After a year-long violence in the northeastern state of Manipur, thousands of people from the Kuki-Zo tribe hosted a mass rally on Monday in four different districts, seeking the end of violence and demanding the formation of Union territory for the Kuki tribals. Meanwhile, in a separate rally, the Meitei community in Imphal Valley protested for government intervention to end the ethnic violence.

Despite the two different ideologies behind both the protests the similarity to end the violence was the key factor uniting the state. The Kuki-Zo tribe wants a separate administration with the formation of a new UT "Kukiland", which will be the home for the people sharing roots with the Kuki tribe who are scattered in the neighbouring area of Mizoram and Myanmar's Chin state. The Meitei community, on the other hand, demands a Scheduled Tribe (ST) status as they consider themselves historically a tribe.

mass rally
image Source: Bored Panda

The Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF) and the Committee on Tribal Unity (COTU), the two top bodies of the Kuki tribe, submitted two different memoranda to Union Home Minister Amit Shah to facilitate a political solution for the Kuki-Zo community. The memoranda also demanded a separate administration.

Under these two bodies, mass rallies were organised in four different Kuki-dominated districts. The Kuki tribals from Manipur’s Churachandpur, Kangpokpi, Tengnoupal and Pherzawl districts came to the streets to demand a political solution to end the year-long ethnic violence in the state. The protestors also demanded a separate administration.
The Churachandpur-based Kuki group ITLF claimed that it would organize a nonviolent protest demanding for the formation of a Union Territory for Kuki Tribals.

The rally was also attended by Paolienlal Haokip of the Kuki tribe, an MLA of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Haokip told NDTV, "If the government wants peace, then it has to come here and find peace. We have been knocking on the central government's doors in our quest for peace, but it has been elusive."

The Imphal Valley dominated by Meitei also hosted a rally on the same day, where women vendors of Khwairamband Ima Market under the banner of the “Khwairamband Ima Keithel Coordinating Committee for Peace”, protested for the parliamentary intervention in the ethnic violence. The protest started early in the morning when women vendors in a significant number gathered to march towards the Manipur Raj Bhawan and the Chief Minister's residence.

However, the Rally was intercepted by the security force and the rally was directed back towards the Khwairamband Bazar. Despite the intervention, the women vendors held a sit-in protest in the market demanding parliament's intervention in the violence and opposing the demand of the Kuki-Zo community for a separate administration.

Huirem Binodini, co-convenor of the Peace Committee, spoke to the media during the protest, criticizing the silence of Manipur’s elected legislators on the state's current turmoil. “Our representatives have failed to raise their voices for the people they are supposed to serve. Their silence is a grave disservice to the citizens of Manipur who are living in fear and uncertainty,” Binodini said.

Binodini urged for the Parliament's intervention in the year-long crisis, she cautioned the government that if the ignorance of this crisis persists, the people of Manipur and the whole state will separate itself from India.

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