ELLIS HEASLEY, of UK-based religious freedom advocacy CSW, says the recent violence is the result of years of government attempts to instrumentalise religion and ethnicity to shore up its grip on power…
London, UK
At least 60 people killed, 230 more injured, and 23,000 displaced with an estimated 1,700 houses burnt down; the reports and images emerging from India’s north-eastern state of Manipur are shocking, but violence has been brewing for some time. This is the result of years of government attempts to instrumentalise religion and ethnicity to shore up its grip on power.
Manipur is ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party – the same party which has held a majority in the central government of India since 2014, and is currently led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Under the BJP there has been a notable shift in public discourse across India, with the party’s ideological arm the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh promoting a Hindu nationalist agenda while staying largely silent on growing hostility towards religious minorities.
People stand near a burnt vehicle, in Manipur, India, on 6th May, 2023, in this screengrab obtained from a social media video. PICTURE: Instagram @the_mj_rider via Reuters (image cropped)
In Manipur, this has recently manifested in several ways. First, in February 2023, the BJP state government began to evict members of tribal communities from their homes in the districts of Churachandpur, Kangpokpi and Tengnoupal. Manipur’s tribal communities are predominantly Christian, and account for approximately 35 per cent of the population of the state, and as such the efforts to evict them, which were described as ‘anti-tribal’, could also be considered ‘anti-Christian’.
“Manipur’s tribal communities are predominantly Christian, and account for approximately 35 per cent of the population of the state, and as such the efforts to evict them, which were described as ‘anti-tribal’, could also be considered ‘anti-Christian’.”
Such an argument gains weight considering subsequent developments in April, 2023, when the government razed three churches to the ground in the state capital of Imphal, ostensibly for being ‘illegal constructions’ on government land.
Soon after this, the Manipur High Court made a request to the state government to in turn send a recommendation to the central government to include the Meitei community in the Scheduled Tribe category. This would mean that the predominantly Hindu Meitei community would be afforded the same benefits currently available to Manipur’s tribal communities, despite the fact that they are largely considered to have made more progress than the latter in the areas of education, employment and representation in the government.
Unsurprisingly, Manipur’s tribal communities were not satisfied.
On 3rd May, the All Tribals Students Union of Manipur organised a protest march in opposition the High Court’s recommendation and in response to the government’s eviction and demolition efforts. Approximately 60,000 people are believed to have participated, however these protests soon turned violent and in turn plunged the state into an unprecedented crisis.
By 4th May the government had issued a ‘shoot on sight’ order in “extreme cases” as violence spread first from the Churachandpur district and later into the city of Imphal primarily in the form of clashes between the Meiteis and the Kuki tribe, the largest tribal community in the state. Mobile internet services were suspended in many parts of the state for five days, and curfews were also imposed in several areas.
While the situation has since calmed, the fact remains that an entire state became engulfed in chaos because the government continues to stoke division between India’s ethnic and religious groups through its harmful rhetoric and actions.
The first priority must be to ensure the safe of all those who have been displaced from their homes, and the provision of shelter and security to those who no longer have homes to return to. After that however, it is essential that justice is served, that the state and central governments take concrete steps to hold those responsible for the violence to account, including by considering their own role in allowing these tensions to escalate to the point of such widespread destruction.
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Manipur is just one of 11 states ruled by the BJP, while a further five are ruled by the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance. What happened in that state could happen in others if the BJP continues to isolate minority communities in the pursuit of its Hindu nationalist agenda.
There is therefore an urgent need for the international community to impress upon India’s ruling party the responsibility it has to all of its citizens, regardless of their religion or belief. It is not enough for states to continue building close economic and political relationships with the Indian government while ignoring the violations which have been permitted, and perhaps even encouraged, to take place under its watch.
As citizens and Christians, as ever we begin with prayer, but we can also call on our own governments to take heed of this, encouraging them to use India’s relative approachability on the international stage to advocate for its most vulnerable communities and to hold it to the international covenants and treaties to which it is a party.
Ellis Heasley is public affairs officer at UK-based religious freedom advocacy CSW.
