Thousands of people from various communities, including non-Kuki tribes, gathered in Manipur’s capital Imphal valley today to hold a large march for the state’s territorial integrity. The Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), an umbrella grouping of civil society groups, coordinated the demonstration, which covered over 5 kilometres in the heart of the state capital.
People from various walks of life, communities, and age groups marched through the streets, including elderly women from the Meira Paibi institution (those who bear the flame), yelling chants about unity and safeguarding indigenous people.
The attendees brandished posters and banners stating their demands to the government, including “save indigenous and rightful citizens of India,” “no separate administration,” and “save territorial and administrative integrity of Manipur.”
During today’s protest, Manipur residents from all ethnicities, with the exception of portions of the Kuki tribes fighting for a separate land bordering Myanmar and Mizoram, proposed six suggestions for the central government to consider.
Demand for Kukiland: A Threat to Territorial Integrity
These include completing the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise, cancelling all deals signed with Kuki insurgent groups, combining operations in the valley and hills, preserving Manipur’s territorial and administrative integrity, and removing so-called buffer zones from districts that prevent people from returning home.
“We are not against any community. Now we are worried about the Centre’s policy. Through this rally, we want to tell that any policy aimed at annihilation of indigenous people of Manipur should stop. We can’t accept partition policy. The people of Manipur want peace, not division. We are against breaking up of Manipur,” COCOMI leader Jeetendra Ningomba told NDTV.
For more than a year, the valley-dominant Meitei and hill-dominant Kuki tribes have been warring.
The general category Meiteis aspire to be classified as Scheduled Tribes (ST) because they claim to be basically and historically a tribe.
The tribes seek a separate administration or “Kukiland” carved out of Manipur, a demand they have been working on for decades, citing the need for a homeland for the scattered tribes who have ethnic ties with tribes in nearby Mizoram and Myanmar’s Chin State.
Kuki groups such as the Churachandpur-based Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF) and the Kangpokpi-based Committee on Tribal Unity (CoTU), along with their ten MLAs, have joined the call for a separate administration in Manipur, a demand shared by the 25-odd Kuki-Zo insurgent groups that have signed the suspension of operations (SoO) agreement.
This single demand has joined the Kuki insurgents, the ten Kuki-Zo MLAs, and civil society groups together.
The SoO deal states that the Kuki militants must stay in designated camps and keep their weapons in locked storage, which would be monitored on a regular basis. Every year, a joint monitoring group evaluates the SoO agreement to determine if it should be terminated or renewed. The deadline for this year’s review was February 29.
On Monday, the day Modi 3.0’s first parliament session began, Kuki groups held a rally to press their demand for a separate administration.
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