Why Kuki groups are accusing Manipur government of stifling their freedom of speech

On July 8, the Manipur government’s home department wrote to the state police urging them to lodge a case against the Zomi Students’ Federation.

The outfit represents the interests of the Zomi community, one of the constituents of the Kuki-Zo conglomerate of tribes.

Describing the matter as “most urgent”, home commissioner T Ranjit Singh asked the state’s police chief, Rajiv Singh, to take “stern action” against the students’ group for publishing an online pamphlet titled The Inevitable Split – Documents on State-sponsored Ethnic Cleansing in Manipur, 2023.

Ranjit Singh added that the police should book the authors and the organisation behind the pamphlet and stop its further publication.

The 105-page booklet is an examination from the Kuki perspective of the ethnic violence between the Meitei and Kuki communities that has beset Manipur since May. The violence, the booklet argues, has made it imperative for the Kukis to have a separate administration for themselves.

The same day, the police in Kuki-majority Churachandpur registered a First Information Report against M Pramot Singh, chief of the valley-based outfit Meitei Leepun that has been widely accused of instigating and participating in violence against the Kukis in Imphal.

The police, which acted on the basis of a complaint by the Kuki Students Organisation, have pressed charges of criminal conspiracy and promoting enmity between groups among others against Pramot Singh.

A crackdown on speech?

Kuki groups, however, claim that the state government’s actions are one-sided. Barring Pramot Singh, no other Meitei leader or intellectual has faced police action, while there have been a string of cases against members of the Kuki community.

Since June 30, three prominent Kukis have been issued summons by courts in Meitei-majority Imphal for allegedly “promoting enmity between communities”, “criminal conspiracy” and “causing inflamed communal passions”.

They are Kham Khan Suan Hausing, Mary Grace Zou, and Wilson Lalam Hangshing.

While Kham heads the political science department at the University of Hyderabad, Zou is the convenor of the Kuki Women’s Forum, a community-based civil society group. Hangshing is a retired bureaucrat and now the general secretary of the Kuki People’s Alliance, a coalition partner of the BJP in Manipur.

The first to be summoned were Zou and Hanghsing. Acting on a complaint filed by an Imphal resident, Lourembam Cha Somerendro, the chief judicial magistrate of Imphal East on June 30 asked Zou and Hangshing to appear in person on July 24.

Somerendro, the complainant, was aggrieved by remarks made by Zou and Hangshing in interviews with The Wire.

The court in its order said that “prima facie material exists” for the duo to be tried for “promoting enmity between different groups” and “criminal conspiracy”.

On July 6, the same court issued summons to Hausing for his alleged “derogatory remarks’’ against “holy religious sites associated historically with the Meitei community’’. These remarks, according to the court order, were also made during an interview with The Wire.

In addition to the section applied against Zou and Hangshing, Hausing has also been accused of “inflaming communal passions”.

The court, in this instance, was acting on a complaint filed by Manihar Moirangthem Singh, a member of the Meitei Tribes Union, the outfit behind the petition asking for the Meitei community to be included in the Scheduled Tribes’ list. A Manipur High Court order nudging the government to act on the demand was an immediate precursor to the violence.

In the case of the Zomi Students’ Federation, the state government swung into action after an Imphal-based advocate Thokchom Punshiba complained about the book.

“This is a clear and concerted attempt to weaponise the legal system,” said John Simte, a Delhi-based lawyer from the Kuki community, adding that it was a ploy “to silence the voices of the intellectuals amongst the minority Zo ethnic groups”.

Scroll contacted home commissioner T Ranjit Singh and other senior officials in the department for comment. There was no response at the time of publication despite several reminders.

‘Reprehensible tactics to silence’

Meanwhile, the Kuki groups, for their part, have refused to back down.

In a strongly worded statement reacting to the development, the Zomi Students’ Federation said that it would not “shy away from the government’s suppression of their freedom of speech and expression…enshrined in the Fundamental Rights of the Indian Constitution”.

The Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum, a group representing the Kuki-Zo people, has condemned the summons against Zou, Hangshing and Hausing. In a statement, it said the legal action amounted to “reprehensible tactics to silence the voices of prominent tribal individuals who speak out on television”.

The forum’s official Twitter account has been withheld in India since June 17.

“Trying to stifle our voice on every platform indicates the desperation of radical Meitei organisations in their attempt to conceal the true nature of the conflict in Manipur,” the tribal forum said.

Simte, the Delhi-based lawyer, also criticised the summons. He said it showed that the trial courts are being used to serve the interest of the majority”. The court should have instead, Simte said, acted “as the first line of defence against the encroachment of civil liberties”.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one of the people summoned by the court in Imphal told Scroll they were being “intimidated” for their views.

“The so-called orders are a deliberate attempt to intimidate and muzzle our voices, given that we provide an alternative narrative which the state government finds difficult to swallow,” the person said.

Separate administration, a sore point

Observers from the state believe the criminal action may have been an outcome of the interviews and the booklet making a case for a separate administration for the Kukis.

“Both communities have very extreme views about each other and the ongoing unrest but the official action and court cases point towards curbing information flow from only the Kuki community,” said a Guwahati-based senior journalist, asking not to be named. “The government action and court cases will only harden the Kuki stand on separate administration.”

On July 8, however, the same day as the state home department asked the police to book the Zomi Students’ Federation, the police in Kuki-majority Churachandpur registered a First Information Report against M Pramot Singh, chief of the valley-based outfit Meitei Leepun that has been widely accused of instigating and participating in violence against the Kukis in Imphal.

The police, which acted on the basis of a complaint by the Kuki Students Organisation, have pressed charges of criminal conspiracy and promoting enmity between groups among others against Pramot Singh.