The Narendra Modi-led BJP government at the Centre has finally done the inevitable by imposing President’s Rule in Manipur on February 13, after dragging its feet for over 21 months, and four days after N. Biren Singh resigned as Chief Minister. The change in political gear stems not from the BJP’s first-order-of-preference, but as an escape route to avoid an imminent fall of its government and an impending constitutional crisis in the State. However, this crisis, along with the belated imposition of President’s Rule, presents both challenges and opportunities for the BJP-led central government and for various stakeholders in Manipur’s violence to restore normalcy and establish trust and legitimacy in the Indian State and its institutions.
The BJP’s last resort to President’s Rule to avert a constitutional crisis has busted the myth around BJP’s electoral USP of a double-engine sarkar, which has been projected as the hallmark of efficiency, stability, and strength. The most formidable challenge is therefore to creatively use President’s Rule as an opportunity to reverse this and establish what Michael Mann, the eminent political sociologist calls the ‘infrastructural power’ of the State. This is premised on the assumption that the biggest casualty in over 21 months of violence has been the erosion of trust and legitimacy of the State and its institutions.
Crucial, but not enough
Extensive reports show how the complicity and partisan role of the State government and its police forces during this violence have not only ruptured shared territorial space but have also drastically eroded citizens’ trust in the State government. Under Mr. Singh’s populist leadership, the State government is seen to have capitulated to the Meitei ultranationalist and majoritarian agenda. This point is brought into sharp relief by a recent forensic report by Truth Labs submitted to the Supreme Court, which confirms a 93% similarity between the YouTube voice samples and the alleged audio of Mr. Singh in a leaked tape, where he allegedly made self-incriminating claims about his role in starting and perpetuating the violence.
Seen against this context, the imposition of President’s Rule must be seen as a necessary but not sufficient step towards establishing the State’s ‘infrastructural power’ to restore normalcy and constitutional order in Manipur. If the capacity of the State to autonomously regulate State-society relations is the hallmark of this power, then it must not recapitulate to powerful ultranationalist and majoritarian agendas of social forces and populist leaders. These leaders harvest the insecurity complex of the gullible public to falsely project themselves as messiahs who will restore an elusive, glorious indigenous past to secure the survival of the community and the State from the unwanted ‘others’.
It is worth underscoring how Friedrich Ratzel’s idea of lebensraum was weaponised during Nazi rule in Germany in the 1930s when the unwanted Jews ‘others,’ were violently targeted to protect the purity of the German Aryan race and the Third Reich. That this has unusual resonance with the militant ultranationalist and populist drive to restore Manipur’s indigenous past should shudder us and affirm our resolve not to feed these politics anymore.
This is not to suggest the permanent inseparability between reviving one’s glorious past and violent targeting of the ‘unwanted’ others to secure one’s survival. The ‘ideological apparatus’ of the State can play a crucial role in detoxifying militant ideas and reorienting our political culture and political socialisation in ways that promote our connected and shared past. The present and future pathways of communities and the State must be built on the principles of justice, mutual trust, respect, and recognition of each other’s distinctiveness. Along with this, it is imperative that the State must be seen to uphold the rule of law and the constitutional order to secure not only equality of all citizens before the law but also equal protection of the law.
‘Building legitimacy’
Outsourcing law and order to vigilante and armed groups, using them as proxies to further ultranationalist and majoritarian agendas, randomised stereotyping, and selectively targeting a community, among others, must be stopped. They must be firmly dealt with in accordance with the relevant provisions of the law without fear or favour.
Only when the State rises above partisan interests and insulates itself from powerful forces can it effectively regulate State-society relations in Manipur, to promote trust and legitimacy of the State and institutions. As M. Sajjad Hassan, a former bureaucrat-turned-academic-activist with extensive field experience in Manipur and Mizoram, has reminded us, identity crisis and its attendant violent conflicts stems primarily from a ‘legitimacy crisis’ of the State and not the other way round. For Mr. Hassan, ‘building legitimacy’ of State institutions is the most critical challenge in deeply divided places if social order, peace, and stability were to be preserved.
Once the infrastructural power of the State is established, concerted attempts must be made to demobilise and disarm armed groups across the divide. Accountability must be fixed expeditiously for the atrocious crimes committed during this violence to deliver justice. Establishing normalcy and durable peace in Manipur, which has witnessed protracted armed insurgency, requires a negotiated political solution and not merely a law-and-order approach.
Declaring Manipur as a ‘hill State’ is one such solution offered by certain quarters to neutralise a separate administration demand by the Kuki-Zomi-Hmar groups. Although a plausible proposition, its implications on extant sub-State constitutional asymmetry under Article 371 C must be carefully assessed. Behind this prescription lies a political project to arraign the hills-valley institutional binary, and a refusal to acknowledge the systemic manipulation and persistent refusal to devolve meaningful autonomy to the tribal people, as a source of structural violence.
Flattening and homogenising institutional arrangements in ways that dissolve the extant sub-State constitutional asymmetry and the protective discrimination enjoyed by the tribal groups on matters pertaining to representation, jobs, and land rights is the surest means to perpetuate an oppressive and assimilationist structure. Couched in the language of civilisational unity, this may cohere with and be particularly appealing to the BJP’s nationalist agenda. However, it is grossly insensitive to the distinct and autonomous societal cultures of the valley and hill tribal communities. Any attempt to use President’s Rule as a ruse to centralise powers and dissolve extant sub-State constitutional asymmetry as a facade to perpetuate the oppressive rule of the dominant community is unlikely to secure Manipur’s ‘territorial integrity’. On the contrary, it may further bolster and legitimise the Kuki-Zomi-Hmar groups’ demand for a separate administration.
Balancing power fairly
Given the longstanding historical foundations of distinctive sub-State constitutional asymmetry and protective discrimination, securing durable peace in Manipur impels an affirmation, not dissolution, of the existing institutional regime. Disrupting the already lopsided power balance between the hill tribal and valley communities in favour of the latter is only a recipe for disaster, as it will normalise structural oppression and injustice against the former.
The current spell of President’s Rule must leverage a sincere and objective audit of institutions in the State to decentralise, rather than centralise power. Rectifying the existing gaps in representation, and effective redistribution of goods and services to all communities must be the corollary. The opacity and inadequacy in how institutions represent, redistribute, and give voice to diverse communities have spawned a vicious cycle of mistrust, democracy deficits, and violence in Manipur. The challenge is to recalibrate existing institutions in ways that strengthen sub-State constitutional asymmetry to effectively cater to the legitimate needs and demands for distinctive recognition, representation, and redistribution within and between groups.
Any misguided attempt to pander to the majoritarian whims and fancies which perpetuate oppressive rule and threaten to disrupt and endanger our constitutional foundations and values must be avoided, and resisted, at all costs.
Kham Khan Suan Hausing is Professor and former Head, Department of Political Science, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad. He is also a Senior Fellow, Centre for Multilevel Federalism, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi. Views expressed are personal
Published – February 20, 2025 01:20 am IST
