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Manipur is today a divided state. Even six months after the Meitei-Kuki conflict began, the situation has not returned to normalcy. Indeed, it is only exhibiting signs of worsening with recent acts of sniper attacks on security personnel and mobs attempting to takeover armouries. Urban warfare is on in the “Bejewelled Province”.
Having visited Manipur in October, this author’s clear summation (after having conferred with all the stakeholders including the Indian Army, Assam Rifles, civil society organisations, traders’ union, journalists and visiting relief camps) that it would be a while before durable peace can return to the state.
This column examines the issue of national security management in the context of the atmospherics in Manipur. After all, sooner than later, a post-mortem has to be undertaken.
It is also not comprehended as to why the problem is being allowed to fester for so long. Is there a long-term plan that the policy planners have in mind? Do they feel that a “fatigue factor” will set in sooner or later and the warring groups will one day, on their own accord, go back home and to business as usual? A close reading by this author, especially after his whirlwind visit in October, informs that there is more going on in Manipur that meets the eye.
It is also one of the considered view of this author that violence (even if there were, eventually, to be an end, since violence too has a grammar of its own) should not be permitted to incubate. Manipur has set and showcased a nasty precedence for onlooking formations across the country. Anti-national elements could well be taking a page out of the manner in which complete lawlessness has taken over an Indian state, and with the state watching the unfolding of the scenario with helplessness.
In any event, a few points that are necessary for correct national security management are being flagged for consideration. After all, Manipur has also provided the Indian state with an opportunity to review its strategies, objectives and policies.
The blueprint for such a review should stem from the following:
(a) The national security management team or even the head of such an apparatus must be endowed with a sound comprehension of the history of India’s traditional and non-traditional security issues. The waypoint from where the history of such a subject matter began cannot be easily determined. Indeed, one can go back all the way to the time when Vedic civilisation came to be comprehended or even when the Greco-Bactrians sought to enter the Indian subcontinent. But such an enterprise would be both an extended one that could go astray and one that could become the theme of debate.
Therefore, the undemanding way out (and one that would be somewhat effortless) could be to begin with India’s independence and the various national security issues that have come to the fore since 1947.
The history of Manipur, certain observers would say, is shrouded in the shadows of mystery. But the fact of the matter is that the state is an integral part of India. This is notwithstanding the fact that myriad insurgencies have come to the fore since the time of its incorporation and have refused (in most parts) to be mainstreamed.
It is also true, Manipur has always been resistant to counter-insurgency interventions. It is perhaps the only state in India that has an innate robust insurrectionary character and the insurgent-terror disposition has found strong roots in India’s near-abroad, particularly in Myanmar’s Sagaing Division and, to an extent, in China.
Therefore, if Manipur is taken as one of the important case studies for a national security management team’s “schoolwork”, then it would not only be important to understand the imperatives that entailed the “Merger Agreement” of “Meetei Leipak” with India on 21 September 1949, the manner in which Hijam Irabot formed an underground Communist Party of Manipur on 29 October 1948, but also the conduct of the Coordination Committee (CorCom)—a conglomeration of six Valley-Based Insurgent Groups (VBIGs) (now five, G-5, with one group exhibiting its willingness to enter into a dialogue process with New Delhi)—in the three neat clusters of Myanmar. After all, it cannot be the case that only a current central agency report about say these VBIGs presently entering Manipur via the Somra Tracts with the aid of the NSCN (IM) to lead the anti-Kuki terror that can provide the basis for a ground knowledge of India’s national security imperatives as it pertains to Manipur. India’s national security managers need to be better prepared to deal with the issue at hand. There should also be a humility to be educated. National security management, after all, is serious business.
(b) National security managers have to also have a full-bodied vision of what a strong India should be like in the immediate future. Factors such as Kashmir, left-wing Left-Wing Extremism, the North East and even aspects such as problems with India’s neighbours have to be taken into account when a blueprint is being sought to be constructed. A clear design that can be acted upon in real time has to be drawn up.
(c) The management team that is expected to oversee national security management must also be completely non-partisan in its outlook. Such an exterior has to be coupled with impeccable integrity and clarity that national security is not subservient to a political ideology.
(d) It is important to be both foresighted and farsighted. Simply put, the national security manager should have the ability to realise the faultlines before they become unmanageable. This author is of the considered view that if the central agencies had been alert in the immediate aftermath of the Manipur High Court judgement or even during the Solidarity March of 3 May 2023 or had even sent red alerts to New Delhi that all is not well in the state, then Manipur could well have been rid of the agony that it is presently experiencing. It is also possible that alerts were sent from Imphal but were not taken seriously by the competent authorities in New Delhi. In the case of Manipur, the inability to read the entrails of calamity that have come upon the state is in ample evidence. Simple rear-guard action to pre-empt the situation would have prevented the escalation.
(e) A person who is advising the chief executive of India has been chosen for not only his proven track record of internal security management but also because he was expected to be a person of extremely well-honed and high intellectual calibre. A question mark seems to adorn the above when the question of Manipur is taken into account.
(f) The person should also have been a wizard who can cobble together an iron-clad and consistent doctrine for India’s national security, including counter-terrorism. The inability to do so is holding the country to ransom and is both incomprehensible and very disturbing.
(g) The national security manager should not have been straitjacketed in a past that refuses to permit “out-of-the-box” solutions, including international negotiations that would usher in peace for India. A beginning seems to have been made in this direction, primarily with Myanmar, but the present necessitates an accelerated pace of action. The same is the case with the India-China boundary issue.
(h) The national security team leader should have been a reliable team player who leads by example and commands the respect of the entire national security set-up of the country. In other words, although the national security manager is not expected to be omniscient, his writ pertaining to the national security of India—which would be arrived at after great deliberations and discussion with peers—must not have opposing views that hurt the country’s image inside and outside India.
The atmospherics of the present seem to be exhibiting aspects quite to the contrary. Manipur is being debated in the European Parliament, and protest marches are being staged in Washington DC. The sight of a feeding mother in a relief camp in Churachandpur with a three-month-old infant on her lap and her inability to lactate (as this author was witnessed to) brought forth tears, disgust and anger.
Such a state of affairs in a state of the Republic of India is unacceptable.
The author is a Conflict Theorist and Bestselling Author. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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