonisation process arises out of the reluctance to
recognise economic backwardness and abject poverty in the hills that led to illicit crop
cultivation. It reaffirms the anxiety over the political replacement effect and thus the perpetuation
of uneven development so that political and economic power remains with a certain group. This
indulgence in selective outrage and targeting while playing feigning ignorance to some indicate
the implicit bias, and the entanglement of the political leadership in segregation and unfair
treatment to some has communalised the whole issue. This is only counterproductive to the
whole effort to achieve a drugs free society and sustainable forestry. Only a fair handling of
similar and related issues without prejudice can bring about harmony and social justice, and also
simultaneously achieve the goals.
In his discussion on predatory theory of state Douglass North argues that good
institutions will “provide checks against expropriation by the government or other politically
powerful groups” (cited in Acemoglu and Johnson 205: 950). The continuing eviction drives, the
ongoing demonisation and the selective outrages imply the absence of good institutions in India
in general and Manipur in particular. It has become what Galbraith (2008) calls “the predator
state” for certain interest of the dominant group. To defuse this predicament the state government
needs to rethink its policies. What is needed is a selective targeting for integrated rural
development and selective outrage on any delay in the implementation of such rural development
initiatives. This will not only reduce uneven development so as to steer the state ahead into the
future, but will also could result in inclusive policies which will bring about belongingness and
equitable results in the social and environmental concerns of the state.

Sexual Violence as Weapon

In the morning of 4 May 2023, fake news was spread in social media that Meitei women were
raped openly by Kukis in Churachandpur. 11 A day later the Manipur Police chief clarified that,
“no rape cases are reported in Churachandpur”. 12 Another similar misinformation was also
spread alleging that a Meitei nurse was raped and killed in Churachandpur. However, The Quint
revealed that the alleged viral graphic image of the woman was from a November 2022 case
where “a woman’s body was found in a red suitcase near Yamuna expressway in Mathura”. 13
These fake news and misinformation created a charged environment of counter sexual assault as
revenge – a form of the community’s retributive justice. Several sexual violence that were
committed on Kuki women that day were reported in different parts of Imphal valley. Despite the
reports of sexual violence in various media outlets acts, there was no collective outrage, unlike
the Nirbhaya case of 2012, as it remained, to use Baxi’s words, a “public secret”. However, the
video of one of the sexual violence cases emerged on 19 July 2023, wherein two women who

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were paraded naked by a mob of Nongpok Sekmai in Thoubal district. It took two and half
months for the viral video to emerge as mobile internet was banned since the evening of 4 May
and a week later all fiber-optic internet services were also included in the ban. When the graphic
viral video emerged there was more concern with the video - who shot the video and distributed
it, rather than the sexual violence. Several twitter posts that upload the video, including those in
media reports and panel discussions that used the video, were “taken down by Twitter” and
youtube “due to the request made by the Indian government”. 14

The ordeal these two women were made to go through also subsequently emerged, wherein a
mob of Meitei community threatened the two victims saying: “If you don’t take off your clothes,
we will kill you”. 15 The perpetrators forced them to strip naked, paraded on the road, groped,
dragged to paddy field and openly gang raped one of them. During the incident one of the
victims, whose father and brother were killed by the mob, revealed that four policemen were
present at the site of violence but none of them help the duo. 16 This is one glaring case of
pervasive complaints about large scale Manipur police complicity in the violence. This happened
despite the state being one of the few Indian states to promulgate an ordinance on protection
from mob violence in 2018, and the state police has the responsibility “to prevent the
commission of all offences” under the ordinance.

The confession of K. Lata Devi, the mother of Huirem Herodas – who is the main accused of the
sexual violence, confessed that “…he said he didn’t do it with any personal motive. He did it as
part of a mob and in the interest of our (Meitei) community,” 17 This confession reveals how
boundaries are sharply drawn on ethnic lines and in conflicting situation communities in the state
amplify their divisions and are totally blind to justice and morality to serve the interest of their
respective communities. It is not just the perpetrators of sexual violence that has to be brought to
justice, but also those who have created and circulated the fake news. Those accused of
spreading fake news were let scot-free at large, when they can be punished, inter alia, for
abatement under Indian Penal Code.

With the publication of Susan Brownmiller’s work Against Our Will in 1975, “rape came to be
seen as a preferred form of political violence against women, rather than an expression of
overpowering or pathological male lust” (Baxi 2014: 140). In this seminal work Susan
Brownmiller (1975: 114) argues that “Uprisings, riots, revolutions and minor skirmishes with
racial and political overtones all have provided an outlet, and sometimes even an ideological
excuse, for men to practice rape on women”. In such circumstances of unrest there is “real-life
deployment of the penis as weapon” (Brownmiller 1975: 11). What distinguishes this case of
sexual violence is the attempt to collectively shield the perpetrators from legal sanction. On 29
July 2023, a public protest rally was held in Thoubal district organised by Apunba Club and
Meira paibis and “condemned the arrest of several accused in the recent viral video case by
Thoubal district police, and called for stopping any further arrest in the case”. 18 The report also
mentioned about the assurance given by the district administration “to stop arresting those men
involved” in the case.

The ethnic violence and demand for autonomy

Now that ethnic violence had occurred on 3 May 2023, which continued for four days and
intermittently for more than seven months, wherein more than 190 people have been killed, 310

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people injured, 1,700 houses damaged, and 60,000 people displaced, the division of Manipur on
ethnic lines through the drawing of imaginary political boundary is already done on the foothills
surrounding the Imphal valley. Political solution in the form of political decentralisation will be
the first step to bring back peace and normalcy in this state. 19 The demand for the extension of
Sixth Schedule to the hills areas has been stonewalled by Manipur government for the last 45
years. On the other hand, in the former princely state of Tripura the demand to include the
Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council into the Sixth Schedule was recommended by
the Tripura Assembly and was included in 1984 through a constitutional amendment within two
years since the demand started. The persistent demand in Manipur has been stalled by the
insistence of the state government for “local adjustment and amendments”, which is seen as a
ploy to take away the real intention of the Sixth Schedule itself, where local self governance of
the councils to control land and forest would be possibly weakened. Since the violence broke out
10 Kuki MLAs on 12 May 2023 demanded a “separate administration under the Constitution of
India”. This can be interpreted into four forms of autonomy arrangements. The lowest form is the
normal autonomy provisions under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution, which the Lai
Autonomous District Council, Mara Autonomous District Council, and Chakma Autonomous
District Council are functioning in Mizoram. Within the Sixth Schedule there is an existing
territorial council and three proposed councils, i.e. the Bodoland Territorial Council and the
proposed territorial councils in Karbi Anglong, Dima Hasao and Tripura Tribal areas under the
Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Amendment) Bill, 2019, which will give more
powers to the Councils. The other two possible autonomies under the constitution of India, which
the Kuki MLAs also later stated in their demand, are union territory with legislature, and a
separate state demand put forward by the Kuki Inpi Manipur on 13 July 2023. While the former
two autonomy frameworks will not disrupt the territorial integrity of the existing state, the latter
two need the exercise of Article 3 of the Constitution by the Indian Parliament to redraw state
boundary in the creation of a new political entity.
The Administrative Reforms Commission Report on Administration of Union Territories
and NEFA in January 1969 emphasised the need for “devising an appropriate administrative set-
up for” Manipur, Tripura and NEFA due to “the predominant tribal character of the populations”,
wherein “[t]he satisfaction of the people with the administration goes a long way towards
ensuring the objectives of national security and defence” of the country. With regard to Manipur
the Report added: “There is a substantial tribal population in this Territory mainly confined to
the hill areas. The tribal people fall into two broad ethnic groups, the Kukis and the Nagas”. And
“suggest[ed] that the system of tribal administration now prevailing in the Hill Districts of
Assam may be introduced in these tribal areas. This will mean the creation ·of two autonomous
districts for the Kuki and the Naga tribal areas. If necessary, autonomous regions can be carved
out for smaller tribal groups” (ARC 1969: 16-17). Providing a territorial council with all the
powers that are intended to such councils under the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-fifth
Amendment) Bill, 2019, will protect the interest of the Kukis and also the Nagas, as well as
preserve the territorial integrity of the state, despite the majority Meitei community has been
opposing for the last four and half decades. However, given the magnitude of the violence, the
weaponisation of rape as structural violence and the resulting differences that run so deep and the
state government not being in a position to restore order, the Central government needs to
intervene to bring lasting peace. The ball is in the court of the Central government.

Notes

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1
Manipur State Assembly has 60 members. The news was reported in The Morning Bell, “All 60
MLAs become warriors of ‘War on Drugs’ “, 4 March 2023, Viewed on 13 March 2023 at:
https://themorningbell.in/index.php/2023/03/04/all-60-mlas-become-warriors-of-war-on-drugs/
2
To know more about special category states in India, read Bhattacharjee 2016.
3
This data was revealed during Question Hour on 24 August 2021 in Manipur State Assembly.
Source: Doordarshan Manipur, “13th Session of 11th Manipur Legislative Assembly - 3rd
Sitting (24th August, 2021)”, streamed live on Aug 24, 2021 video link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfEJrVnwuUM (30:28-40:34 minute)
4
Special Cell Delhi Police twitter handle, viewed on 13 March 2023 at:
https://twitter.com/CellDelhi/status/1627593918534782976
5
The Morning Bell, “Cong demands CBI probe into Delhi drug seizure”, 24 February 2023,
viewed on 13 March 2023 at: https://themorningbell.in/index.php/2023/02/24/cong-demands-cbi-
probe-into-delhi-drug-seizure/
6
For example studies by Lian (2013) and Nepram (2002) point to this connection.
7
In foreword to the second edition of Elwin’s book, A Philosophy for NEFA published in 1959,
Nehru spelt out his “Panch Sheel” or five cardinal principles concerning the Government’s
attitude towards the tribals in order to prevent the loss of identity and culture.
8
The Morning Bell, “Forest guards now equipped with arms”, 8 March 2023, viewed on 13
March 2023 at: https://themorningbell.in/index.php/2023/03/08/forest-guards-now-equipped-
with-arms/
9
In a recent paper I discuss about conflict-induced displacements and border crossing that
occurred six decades ago, and the resettlement of such displaced people of the state is wrongly
termed as “refugees” and “immigrants” today. Read Haokip (2023) for details.
10
Northeast Live, “Manipur CM N Biren Singh speaks to Editor-in-Chief Wasbir Hussain on
Manipur Protest”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPin6LI9u9Y
11
I personally tweet this video for further reference:
https://twitter.com/th_robert/status/1681687518847315974
12
Ukhrul Times, “DGP P Doungel: No rape cases in Churachandpur; strict action against those
who snatched arms from PS”, viewed on 18 November 2023 at: https://ukhrultimes.com/dgp-p-
doungel-no-rape-cases-in-churachandpur-strict-action-against-those-who-snatched-arms-from-
ps/
13
The Quint, “Fact-Check: This Image Doesn't Show a Nurse 'Raped & Murdered' in Manipur”,
viewed on 18 November 2023 at: https://www.thequint.com/news/webqoof/aayushi-killed-by-
father-story-falsely-shared-as-meiki-nurse-raped-in-manipur-by-kuki-fact-check
14
First Post, “Manipur viral video: Police arrest fifth accused in connection with parading of two
women”, 22 July 2023, viewed at: https://www.firstpost.com/india/manipur-viral-video-police-
arrest-fifth-accused-in-connection-with-parading-of-two-women-12901592.html
15
Arunabh Saikia, “‘If you don’t take off your clothes, we will kill you’: Kuki women paraded
naked in Manipur”, The Scroll, 19 July 2023, viewed at: https://scroll.in/article/1052938/video-
shows-kuki-women-being-paraded-naked-by-a-mob-manipur-police-confirm-fir-filed
16
Yaqut Ali, “'Manipur Police Were Present, But Didn't Help Us': Women in Harrowing Video
Tell 'The Wire'”, The Wire, 20 July 2023, viewed on 19 November 2023 at:
https://thewire.in/rights/manipur-police-women-video-paraded-naked

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4757638

17
Sonal Matharu, “‘Confessed to joining mob in interest of Meiteis’: Mother of man arrested
over Manipur video”, The Print, 22 July 2023, viewed at: https://theprint.in/india/confessed-to-
joining-mob-in-interest-of-meiteis-mother-of-man-arrested-over-manipur-video/1681188/
18
Imphal Free Press, "Public rally calls for stopping arrests in viral video case", 29 July 2023,
viewed at: https://www.ifp.co.in/manipur/public-rally-calls-for-stopping-arrests-in-viral-video-
case. This report was quickly deleted on the same day due to public pressure from Imphal valley.
However archives were quickly maintained regarding this report in social media.
19
I suggested this solution for prevention of future riots while writing an EPW editorial
comment, (Haokip 2023: p 7).

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