New Delhi:

The 10 Kuki-Zo MLAs in Manipur who have been calling for a separate administration carved out of the state in a statement on Monday termed as a “blatant lie” a top government lawyer’s submission to the Supreme Court that Chief Minister N Biren Singh has been meeting all “Kuki MLAs” in an effort to bring peace.

In a statement signed by the 10 Kuki-Zo MLAs including Paolienlal Haokip, who is a fierce critic of Biren Singh, the MLAs said they came to know that during a Supreme Court hearing on November 8, the Solicitor General of India submitted that the “Chief Minister is meeting all Kuki MLAs and [is] trying to bring the [Manipur] situation down to get peace.”

The MLAs said the top government lawyer’s submission was “a blatant lie and tantamount to misleading the Supreme Court” as they have not met the Manipur Chief Minister in the last 18 months – since ethnic violence broke out between the valley-dominant Meitei community and the Kuki tribes dominant in some hill areas of Manipur.

“We further clarify that we have never had any meeting with Chief Minister, Shri N Biren Singh since May 3, 2023, nor have any intention to meet him in future as he is the mastermind behind the violence and ethnic cleansing of our people from Imphal valley, which is continuing till today, the latest being the brutal killing and burning of Mrs Zosangkim Hmar on November 7, 2024,” the 10 Kuki-Zo MLAs said in the statement.

A woman from the Meitei community, Sapam Sophia Leima, who was working in her low-lying paddy field in Bishnupur district, was also shot dead by suspected Kuki militants from the nearby foothills on Saturday.

Some Manipur MLAs had visited Delhi in October to attend a meeting called by the Intelligence Bureau and monitored by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. Those among the 10 Kuki-Zo MLAs who attended the meeting had held separate sessions with Home Ministry officials, and not with the other MLAs.

Monday’s statement from the 10 Kuki-Zo MLAs came after the Supreme Court on Friday directed a Kuki organisation to submit material to indicate authenticity of some leaked audio clips on the basis of which the organisation had filed a petition seeking a court-monitored special investigation team (SIT) probe into the alleged role of the Manipur Chief Minister in the ethnic violence.

The tapes have been submitted to a Commission of Inquiry formed by the Home Ministry.

‘Doctored Tapes To Derail Peace Process’

The Manipur government has called the purported tapes “doctored” to “derail the peace process” in the ethnic violence-hit state. A coordinated and targeted campaign is going on, with many X (formerly Twitter) accounts sharing the “doctored audio” with similar captions, the state government said in a statement on August 7.

The Manipur government refuted the allegations twice – on August 7 when the Kuki Students Organisation (KSO) released a part of the audio clip, and on August 20, when the news website The Wire reported about the matter.

“State government views such acts of spreading misinformation/disinformation through such doctored clips as anti – national activities for likelihood of inciting hatred and mistrust amongst communities, thereby trying deliberately to disturb peaceful co-existence of communities to escalate the current law and order issues in the state, more particularly to derail the peace initiatives being started by both state and central governments,” the state government said in another statement on August 20.

The internally displaced people from both communities in Manipur are yet to return home. The Kuki-Zo MLAs and Kuki civil society groups have said talks are not possible unless Biren Singh steps down.

Kuki leaders also continue to stand firm on a political solution in the form of a separate administration before any other issues, including the return of thousands of people living in relief camps, can be discussed. Meitei leaders have cited this condition to allege that Kuki leaders are engineering an ethnocentric homeland demand; their argument is that talks can go on while at the same time people living in difficult conditions in the camps can also return home since no territory is ethnic exclusive.

The demand for an ethnocentric homeland is untenable and obsolete in Manipur, where at least 35 communities co-exist, a group of activists and academics from Manipur had said at a side event of the 57th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva last month.

Manipur is seeing the growth of divisive forces that play the cards of myopic ethnicity leading to the undermining of historical and legal foundations of the state’s pluralistic demography and territoriality, said Dr Arambam Noni, associate professor at Imphal-based DM University.

Dr Noni highlighted what he alleged were dangers of weaponizing ethnicity for the reason that in the name of “ethnic homelands”, micro tribes in the India-Myanmar border region were either suppressed or coerced to submit to the dominant ethnic ambitions. He appealed for urgent restoration of normalcy in Manipur.

The clashes between the Meitei community and nearly two dozen tribes known as Kukis – a term given by the British in colonial times – has killed over 220 people and internally displaced nearly 50,000.

The 10 Kuki-Zo MLAs, close to two dozen Kuki-Zo armed groups under the suspension of operations (SoO) agreement, and groups such as the Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum and the Committee on Tribal Unity, all want a separate administration carved out of Manipur, bringing them on a common stage, speaking the same language.